Chapter Three, Holladay: 1934-1939

It is rather difficult for an older man to penetrate through the mists of the past and reconstruct his own adolescence.  The barriers created by selective retention, repression, inhibition, and the passing of time are not easy to cross.  Fortunately, I have found several journals from my adolescent years that make the task a little easier.  As I write I wonder if the youth that I was would approve of the adult that I have become.  I would like to divide this chapter into the following sections: (1) a discussion of the physical environment of Holladay; (2) family life; (3) the role of the Church; (4) the influence of the depression; (5) and finally my intellectual and academic development.

In 1931, my parents moved their family of five children to a comfortable two story red brick house at 5061 Cottonwood Lane, Holladay, Utah.  As my parents had both grown up on farms, they were attracted to the rural environment of Holladay as a place in which to rear their family.  Our lot of 1-1/2 acres contained an orchard, a vegetable garden, a berry patch, a grape arbor, and a combination chicken coop, pigpen, and cow stall.  Around the home stretched a lawn bordered on three sides with shade trees and flowering shrubs.  A tall cottonwood tree grew on the back fence line.  In its branches, I built a small tree-house in which I spent endless hours daydreaming, reading, watching wildlife, and observing the activities of my neighbors.

Holladay at the time was a well defined semi-rural community inhabited by small farmers, for the most part descendants of the original settlers, and a growing number of suburbanites.  The farm families, descendants of early settlers, were connected by marriage and kinship bonds.  They earned their living from mixed farming; a combination of poultry, dairying, fruit, sugar-beets, and vegetables.  Holladay farmers owned little mechanical equipment.  The horse was the major source of power.  The majority of the inhabitants were active orthodox Mormons.  A small number of wealthy Catholic and Jewish families inhabited large homes in the Cottonwoods along Big Cottonwood Creek, but they interacted little with the population of the community.

The social class structure of Holladay was a simple one.  On the bottom were landless families dependent upon unskilled agricultural or urban employment.  A few sheepherders herding other men's sheep followed.  Above them were the majority of the inhabitants; small farmers farming from ten to thirty acres and a small but growing number of white collar suburbanites.  Perched rather insecurely on the top level huddled a smaller number of larger landowners, urban professionals, and businessmen, many of whom combined farming with their urban employment.  The depression and the drought of the 1930s equalized the income of the Holladay people; most of whom had to struggle to survive economically during this period.  Prestige in Holladay came not from landownership or income but from church activity, church position, and the moral reputation of the family.

Holladay nestled in the boundaries of the old Holladay ward an area now occupied by four or five stakes.  The ward bishop and his counselors were the religious, political, and social leaders of the community.  Community affairs were discussed in church meetings.  As most of the Holladay people were active Mormons, they found their major opportunities for leadership, social service, and recreation within the organizational structure of the ward.  In many ways, the people of the ward behaved like members of a large extended family.  The Relief Society and the Priesthood quorums came to the assistance of families handicapped by poverty, accident, or illness.  No one was ever left to face the uncertainties of the world alone.

Crime was almost unknown.  In my entire life in Holladay I cannot remember a single serious crime.  Homes and automobiles were never locked.  The dark lanes and roads were safe for members of both sexes at all hours.  People felt totally secure in their physical environment with little sense of danger or fear.

Teenage rebellion simply did not exist.  The young people in farm families worked closely with their parents on the land.  Almost all of us were aware of the difficult financial problems our parents were experiencing.  The cooperation of all family members was essential if the family were to survive.  Alienation, delinquency, and family conflicts were luxuries that families simply could not afford.  Besides, the majority of the young had a secure place in the community.  They knew that they were loved by the community as a whole.

