American woman. I was told that they thought that the muscle at the base of the left ventricle of my heart had swelled for some unknown reason reducing the blood supply to my heart. No damage. I was released after some more tests. That night Ruth and I had dinner with Dr. Bernstein and his wife, a nurse. He told me the had worked in the Tierra Amarillo Clinic and at the Thomassen General Hospital in El Paso before coming to Albuquerque. We talked long into the night. I shall never forget his kind, loving care. The next day we went on to Santa Fe, worked in the Archives until David showed up and then came on to Salt Lake City still puzzled at what had happened to me. We reached home September 2nd. Upon my arrival I went through a comprehensive set of tests. Doctors still could not tell me exactly what was wrong with my heart. I was told to live as I had before.
Shortly after our return, Linda and her two children lived with us for a week while Richard, her husband, drove a van to East Lansing Michigan. Her husband having finished his M.A. in palynology at the Brigham Young University had been admitted to the Ph. D. program at the University of Michigan. Linda mentioned that the law office at which she worked in Provo had installed a computer system and had her taught to use it. She even installed a computer in her apartment so we could work in the evening and on weekends. On September 11, Ruth's mother flew to England to visit relatives for a month. David lived in her home and took care of Lowell. And on October 10th, Ruth had her gall bladder removed. Her blood sugar was dangerously high and she had a sclerotic liver caused by some medication. Not very good news. Her energy level was low. She gave up any thoughts of teaching piano, deciding to reserve what energy she had for genealogy. Ruth by now was an expert genealogist. She and my sister Jerry had broken through for a number of generations on my mother's Kennedy line.
All through 1984 the Utah Immigration Project was working very smoothly. We put serious pressure on Utah law enforcement agencies, urging them not to cooperate with NS; danger of law suits. We managed to alert undocumented workers in Texas and New Mexico about the annual INS spring blockade at Nephi.
The county commission to limit pressure on its budget decided to eliminate the diverse multipurpose community centers and their attached programs. Glen Wu head of the multipurpose centers called meeting of the boards of the diverse centers to coordinate efforts to save the centers. We met with the county commission, pointed out that we were almost self-financing, and that by absorbing the energy and plus time of large numbers of young people we played a major role in reducing crime and delinquency in the county. We gave them a tour of all of our centers. The tour ended with a banquet at which prominent citizens such as Jerry Mooney spoke. Needles to say, we saved our centers.
Late in the fall, I borrowed $3,000 at the bank to finance David's trip to Bolivia. The year ended with a wonderful present, the birth of our granddaughter Bryn Elizabeth Knowlton to Keith and Tracy. Both the baby and the mother did very well. Thus 1984 came to an end.
Nineteen Eighty Five was a decent year for the Knowlton family but a tragic year for the Department of Sociology; it finally committed suicide. On January 1st William and Robert Dinsmoor called us from El Paso. Robert mentioned that he would visit us the following week. William now married is expecting a baby. He finished his dissertation in Mongolian Studies at the University of Indiana. David left for Austin and Bolivia on January 17th. He was in Lima on January 26th. He quite liked Peru. Dawn DeYoung was living with us while attending the University of Utah.
On April 24th, I flew to Fort Worth to participate in the WSSA meetings. I stayed with
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Donald and Marge DeYoung. Donald had been transferred from Abilene to Fort Worth by the General Motor companies. In spite of his very competent work in charge of credit operations in the Abilene District he had been transferred to Fort Worth when his boss retired. He was no longer such a fervent company man, as he had once been.
I had organized one session on Texas land grants for our Arid Land Association and three sessions for our New Mexico Land Grant Center. I also chaired sessions in Borderland Studies and in the Arid Lands Program. I thoroughly enjoyed the meetings. I talked with many old friends. A chance to renew friendships is one of the major reasons why I continued to come to these meetings.
Returning to Salt Lake City, David Arguello, a Spanish American faculty member from Taos in the School of Social Work and Gabriel Melendez, an excellent writer in both Spanish and English invited me to attend the Chicano Student Scholarship Meeting on May 3rd. Rodolfo Anaya, the famous Spanish American novelist and essayist from Albuquerque gave an excellent speech. Both of us had a long conversation that night, renewed the next day. I deeply enjoy the friendship of Spanish American and Mexican American writers, poets, intellectuals of all kinds, academicians, scholars, and community leaders. I do all I can to advance their careers. I read several papers.
Martha Cabezas who had lived with us for several years graduated from the LDS Business College. Unable to find work promptly she moved up to a home on the avenues to care for an elderly woman over 90. She returned frequently to visit but was no longer a part of our household. Dawn De Young, Ruth's niece, took her place. Dawn is a very lovely, kind sensitive girl. We continued to visit Aunt Laura now over 104 years old and her faithful daughter La Rue Bowen who virtually killed herself caring for her mother. Both were in a nursing home. Aunt Laura died November 22. I spoke at her funeral. LaRue in a wheel chair spoke for almost an hour about her mother. She was totally exhausted by the effort and died a few months later.
Lynn England from the B.Y.U. chairman of the local arrangements committee for the Rural Sociological Society asked me to serve on his committee with representatives from Utah State. The B.Y.U. and I believe, Weber. I enjoyed my activities. Lynn England is one of the faculty members from the B.Y.U. whom I deeply respect. The Utah Immigration Project lost its national Catholic funding. The Catholic Community Services clipped its wings confining its activities solely to providing services for the undocumented workers. It could not any longer engage in any advocacy activities.
On August 21st, I flew to Roanoke, Virginia, and took a limousine to the campus of Virginia Tech at Blacksburg, Virginia. The campus constructed on granite was very austere with one of the poorest bookstores I have ever seen on a university campus. I read a paper at the Rural Sociological Society meetings on poverty. I quite enjoyed the sessions, old friends, and the good conversation. I toured the Jefferson mansion at Monticello. Enormously impressed. In spite of Jefferson's prejudices against the American Indians, I deeply respected him for his talents, his penetrating mind, and his mechanical inventiveness.