Because of the rural nature of the region there was abundant physical space for adolescent activity.  On almost any reasonable day, groups of boys could be found playing football or baseball in local pastures under the amused glances of livestock.  We learned to swim in the large irrigation canals.  The woods, fields, and streams provided an ideal environment for games such as hide and go seek, kick the can, and run sheep run.  Horses were always available for those who wanted to ride.  Yearling steers and bulls were apt to be tormented by boys trying to ride or to rope them.  Streets running down the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains were dotted with children and teenagers sleighing in winter.  Skaters enjoyed the several ponds in the vicinity.  Young people hired local farmers to take them bob sled riding during the winter evenings.  Most of our recreation was non-commercial.  We had little money for other kinds.

Domestic animals and pets were an important part of the physical environment in Holladay.  Along with many families, we kept milk cows, pigs, lambs, chickens, dogs, pigeons, and rabbits.  It was my responsibility as the oldest child to care for the family menagerie.  I rose around five-thirty every morning to milk, and feed the cow.  After milking the cow, I took care of the poultry and other animals and then released the cow who walked sedately down to the pasture gate.  Then I ate breakfast and caught the 7:00 AM school bus.  After the school bus had deposited me at home, in the late afternoon I went down to the pasture to find the cow waiting for me.  Opening the pasture gate, I followed behind the cow often reading a book.  The cow knew exactly where to go.  In the fall the cow was taken to a nearby dairy to be bred before an audience of boys and men.  If the calf were a heifer, it was sold to a dairy.  If it were male, it was fattened and slaughtered in the fall.  My father preferred Jersey and Guernsey cattle.  I soon learned that every cow had a distinct personality, developed its own habits and demanded respect.

As the sheep herds ambled their way up 27th South in the spring from desert winter pastures to mountain spring pastures, we intercepted them at the mouth of Parley's Canyon.  The herders were willing to sell orphan lambs for 25 to 50 cents each.  Buying several, we staked them in our orchard and fed them milk and grain.  Each spring we purchased a wiener pig to be fattened during the summer.  When fall came the pig, lambs, and often a male calf were slaughtered for winter meat.

Our henhouse was the habitat of a large flock of Rhode Island Red chickens, my mother's favorite breed.  Besides the Rhode Island Reds, the henhouse sheltered my flock of bantams.  I watched over them lovingly, gathered their eggs, set them under bantam and Rhode Island Red hens, hovered over the chicks, and occasionally traded chicks and eggs with my friends.  Besides my bantams, I possessed a large herd of nondescript rabbits whose fertility was controlled by slaughter for the family table and a substantial flock of tumbler pigeons whose aerial somersaults fascinated me.

My account of our domestic animals would be incomplete without any mention of our dogs.  We had a long series of family dogs during our Holladay years, but the one I loved most was a large German police male named King.  The dog enjoyed tumbling with family members and friends.  He pulled our wagons in summer and our sleds in winter.  Wherever I went, the dog went also.  We quite enjoyed our rambles through the fields, hills and canyons.  A one family dog, it guardedly inspected everyone who came on our premises.  One day the dog attacked a prominent local citizen who entered our yard unexpectedly.  My father then gave the dog to a distant farm family.

Wild birds, animals, and plants were an important component of my Holladay life.  Within several years after my arrival, I knew the names, characteristics, and habitats of most species of animals, birds, insects, and plants in Holladay.  For years, I prowled the fields, orchards, woods, canyons, and mountains with guide books in hand to observe the native denizens of my community.  I was a very serious student of nature and would have become a naturalist if it had not been for World War II.  Over the years, I managed to observe mountain lions, bobcats, deer, foxes, and numerous other species.  I could never hunt or kill any wild creature.  To me they were friends with their own personalities and rights to life.

Even though I had to wear glasses at an early age,  I was an intimate part of my neighborhood and school peer group.  A big husky boy, I was among the first to be chosen for such contact sports as football.  I also did well in such rough school games as pom-pom pull-away and could run fairly fast.  I quite enjoyed the long summer evenings when groups of us would gather to play run sheep run and kick the can.  For hours we ran, hid, and chased each other through the fields, woods, and orchards.

Much of the abundant energy of my peer group was channeled and controlled by Boy Scout activities.  At the age of twelve, Holladay boys automatically joined the church sponsored Boy Scout Troop.  It was an integral part of church and community life.  We had little money.  Salt Lake City was far away.  Opportunities for commercial recreation seldom existed.  Therefore, the Boy Scout Troop and its activities provided an opportunity for belonging to a peer group, for social interaction with one's friends, opportunities for hiking, swimming, camping and learning skills that were still functional in the semi-rural environment of Holladay.  I quite enjoyed the Boy Scouts and was active as patrol leader and then assistant scout master.

One fall, our patrol was asked by the district Boy Scout leaders to put on a week long demonstration of boy scout skills at the state fair in Salt Lake City.  During the day we demonstrated all types of boy scout skills in front of fair goers.  After work we roamed the fair, and soon recognized the con games and the exploitation of gullible people by operators of games of chance.  We revealed the tricks and cheats to the audience.  Needless to say we were quite unpopular with the operators of these games, but they were afraid to molest us.  They knew that many men from Holladay were exhibiting livestock at the fair and would come to our assistance if called upon.  It was quite an educational experience.  During my middle year in junior high school, our troop spent a week in the Boy Scout Camp at Mirror Lake in the Uinta Mountains.  These camps and the opportunities they provided for nature study attracted me.  Shortly after I had returned home, my parents took me to our doctor for a physical examination before school began.  The doctor told me that I had a leaking heart valve caused by a sudden spurt of physical growth combined with great physical activity.  He promised me that if I engaged in a minimum of physical activity for several years my heart would recover.  My mother immediately took charge of my life, I was confined to the house and yard for several months starting school late.

My life changed completely at the age of 13.  I had to drop out of all athletics.  I had to restrict my activities and rest frequently.  I could no longer go with the Boy Scouts.  But I could do my chores at home and wander through the fields and woods.  I soon found that many in my peer group abandoned me, as I could no longer participate in their activities.  I also became the subject of considerable teasing and bullying.  For a thirteen year old boy, the experience was traumatic.  I soon learned to use words to talk myself out of difficult situations.  I became deeply involved in serious reading in history, literature, travel books, and books about the geography and cultural characteristics of other countries.

  My father took me with him on short trips.  He also had me come to his office in the state capital and introduced me to the political leaders of the state.  The state capital became my playground.  I listened to these men discuss the political issues of the 1930s and was awakened politically and intellectually.  My father played an important role in Governor Blood's administration in Utah.  I learned much about politics and local and national affairs.

Several years later, the doctor told me that my heart had healed.  I never overcame the effects of the experience.  My interest in athletics had vanished.  During the first several weeks of my new found freedom, I attacked the boys who had embittered my life.  For several weeks I came home with black eyes, bloody nose, and split lips but with glory in my heart.  Since then I have hated bullies and those who exploit and molest other people.  I also learned that most people will back away from a person who will fight to the end whatever the cost.

My father taught me how to drive at the age of fifteen, on the rural farm roads on the western side of the Valley.  As he drove a state car to work, the family car stayed home.  I became the family chauffeur and had the car at my disposal.  The fact that I was the only boy in peer group that had frequent access to a car made me quite popular.

As the depression deepened during the 1930s my father an employee of the Utah Highway Commission suffered several salary cuts.  Fortunately our family produced most of its own food on our 1-1/2 acres.  Each spring we planted a large garden, and it was my duty to irrigate and to care for it.  I enjoyed the work except for night irrigation.  During the late summer and fall, we as a family bottled fruit, vegetables, and meat, cured pork, made chili and pickles, and parched corn.  By the coming of winter, our root cellar was filled with apples, pears, potatoes, carrots, squash, and pumpkin.  My mother did all the baking and kept our larder filled with several kinds of bread, pies, cakes and cookies.

Shortly after moving to Holladay, I became aware of the fact that my parent's marriage was troubled.  The basic cause of friction was my father's inability to break away from his own family.  My mother felt that she came second to her mother-in-law in his affections.  Throughout our stay in Holladay he continued to partially support his mother and brothers and sisters.  My mother became embittered, and our family life was marked by sporadic parental quarreling.  Mother never permitted us to associate with my father's relatives.  Her parents had been killed in a trolley car accident in Salt Lake City and most of her relatives lived in Wyoming or Idaho.  Almost the only cousin we had contact with was Ann Schmidt from Bern, Idaho, a fine lovely girl, she visited us for long periods at a time.