From there, On August 24th, I traveled to Washington, D.C. and checked into my Washington hotel, Hotel Harrington. I Called William Dinsmoor who is in training with the National Security Agency. The next day William and I visited Washington Museums. For a week I faithfully went to the National Archives to research New Mexico land grants. I lunched on August 30th with Jay and Chico Montoya. Jay is a staff member for one of the Utah Senators. Both had encountered old friends of mine among the Mexican Americans working in Washington, D.C.
Amanda and Danny both are in preschool. We also have Amanda in a polliwog class given by
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the University of Utah music department. It is an early class in music fundamentals., I have to pick up Amanda every Wednesday and take her home on the bus.
The department’s suicide began with a very negative letter from Dair to the Dean opposing Bam Dev's promotion. As usual, the letter got to the faculty. I suspect Dennis Willigan. The result was that Bam Dev Sharda, George Miller, and Dennis Willigan harassed Dair continuously in faculty meetings and in memos to the administration. They went to the graduate dean to complain about her chairmanship. In the next faculty meeting, Dair severely reprimanded them. The meeting ended in acrimony. Dair demanded that the executive committee headed by Ted Smith censure the three for going to the Dean. Bam Dev Sharda urged me to join in the attack on Dair knowing about her war of aggression on me, but I refused. On May 24, Lee Bean personally attacked me in a faculty meeting. Then Dair bitterly attacked me as well as Miller, Sharda, and Willigan. In response, Lee Bean issued a memo attacking the latter three rather harshly. I sat back and watched the fur fly.
On June 6th the Graduate Council issued a very negative report on the department. At the September 26th faculty retreat at the Sheraton Hotel Dair mentioned that the department was under close scrutiny of the administration and that there was a clear and present danger of receivership. Our graduate program might be in danger. No one paid much attention. The retreat was marked by the constant squabbling between Dair, Willigan, Miller, and Sharda. On September 30th Dair fired Dennis William as chair of the graduate committee and asked Bob Gray to chair the committee. Dennis refused to step down claiming that only the Dean of the Graduate School could fire him. Dair asked me to chair a search committee and I refused. Ted, named chair, asked me to serve as a member. I reluctantly turned him down. And on October 22 there took place the ultimate shoot-out between Dair, Willigan, Miller, and Sharda. She demanded that the department support her in the action she had taken against Willigan. Much to my surprise the majority of the faculty rather stupidly voted against her. The department was in total disarray.
Dair Gillespie resigned as department chair the next day. She was the third department chair to resign during my tenure at the university. Glen Vernon, Wen Kuo, and now Dair. She was responsible for much of her failure as department chair. Before she resigned she was at odds with the majority of the faculty. The administration is also to blame. She was an extremely poor choice for the chair. The Dean responded quickly. He put the department in receivership the day Dair resigned. He suspended all recruiting, all department committees, and cut the budget around forty percent. And on November 17th, President Peterson, and Vice President Altman, issued public statements savagely attacking the department that flashed across the nation. I had never seen such naive statements. None of them apparently knew how to deal with the press. In those statements they did as much damage to the department as the department had done to itself. My respect for this administration, never very high, plummeted to zero. I wrote letters to the Deseret News, the Salt Lake Tribune, the University Chronicle, and the Chronicle of Higher Education attacking the administration. I also wrote harsh memos to Vice President Howard Altman and Dean Howard Ball strongly criticizing their going public with the problems of the Department. To cap it all, Lee Bean in a November 19th Chronicle interview, admitted that his nine-year tenure of the department had been a failure.
Bruce Baird from the Department of Business was named the receiver of the department. In his first meeting with the faculty, George Miller, to my astonishment, challenged his right to be there and walked out. Bruce misperceived some of the factionalism as being a Mormon/non-Mormon split which it never was. He pointed out that he was born a Mormon, that the Church had kept him from
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becoming a juvenile delinquent during his adolescence. He lost his faith in graduate school. Therefore he was sympathetic to both sides. His goals were to pull the department together and he hoped to do this within one year. I decided to keep my distance and play the role of a quiet observer; a non- participant in department affairs.
Besides the department, the Granite Mental Health Program having been absorbed by the county was in danger of being dismembered and its director Xavier Sainz transferred into a minor position in the county health services. Under the competent leadership of Archie Archuleta, we rallied Chicano and community leaders to support the program and the County Commission backed off. We were prepared to organize a public demonstration if they had not.
The problems of the department were tragically underlined by the sudden death of Glen Vernon on October 11. He collapsed from massive heart attack in front of his class. I had known Glen Vernon since the 1940's. As a closet homosexual, he was always a loner. His close friendship with George Miller aroused gossip in the department. Vernon was a good scholar and pioneered in the Sociology of Mormonism and of Death.
The entire world of Mormon scholarship in the fall of 1985 was convulsed by the Hoffman killings. Living a double life in the Church, in the community, and the world of scholarship, he murdered two people to maintain his cover. Caught in an unraveling web of lies and forgery, he killed to gain more time. His forgeries threatened to create a totally false image of LDS Church history. In their desire to pick at the Church many national papers and news magazines mishandled the entire case. As the Hoffman case unraveled, many careers of scholars who had authenticated his forged documents or who had supported many false concepts of Church history based on these documents were damaged. Hoffman will go down in history as one of the master forgers of documents of all times.
The year ended on a pleasant note. David returned from Bolivia with his bags filled with research material for his doctoral dissertation. During the year I served as chair of the Governor's Committee on Bilingual Education and of the Central City Multipurpose Center.
Geneva Steel in Orem closed its doors just before Christmas, a fine Christmas present to hundreds of workers. I have always hated U.S. Steel as one of the most vicious, most destructive, and most poorly run companies in the United States.
The winter of 1985-1986 was much drier than previous winters during the 1980's. It is obvious that a dry cycle is about to begin in spite of the expensive pumps put in place by the Governor to pump water from the Great Salt Lake into the Western Desert.
During 1986 Daniel, Konae, and their family moved into our downstairs. Their move necessitated a radical reordering of furniture and possessions. I had some anxieties about the move, but the merging of the two households went smoothly free of problems and tensions. For me it was a delight to have our grandchildren living with us. Both Amanda and Danny are bright precocious children. Amanda dances all over the house and Danny can't keep his hands off anything. They bring brightness and life into all corners of the house and the yard. Konae gave birth to our second grandson, Charles DeYoung Knowlton on August 30th, their third child. We enrolled both Amanda and Daniel into pre-school and into pre-music classes, the Pollywogs at the University of Utah.
Daniel began to take incredibly high course loads in Physics and in math; far heavier than he should. As a result, his grades were not as high as they were before. I did not know until later that his own habits stood in the way of better grades.
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On January 17th, David drove off for Austin accompanied by Rick. David finds it very difficult to work in Salt Lake City. Rick wants to live in an environment different from Utah. On March 20th I flew to San Antonio to attend the meetings of the Southwestern Social Science Association. Much to my surprise, I secured enough money to pay living expenses as well as travel. I participated in a session on minorities organized by William Buvlesky from Texas A & M. I presented a paper on the Spanish Americans. Other participants discussed the adjustments of Vietnamese Intellectuals in the United States, the failure of the Anglo American feminist movement to meet the needs of Mexican American and Black women, I learned much of this and other sessions.
David drove up from Austin every day to attend the sessions with me. I stayed at a dilapidated third class hotel close to the conference hall. David took me on an enjoyable tour of the missions in and around San Antonio. Most of them are active parish churches. I enjoyed the sound of Spanish. I went for a number of long walks around San Antonio. I like the town and except for the climate would not mind living there.
The Ramses II exhibit at the B.Y.U. drew our family to Provo on January 29th. I thoroughly enjoyed the exhibit and hoped that the Brigham Young University would bring other exhibits of similar quality to the B.Y.U. Utah unfortunately is not on the circuit of major scientific, archaeological, or artistic exhibits.
Daniel was operated on at St. Mark's Hospital for ulcerated fissure in his colon in the fall. He had been in pain for three years. As usual, he put pressure on everyone to get his out of the hospital as quickly as possible. And on March 15th, as mentioned, Daniel and his family moved into our large downstairs.
The Western Social Science Association was held at the M and M Casino in Reno this year. I flew to Reno on April 22 and checked into the Circus Circus Casino Hotel. I had the pleasure of rooming with Guillermo Lox. I took an instantaneous dislike to the gaudy, vulgar, Casinos in Reno. They really disfigure the community. Watching the faces of the gamblers, I concluded that they are a people without joy. I saw no smiles, no expression of contentment or happiness.
I was thrilled by the Catholic Bishops Statement of Poverty issued April 6th. It was a comprehensive document covering the causes and socio-economic conditions and influences of poverty. It is too bad that my own Church does not issue a similar document.
The nuclear disaster in Russia wrecked havoc over most of western and northern Europe including England. The Russians have a reputation for shoddy workmanship. I felt sorry for the Russians killed and damaged by the explosion and subsequent fallout. The incident reinforced my opposition to nuclear power. Reagan has about dismantled the Carter administration's efforts to find alternative sources of power. He is one of the worst presidents in the 20th century. More members of his administration have gone to jail or were forced to resign than any other administration in recent history.
I was highly suspicious of the sudden onslaught on Kurt Waldheim and Austria. I suspect that Waldheim was drafted into the German Army and did what he was commanded to do. From the evidence I think he had knowledge of, but was not involved, in the slaughter of Jews and civilians. It amazes me how little knowledge of history facile commentators have. Both Austria and Germany were treated abominably by the incredibly stupid World War I leaders of England an France. If they had had the intelligence and the foresight of the aristocrats who ended the Napoleonic War, it is doubtful that Nazism or Communism would have taken over Germany and Russia. The world still
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continues to suffer from the tragic incompetency and mediocrity of the Allied leaders who imposed a wretched settlement upon Germany. There are many sound reasons to lament the elimination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Chicano Students Scholarship Banquet on May 1st was a delightful occasion. Cliofas Vigil, the Spanish American folk musician and raconteur came up from Taos. David Arquello and Melendes brought him to my office. I had him take over one of my classes. He is one of the most delightful people I have ever known.
On May 5 the Concerned Citizens about the Wendover Raid was born. The Immigration and Naturalization Service with the help of state and local law enforcement agencies raided Wendover in search of undocumented workers. They imposed a reign of terror on the community. They broke down doors, entered apartments without warrants, seized people from their cars, homes, and places of employment and held them for hours in unsanitary and unsafe confinement. Anyone who looked Mexican was picked up and treated harshly. It reminded me of the police behavior toward the Alianza in Northern New Mexico in 1965. I was outraged. Archie Archuleta, Armando Diaz, and I with the help of many Chicano leaders formed the Citizens group to secure evidence and to being charges of violation of human rights and civil liberties against all the law enforcement agencies involved.
Armando went out to Wendover day after day to interview victims of the raid. Earl Spafford, a local attorney interested in civil rights movement took the case. We did our best to raise funds to support the case but never could raise enough. A federal lawsuit was brought against the INS and other law enforcement agencies. We won the lawsuit and the judge condemned the raid and found the agencies in violation of civil rights. The agencies and the INS agreed not to conduct such raids in the future. My only regret is that we could not secure damages for the victims of the raids.
The bombing raid on Libya surprised me. In general I supported the raid. I have long thought that the full power of the United States ought to be thrown against terrorists and hostage takers. I think that we should conduct the same type of secret underground warfare that Israel has conducted against terrorists.