My mother found an emotional release in her family, in genealogy, and in the community.  As a mother she was deeply concerned about the intellectual, emotional, moral, and physical development of her children.  Interested in our school work, she insisted that we do our homework.  Absenteeism from school was simply not tolerated.  She filled our home with books, magazines, and records.  A good reader, she developed a love of reading in her children.  She constantly told us stories about Church history and the role of our family in this history.  By the time I was fourteen, she turned me into a Mormon chauvinist hostile toward the states of Missouri and Illinois. 

Genealogy was her major intellectual interest.  As often as she could, she traveled into Salt Lake City to do research on her family lines at the Church Genealogical Society.  She was a diligent researcher.  Few errors have been found in her work.  She usually returned from her research expeditions filled with stories about her ancestors.

As a trained nurse and an active Relief Society worker, she was in constant demand in depression stricken Holladay.  Unable to afford doctors many families in the community relied on her medical knowledge.  She had little patience with those who did not take care of themselves or their children.  A formidable woman, she managed to get her way although creating some dislike.  She was active in community affairs working to improve the levels of community and family life.

My father rose through the ranks of the State Highway Department to become Chief Engineer.  Employed at a time when civil service did not exist, he was shocked at the automatic firing of highway department personnel after each election.  Because of his skill, his integrity, and his vast knowledge of the state highway system and of local county and city leaders, he managed to retain his position.  When Governor Blood, former chief of the highway commission, became governor in 1932, my father served as his executive assistant, assisted in writing many of his speeches, and played a major role in his administration. 

Our family was completed with the birth of my sister Jerry.  There were six living children in our family; myself, Sarah, Virginia, Paul, Jayne, and Jerry in that order.  A sister, Rosemarie, born between Virginia and Paul died several days after birth.  Sarah and I were close together in ages.  She was advanced a year into my class in school during our elementary years.  As a result, we went through school together.  Being more industrious than I, she usually secured better grades.  We kept few secrets from each other.  A beautiful, friendly, loving, and intelligent girl, she was treated harshly by life.

Virginia, the third member of the family, was even more ill-fated than Sarah.  Possessing a very fine mind she was talented in the arts and might have had a distinguished artistic career.  At a young age, she came down with rheumatic fever that left her with a severely damaged heart.  For years she could not participate in either athletic or social activities.  I remember well one day when mother came home with Virginia from a visit to the doctor's office.  The doctor had informed my mother that Virginia had not long to live.  My mother drove Virginia up to Bern, Idaho, to be administered to by an Uncle Schmidt.  He administered to her, and she was cured.  But she never recovered the lost years.  Unable to penetrate the charmed circle in which Sarah and I lived, she was isolated in the family.  She drew, she wrote, and had a small circle of friends in high school.  She had a consuming hunger to be popular, to make friends, and to be accepted. 

The other three children, Paul, Jayne, and Jerry as the youngest members of the family, were just growing out of childhood when I left home.  I had few contacts with them during their adolescence and young adulthood.  Our relationships were the normal brother and sister relationships.

Except for the sporadically troubled relationship between my parents, our family life was congenial.  Both my parents enjoyed discussing events and issues with their children.  We were encouraged to present and defend our points of view.  All of us loved to read, and our home was filled with books and magazines.  We were allowed to buy books of our own choice.  We subscribed to numerous magazines.  We enjoyed our radio, and family members often gathered before the radio with bowls of popcorn, dishes of home made ice cream, and cookies to listen to our favorite shows.  A large record player and well furnished record cabinet were constantly in use.  My mother welcomed our friends and our home was filled with young people coming and going.  Family birthdays were always celebrated with birthday parties and presents.