During 1986 I was extremely active as chair of the Central City Multipurpose Center and as board member of the Catholic Community Services, the Utah Immigration Project, and the rural Development Corporation(the Utah Migrant Council). My tenure on the governor's council on Bilingual Education came to an end. My term on the board of the Rural Development Corporation also came to a sudden end on March 29th. I spent the day in Payson as a member of the board visiting corporation-owned housing close to Payson. We also visited the orchards of several of the largest growers in the area. I quite enjoyed the trip. That night the board met to review agencies that should be represented on the Board. the University of Utah was dropped. I was named a substitute but decided I would never again accept a calling to the board. I want my community activities to contract so that I can spend my time writing and playing with my grandchildren.
On June 12th, Ruth's relatives, the Parks, came over again from England for several weeks vacation. Ruth and I took them on a tour of local canyons, then to Park City for lunch, over Guardsman pass through Big Cottonwood Canyon and ended the day at the Fashion Place Mall. I would have liked to have taken them on a tour of the parks in southern Utah but exploding gas prices and my teaching assignments at the University made it impossible for me to do so. They were fascinated by the genealogical library.
During the summer, I worked on the journal of my great- grandfather Benjamin Franklin
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Knowlton. I had his all-to-brief journal, 1875 to 1880, typed up for publication. I found a life sketch of his last wife Katie in the Church Historian's Office and a brief autobiographical sketch of his second wife, Minerva, in the Utah Historical Society Records. I began the arduous task of trying to locate every person and place mentioned in his journal.
The Department under the amiable dictatorship of Bruce Baird quieted down during the year. On January 10th the department RTP met. Baird requested permission to attend. John Collette, Lee Bean, and George Miller opposed his presence. John Collette chaired the informal reviews. William Brustein received unanimous support, Ted Smith then chaired the promotion committee. John Collette was again rejected for promotion to full professor. I wrote him a very friendly letter regretting the failure of the committee to promote him and suggested ways he could win promotion. Marlene Lehtinen and Jerry Smith again were rejected in their quest for full professorship. Finally Bam Dev Sharda made it through. Jerry Smith and Marlene Lehtinen vented their wrath on the senior faculty to Bruce Baird. Bam Dev Sharda walked out on a faculty party to bid farewell to Dair Gillespie who had secured a Fulbright for Thailand the coming year. Ed Kick obtained one for New Zealand and Australia.
The department lost 40% of its budget to the Dean. The seven faculty positions vacant went unfilled. O'Shansky left the department at the beginning of the school year, another demographer gone. Lee Bean's dreams of an M.A. program in demography have gone up in the smoke of the department collapse. Graduate recruitment was cancelled. President Peterson tried to eliminate our graduate program but ran into a stone wall of resistance from other departments.
Even though Dair Gillespie would be gone on a Fulbright, George Miller, Bam Dev Sharda, and Dennis Willigan still carried on their silly feud with her, filing unsubstantiated charges before the grievance committee. The cheering news in the midst of their suicidal game was the resignation of Irvin Altman from the vice-presidency and his return to reaching in the Department of Psychology. He was no friend of the department during his tenure as Dean and Vice President. I suspect his was a forced resignation.
David returned to Salt Lake City in the late summer. His car broke down just out of Clovis, New Mexico. Daniel drove the truck to Clovis, met him there, fixed the car, and the two arrived safely in Salt Lake City. David's attendance at the August 23rd-August 24th Sunstone was one of the most important events in his life. Lacking money to pay the extremely high registration fee, David crashed the symposium, protested the fees, and was put to work answering phones and cleaning floors. He still participated in many of the sessions and made friends with a wide variety of Mormon scholars and writers. He was invited to write a column for Sunstone and to participate in a variety of Mormon symposia. John Maestas an old friend hired him to help write articles and research proposals.
The rural Sociological Society met in Salt Lake City from August 28th to the 31st. I worked with the members of the local arrangements committee, read a paper in the poverty section and chaired a poverty session. David went with me to some of the sessions. As usual many close friends were there. I enjoyed the sessions very much.
Nineteen Eighty Six lacked the drama of past years. The department relaxed with some elements still smoldering under Baird. David successfully completed research for his Ph. D. dissertation and came home to a very successful summer. Keith was happily employed as a law clerk in Phoenix. He and his wife house sat and thus avoided the payment of rent. The year was a very dry year with little precipitation. Great Salt Lake after peaking at its highest point in recorded history quit
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rising. Our neighbor and fellow member of the high priests quorum, Clyde Fowler, died from a heart attack on February 6th. Ted Smith announced his partial retirement from the department which is now down to just two Mormon faculty members. The grandchildren got their bicycles. La Rue Bowen, the faithful confidant and supporter of her mother, the recorder of the Clark Family organization, a good member of the Church died April 3rd. I spoke at her funeral. I felt sorry for her. A fine woman, she had the misfortune to marry Mormon men who turned into skunks. Her only son was killed in an automobile accident in early adulthood. Her life was a life of tragedy and yet love and devotion. On August 3rd, Konae gave birth to our second grandson. On October 6th, an old friend and ally, Franklyn McKean, former registrar who played a major role in the development of the university's minority program died suddenly from a heart attack in Brazil where he was serving as mission president. And on December 9th, another old ally in the formation of a Civil Rights program at the university, Charles Nabors, died from a fall.
The birth of another granddaughter, Keith passing his Arizona bar exam, and David's successful defense of his doctoral dissertation in Austin were the three most important events for us in 1987. Katie Lynn was born April 29, 1987, to Tracie and Keith Knowlton in Orem, Utah. Our entire family traveled down to Keith and Tracie's ward in Orem to participate in the naming and blessing of the new granddaughter on May 31. Tracie's parents were there. We had an excellent lunch together.
On the day that Katie Lynn was born, David left for one more trip to Bolivia and Peru to buy jewelry for the apparently successful business that David and his partners have built up in Salt Lake City, and to inspect projects sponsored by friends of Bolivia. On his way to South America he stopped in Austin to defend his dissertation quite successfully. During the past months he had been employed by John Maestas, an old friend of mine at the Brigham Young University. Maestas had not paid him the $1200 he owed David. While David was gone I called Maestas who sent me a check for $1,000. The check bounced twice and Maestas did not want to cover it. So I leaned on him rather heavily and secured the $1,000. On June 10th David was robbed of most of his possessions in Lima including his passport. I alerted the American Embassy in LaPaz. David crossed the Peruvian- Bolivian border twice illegally and made his way to La Paz where he secured a new passport and replacement for stolen travelers checks. David returned to Salt Lake City on July 14th. He made two more trips to Bolivia and Peru during the year to purchase jewelry and to inspect projects. He feels that he can support himself almost entirely through the sale of imported jewelry.
Keith moved his family to Phoenix. On October 11 he passed his bar exam. Ruth and flew down to Phoenix on October 23rd to attend the swearing in ceremony. While we were there Tracie took us to the very impressive Heard Museum and Phoenix's Zoos. We enjoyed the opportunity to visit with Keith and Tracie and their family. Two of our sons had finished their professional training.
During the spring quarter of 1987 the Department of Sociology escaped from the dungeon of administrative intervention and was allowed to recruit graduate students. I was selected by the department along with William Brustein and John Collette to serve as a nominations committee for the selection of a new chair. We first asked for nominations for the position from the department. Bam Dev Sharda and Ed Kick became the candidates. The candidates had to provide written answers to a list of questions drawn up by the faculty on their management philosophies and department goals. Then they were questioned orally by the faculty. When the elections were held and votes counted by the committee in front of Dr. Bruce Baird, we were all totally amazed. The graduate students had voted 13 in favor of Ed Kick and 13 in favor of Bam Dev Sharda. Representatives of the
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undergraduate students voted 6 for Ed Kick and 6 for Sharda. The faculty voted 6 for Ed Kick and 5 for Bam Dev Sharda. Sharda embittered by the results refused to speak to members of the nomination Committee charging us with unfair procedures. He became soured and embittered associating only with George Miller and Dennis Willigan. The three passed over into chronic harassing opposition to the department and its new chair.
Two honors befell me during 1987. The Chicano Studies Association met in Salt Lake City during April. David Arguello asked me to attend. Much to my surprise he praised me highly and then asked me to speak. And on December 1, Father Merrill, Fred LeBlanc, and Jorge Arce-Larreta were honored as founders at a banquet given by the Utah Rural Development corporation, the former Utah Migrant Council.
Ruth and I flew to El Paso to attend the annual meetings of the Western Social Science Association. I chaired three sessions, honored Ellwyn Stoddard at a banquet, and read two papers, one on the Mora Land Grant and the other on my experiences in south El Paso during the 1960s. Both were well received. We enjoyed our visit with the Dinsmoors with whom we stayed. I had an opportunity to explore South El Paso and to marvel at some of the changes, especially the growth in currency exchange houses. Every time I saw our old home next to the Dinsmoors, I feel strong pangs of nostalgia.
Upon my return from El Paso, I found that my old friend and ally Armando Diaz had been summarily fired from his position of head of the Utah Migrant committee, a branch of Catholic Community Services by its hew director, Ed Krim, as a result of vague allegations. Krim himself and others on his staff instrumental in the firing of Ed Kick were themselves fired before the end of the year. I strongly protested the unconscionable treatment of Armando after his many years of fine service to the Catholic Community Services at low salary.
We had enrolled Amanda in kindergarten August 31, 1987, and Daniel in preschool at the Hillside School. As Amanda's class had four or five separate teachers during the year, we enrolled her in a special reading and writing class during the summer at the Reid Foundation. She went into the first grade in the fall of the same year a little better prepared. I have been keeping a very close eye on her school progress.
My polygamous uncle Horace Knowlton died leaving behind three wives and around 75 children. I had spent several years securing his life history and that of one of this wives. I had the pleasure of speaking at his graveside service.
The year was significant for its national and international events. The North-Poindexter hearings revealing that the Reagan administration had been trading arms to Iran for the release of hostages shocked me. The revelations stripped the Teflon from the Reagan administration revealing it to be a cheap, shoddy administration headed by a president uninterested in administering. I was also shocked at the failure of the Stark to defend itself against the attack of an Iraqi jet and by the heavy intrusion of American naval power into the Gulf. I also disagreed with the intensive liberal attack on Kurt Waldheim, prime minister of Austria by the Jewish and international liberal community. How many current Israeli leaders are guilty of many of the offenses charged against Waldheim?
One more important event occurred on July 31 when Charles took his first step. David came in from South America on December 12. Richard Knowlton and Lynet Shirley were married on November 14th in the Salt Lake Temple.
For the Knowlton family 1988 was a mixed year. On May 26, Ruth flew to Albany, New
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York with my sister Jerry Niederhauser to gather genealogical data on my mother's Kennedy line. Genealogically the trip was quite a success, but Ruth fell breaking a bone in her right leg, just above the ankle and was incapacitated for much of the year. On July 5th, she was examined at the Salt Lake Clinic. The half a thyroid gland remaining from an earlier operation was found to be covered with tumors. Therefore, on July 11, a radioactive iodine treatment killed the remnant of her thyroid gland, leaving her dependent on medications for the rest of her life. Ruth has had 14 operations during our married life.
Our oldest son, David successfully defended his doctoral thesis in Austin on March 5th. He had developed a successful business selling Bolivian and Peruvian jewelry. To augment his stock, he traveled to Bolivia during the early summer. We were worried about his securing a foothold in academia, but a Dr. John Bowen called toward the end of summer from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri offering David a one year position in the Department of Anthropology. Shortly after his initial call Dr. Bowen called me again to make sure that as a Mormon David would not engage in any proselytizing activities at the University. David left for St. Louis on August 26th, followed by Daniel driving a rental truck loaded with David's possessions. David found an apartment, began teaching, and soon found many friends in the scholarly and Latin American circles in St. Louis.
Daniel and his family continued to live with us. He worked extremely hard toward his undergraduate degree in applied physics taking a very heavy loads. His wife, Konae, continues to work at Harmons but felt that as she had worked there a number of years, they would try to force her out.
For me the year was a mixed one. My health became a matter of concern for the first time in my life. Dr. Quentin Harris of the Salt Lake Clinic gave me a comprehensive physical on August 1 and requested a series of tests. I was found to be suffering from diverticulitis and the beginnings of osteoporosis. He prescribed calcium pills and cranberry juice. A stress test on October 18th, brought out what the cardiologist Dr. Press at the Salt Lake Clinic believed to be abnormalities in my heart functions. He therefore ordered me into the LDS Hospital and preformed an angiogram. It was fascinating for me to actually see my heart and arteries. Much to his surprise he found my heart to be perfectly normal and my arteries clean of any obstruction. He told me that I had the heart of a boy and should never take any more stress tests. My cholesterol level was high so Dr. Harris ordered me to lower it with a strict diet of oat bran, fruits, and vegetables. I eat very little meat. The angiogram did calm my fears and anxieties that had built up since my Albuquerque experiences.
Amanda, Daniel, and Charley our resident grandchildren progressed very rapidly. During the summer we placed Amanda in a special reading and spelling class at the Reed school, a private school. By the end of the summer, she was reading quite proficiently. She and Daniel were enrolled in a summer swimming class at Cottonwood High School.
Professionally 1988 was a good year for both David and me. David was publishing articles on Mormonism in the South American Andean countries in Sunstone. On April 27th, I flew to Denver to attend the meetings of the Western Social Science Association to read a paper on the Mora Land Grant in New Mexico. The paper was published in the July 1988 issue of the Journal of the West. On August 20th, I flew to Atlanta, Georgia, rented a car and drove to the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. I enjoyed meeting old friends. I read a rather mediocre
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paper on the Impact of the Depression on Washington County, Utah. Returned to Atlanta on August 23rd and with Wen Quo and Ed Kick, interviewed prospective candidates for our department vacancies. Managed to attend a few sessions of the American Sociological Society. Went for long walks in Atlanta and noticed the large number of homeless men.
In the fall of 1988, I began to dispose of my files. My extensive files on the Department of Sociology were sent to Special Collections, Brigham Young University Library. My professional correspondence and considerable material on New Mexico went to the New Mexico State Archives. I mailed off some material on El Paso to Special Collections, University of Texas at El Paso.
For the department 1988 was a good year. After the visit of two outstanding sociologists, Dr. Ruben Hill and Dr. Blalock, who after evaluating the progress of the department praised our efforts and sharply criticized the administration for its treatment of the department. As a result all restrictions on our graduate program were lifted and we were given the right to recruit five new faculty members. As members of the executive committee, John Collette and I were given the responsibilities of recruiting the new members. We were under constant pressure from Dennis Willigan, Marlene Lehtinen, and Jerry Smith to sacrifice one or more of the new positions and use the funds to augment department salaries. Marlene even approached me and suggested that all new monies allocated for department salaries, a modest increase of $500.00 for each department member, be given to her and to her husband, Jerry. I still marvel at the recruitment under Lee Bean, as chair, of so many narcissistic, immature, and neurotic individuals.
International and national news were depressing all throughout 1988. The murderous treatment of the Palestinian Arabs by the Israeli, turned me from a former ardent defender of Israel to an enemy of the country. The last several Israeli presidents were former terrorists with a basic contempt for Arab lives and property. I was saddened by the terrible earthquake in Armenia, one of my favorite countries, that killed so many people. The terrorist destruction, by Lebanese terrorists, of a Pan American jet over Lockerbie, Scotland was a vicious atrocity.
Nationally, I was sickened by the incredible Iran-Contra affair that revealed that Marine Colonels and Navy Admirals were making a foreign policy of selling arms in violation of common sense to Iran, and sending the money to the Contras. I was shocked by their browbeating of friendly nations to support the Contras and by the vicious political campaign of character assassination and name calling waved by George Bush, a typical conservation millionaire with little concern for the middle class and for the poor. The year 1988 was not a good one for the nation.
For the Knowlton family, 1989 was a year of achievement and progress. Daniel graduated from the University of Utah with an undergraduate degree in applied physics. He entered graduate school and found employment in a physics laboratory growing crystals. David renewed his contract at Washington University for another year, his terminal year. He did extremely well in St. Louis. Besides winning high student evaluations in his classes, he played a musical instrument in a professional Latin America foursome, playing Andean music. He did well at his jewelry business. He seemed to be flying down to Peru and Bolivia at every occasion during the year. He continued his column in Sunstone and wrote articles on the violence in Peru that were printed in newspapers around the nation. Keith continues to practice law in Phoenix. He and Tracy had bought a home in a relatively new housing development in Phoenix.
Daniel's wife, Konae, gave birth to a boy, with flaming red hair, on April 27th. He was given the mane of Benjamin Ezra Knowlton after my great-grandfather and father. Keith's wife, Tracy,
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added to the number of our grandchildren by giving birth to a girl, as dark as Keith, on November 9th. They named the little girl Shea Nicole.
Amanda turned 8 on May 17th. We held a special birthday party for her. Then on June 3rd, I had the pleasure of baptizing Amanda as a member of the Church. Before the baptism Ruth and I drove Amanda to Pennys and let her select a dress. She has amazingly good taste in clothes. A number of friends and relatives attended the baptism. That night we took the family to dinner in her honor at the El Farol Restaurant.
Ruth's health turned for the worse during the year. Her liver had about ceased to function and she was faced with a possible liver transplant. Devoid of energy, she was forced to rest a good part of each day. It was hard for her to take care of her grandchildren and do some genealogy work. Very reluctantly she had to discontinue her visits to the genealogical library. She struggled to perform her duties as ward organist. Apparently her liver had been damaged by some virus probably acquired from a blood transfusion.
I was deeply saddened by the unexpected death of Norman Clark, a cousin, who died from a heart attack while pushing a stuck car in the snow. A former bishop, Norman was one of the stalwarts of the Ezra Clark Family Association. Several times he and I, when the elected leaders failed to perform their duties, stepped in at the last moment to organize the annual family reunions and keep the association afloat.
My professional activities moved to the front of the stage in 1989. On April 20th, I flew to Albuquerque to attend a conference on Spanish American Protest Movements associated from land grant conflicts, sponsored by the Latin American Student Association of the University of New Mexico. I had suggested that they invite Reies L. Tijerina to participate, which they did. But later they withdrew his name from the invited list because of charges of anti-Semitism. The Alianza people tried to disrupt the meetings without success. It was a very fine conference. David Montejano, of the University of New Mexico, discussed land and culture in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Sylvia Rodriguez, of the same university, discussed protests in Taos County over land conflicts, and Pedro Archuleta spoke on current land conflicts in Taos County. Former governor David Cargo and I discussed our experience in Northern New Mexico. I found out that the $3,000.00 stolen from Reies Tijerina by the Albuquerque Police Department had been given to Reies by Pedro Archuleta and the Alianza group in Taos to be used by the Alianza. They felt that Reies had used the money for personal purposes and broke away from the Alianza.
The morning after the conference ended, Reies Tijerina appeared at the door of my motel. He invited me to go with him to his home in Coyote, a Spanish-American community with an anti- Anglo reputation. I enjoyed the two and a half hour ride from Albuquerque to the Tijerina compound in Coyote. Reies talked non-stop during the trip. He told me first that he had become interested in genealogy. Numerous family of Tijerinas in the lower Rio Grande Valley. All came from a Spaniard who migrated to Texas probably in the 18th century. Tijerina on a trip to Spain, located a village by the name of Tixerina from whence his family had originated. Many Tixerianas are still there. He thought his family may be of Marrano stock. He went on to tell me that the Jews and Israelites are two different peoples. The Jews because of their tragic history of persecution were always trying to gain a position of power in the societies in which they lived. Their efforts antagonized the local people, who then turned against the Jews. He is strongly anti-Israel.
Tijerina has a fenced in compound. His wife and a 15 year old daughter live there. He told
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me that none of his children had much of an education. He had kept them home because of threats to their lives and mistreatment by teachers. The Alianza has an office in Mexico City. He usually spends three to four months each year in Mexico City. New Mexico land grants are no longer the center of his life.
I was amazed when Reies took me to visit a number of people around Coyote. They all convinced me that the Alianza Federal de Mercedes was very much alive in the region. The members in Coyote and surrounding villages had occupied 13,000 acres of National Forest Land and treated it as the common lands of the communities managed by a board. I was totally amazed to find out that the National Forest had made no attempts to recover the land. A bit different from their reaction to the Alianza occupation of a campground in the Nation Forest in 1966.
Spent some time with Pedro Archuleta who told me that the Lopez lawsuit against a Phoenix Land Development Firm that had tried with the assistance of a corrupt state district judge to seize the land occupied by a poor Spanish-American family, the Lopez family. The litigation has been successful and is being handled by my friend Rosenstock of Cuba, New Mexico. The Lopez family received several hundred thousand dollars in damages and title to their land. In gratitude, they gave the disputed land to Pedro Archuleta and his militants who had occupied the disputed land for over a year in defiance of state efforts to evict them. They promptly ran up the Mexican flag in defiance of the Anglo American community and plan to construct a cultural center on the site.
From April 27th to April 29th, I attended the sessions of the Western Social Science Association meetings in Albuquerque. We had an extremely large Land grant program with numerous participants. I believe that we are the only affiliate of the organization that had community participation. I met many Spanish-Americans forming new organizations to secure the return of their land grants. A number of them were college graduates, smooth, sophisticated, well educated men and women knowing their way around in both the Anglo-American and Spanish- American communities. I met many old friends and made many new ones.
On January 17th, I received a telephone call from Nadim Shebade, the Director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies, Oxford University, England, inviting me to read a paper all expenses paid on Lebanese immigration to Brazil based on my doctoral dissertation of which they had secured a copy. During the summer, I watched over Ruth's health. Finally the doctor released her to go to England providing she rested a good part of each day. She contacted numerous relatives in England, who were very pleased at our coming. We decided to leave for England on August 16th. But before we left, I had to fly to Seattle to attend the meetings of the Rural Sociological Society to chair a program I had organized with many Canadian scholars on Rural Minority Groups in Western Canada and the United States. I chaired several other sessions and read a paper.
Finally on August 15th, Ruth and I caught an American flight to Chicago. We waited there for several hours and picked up an American flight to Manchester, England. At the same time we left Salt Lake City, David caught a flight for Bolivia to secure data on the murder of two Mormon missionaries in La Paz. Arriving in Manchester after a pleasant night flight early on the morning of August 16th, we were met by Ruth's relatives and close friends, Jerry and Doris Parks and their son William who drove us to the Park home in Moulton, which is a very flourishing lovely middle-class village. We were there until the evening of August 24th.
Doris and Jerry gave us a splendid tour of much of Cheshire, Northern Wales, and Northern
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Shropshire. We visited numerous castles and ancient churches. The highlight of the tour was our day long visit to Chester, a city I had visited back in 1945, while stationed in England during the war. Chester is a magnificent city. We spent some time in the Cathedral, walked along the Roman Wall, visited the Chester museum, and strolled through the central streets. I would not mind living in Chester. We also drove through Whitchurch, a town I knew quite well having been in a military hospital there after my injury in France. We got to know their children, Susan and William. What a fine family.
Ruth's cousin Gordon Heap picked us up on the evening of August 24th and drove us to his and Dorothy's home in Shadwell on the outskirts of Leeds in Yorkshire County. Instead of the war brick architecture of Cheshire, we now had the austere gray stone homes of Yorkshire. Woods and pleasant fields were replaced by rolling moors inhabited by sheep, small villages shrunk around large closed textile plants. Dorothy and Gordon had a much larger more luxurious home. He is a retired executive, who found work early as an apprentice from a company manufacturing industrial valves. Born in poverty, Gordon attended a local trades school, found employment with an English company making valves. When an American company bought out his firm, he and several other executives resigned and organized their own firm and did extremely well. He and Dorothy also have two children.
Dorothy and Gordon were also extremely hospitable. They drove through Leeds, Halifax, Bradford, and then to the Kirkstall Abbey and Museum. The ruins were very impressive. We were taken to Ripon to see the extremely beautiful Cathedral. I was deeply impressed. We also toured the region in which Ruth's mother had grown up around Ludenden Dean, Sowerby bridge, Salstonall, Castle Car, Midgely, Wadsworty, Crenhoppe, Collingsworty and Denholm.
On August 28th, they drove us to Scarborough, a resort town on the North Sea where they have an apartment. We had a lovely time. Then the next day we drove over to York, another town with impressive Roman ruins. Gordon and I climbed Clifton tower, walked along the Roman Wall, visited the tower museum (an excellent museum), and then spent several hours in the York Minster another very impressive cathedral.
The next day, Ruth and I returned to York to spend the day there. We walked slowly through the historic center of town, with its mixture of Jacobean, Georgian, and Victorian buildings. We returned to the York Minster for an organ recital. We then visited the Jorvik Viking Center, a most impressive exhibit of a Viking community. It was the finest archeological exhibit I have ever seen.
Gordon and Dorothy also took us to Ravens Hall for lunch. I visited the Scarsdale monument to their dead killed in World War I, II, and the Korean War. I was deeply touched by the enormous loss of life. We saw such monuments with the names of the slain in every village and town. In the cathedrals, I was impressed by the monuments and plaques dedicated to the memory of men killed in the incredibly numerous colonial wars fought by the British in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Enid and Stuart Andrews were members of the Church. They had three children all grown, two active in the Church. Stuart and I walked over much of the center of Halifax. A rather down at the heels town, I liked it. We visited the large ancient wool market with its many small stores. Enid and Stuart drove us to the Cat in the Well Pub close to an abandoned Methodist cemetery containing the remains of several of Ruth's relatives. From there we were taken to Kell Butts, a line
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of attached small houses. Ruth found at the end two small homes knocked into one where her mother's family had lived before coming to America. We found an elderly woman living in one tiny home, who had known Ruth's mother's family. We then visited an elderly lady, Doris Buolding, who had known Ruth's mother as a young girl. Ruth did some genealogical research in the Halifax records and in the records of the Mormon genealogical library with Eileen Wilkinson, a single member of the Church, a genealogist who lives in Halifax. We were told that there are a number of LDS wards in the region.
On September 6th, Enid and Stuart drove us to Coalville just outside of Leicester that I had also visited during World War II. There we stayed for several days with Beatrice Forsgren, aged 85, a life long friend of Ruth's mother. A widow, she has three children; all three living close by. We met their children. David and Basil Forsgren and his lovely wife Sheila became good friends. they took us on a tour of the remnants of Charwood Forest. We also visited the interesting Mount Saint Bernard Abbey established in the early 19th century. The monks farm for a living. Sheila is a bell ringer. I spent an interesting period of time in a local church listening to Sheila and her group play the bells.
Sheila and Basil, a bird watcher, drove us down to Oxford on September 10th. On the way we visited Coventry, a city I remembered so well from my World War II days. The new cathedral was magnificent but I did not react spiritually as I have in the old historic cathedrals. We drove by the Kennilworth castle. Finally they dropped us off at the Randolph Hotel in Oxford. While Ruth rested, I went for a long walk winding up at St. Hugh's College to register for the conference on the Lebanese diaspora. At the reception and dinner I met an impressive number of Lebanese scholars from all parts of the world. The conference was most interesting with papers read on all aspects of the Lebanese migration to all parts of the world. I read my paper which was well received. While I attended conference sessions, Ruth toured Oxford. It is a most beautiful city.
On September 14th, we caught the train for London and checked into the Charing Cross hotel. The next morning, Ruth awakened sick and dizzy. We had hoped to visit several ancient sites with the name Knowlton attached but decided not to. Ruth and I took a bus tour of London. While Ruth rested, I walked all over the historic center of London. I was disappointed by the mediocre buildings that have sprung up on the bombed out sites in central London. We toured the National Art Gallery and I got Ruth to visit the section devoted to Dutch artists. I liked London very much. We did get to Harrods. We returned home deeply grateful to Ruth's relatives for putting up with us. Arriving home we found our bedroom had been completely redone in our absence and the kitchen torn up for modernization.
The department environment under the leadership of Ed Kick improved greatly during 1989. George Miller, Bam Dev Sharda, and Dennis Willigan continued their erratic behavior. Wen Quo, Robert Gray and I went through a senior faculty review. I served on Quo's and Willigan's review committees. I was forced to serve on Willigan's committee with Marlene Lehtinen as our other senior faculty member would not do it.
Our search committee composed of John Collette, Dair Gillespie and myself, tried hard to recruit five new faculty during the year. We brought to the campus many people interested in our positions but could not offer them salaries competitive with other universities. We did not recruit anyone. We decided to lower our expectations for the next year and try to recruit candidates just out of graduate school.
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The year was murky and troubled. The earthquake in San Francisco on October 17th, reminded us of our own precarious position along the Wasatch Front. The Exxon spill in Alaska deepened my distrust and dislike for oil companies. The June massacre of Chinese students demonstrating for a democratic system in Peking was outrageous and savage. I was very disappointed in Bush's response to the massacre. I was saddened to learn that several black members of our football team had been arrested for selling cocaine. I knew them quite well. My animosity toward Israel deepened with the continued slaughter of Arabs by the Israelis. It was not a good year internationally.
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