Holidays were bright spots in our lives.  Christmas, of course, was the most important.  As my father was the state highway engineer the mailman was busy several weeks before Christmas bringing presents from contractors.  Boxes of cigars and cases of alcoholic beverages were immediately returned.  Also returned were expensive presents such as appliances.  This we did not mind.  But we worried each year whether his conscience would permit us to retain the many boxes of candy, fruit, cheese, and other edibles.

We simply did not have money for many gifts at Christmas.  We received clothing, books, records, and such useful toys as sleds, skates, etc.  Once we had inspected our presents, we hurried over to see what our friends had received.  As the parents of many of my friends were unemployed or on W.P.A. - P.W.A project, their presents were few.  In the evening, groups of children and young people went from house to sing carols and be invited in to drink punch, eat fruitcake, and to socialize with friends and neighbors.

The Sunday before Christmas was an important part of the Christmas season.   Almost all of the family members had parts in the Christmas pageant at church.  Always there was the eating of enormous Sunday meals that left us partially incapacitated.  During the Christmas season, many of our friends would invite us to go bob sleigh riding.  Kept warm by heated bricks, we yelled, sang, talked and played as we drove down empty evening streets that today are streams of constant traffic.

Other important holidays in our lives were the Fourth and Twenty-fourth of July, Halloween, and Thanksgiving.  Every house in Holladay on the Fourth displayed a large American flag.  The community resounded to the roar of fire-crackers and rockets.  In the evening, our parents took their children to witness fireworks displayed at Liberty Park.  Outside of the fireworks, the Fourth had little meaning for us.  As Mormons, our holiday came on the Twenty-fourth of July.  On the Sunday before the Twenty-fourth, Church speakers recounted the well known incidents of the Missouri and Illinois persecutions, the trek across the plains and the settlement of Utah.  The few pioneers who still survived in Holladay were honored and asked to relate their personal experiences.  Then on the day itself we drove into Salt Lake City to witness the large parade.  For many years my sense of Mormon identity was far stronger than my identity as an American citizen.

Thanksgiving was one of our favorite holidays.  For days before the event, my mother and sisters cooked and prepared a wide variety of foods including the turkey.  The children eagerly sat around the table and with impatience awaited the blessing on the food.  Once when called upon to pray by my father, I closed the prayer and with the same breath said "Please pass the turkey".  Another time, I remember running around the table to shake down my stomach enough to eat more. 

Halloween was a popular holiday with the older children.  It was a time for licensed vandalism.  For several weeks, we gathered a supply of tomatoes and rotten eggs.  After school we went tricking or treating from house to house.  As the night grew older, the older boys picked up unattended cars and put them on top of barns and other buildings.  Outhouses might be turned over.  All of us joined in to soap and wax house and car windows, to ring doorbells, to put large firecrackers in mail boxes, and commit other acts of mischief.  As the night wore on, we threw eggs and tomatoes at cars.  Police cars out in force on this night received special treatment.  On many Halloweens, angered men chased us without avail through the corn fields and orchards.

But one Halloween, a police car filled with uniformed officers slowly crept down Cottonwood Lane.  As it approached a turn in the road, four or five of us let go with volley after volley of rotten eggs and tomatoes that poured through the opened car windows.  The indignant officers in their stained uniforms leaped out and chased us for several miles.  Several boys were caught while the rest of us lay concealed in irrigation ditches.  The caught boys were forced to wash the police car at the home of one of the boys.  The rest of us hid out until late at night.

As I have pointed out, the community of Holladay and the Holladay Ward were one and the same.  Few non-Mormons lived in Holladay, and there were no non-Mormon chapels.  The ward organization provided multiple opportunities of leadership and teaching development.  Many ordinary people found their only opportunities for personal growth and development as teachers, leaders, and speakers in ward organizations and activities.  Given the turnover in officers one would be safe in saying that virtually every active Mormon over the years served in a variety of organizations and classes.  The priesthood quorums and Relief Society provided forums of discussions for local issues.  They took care of the sick, the needy, and those disabled through accidents.  Mutual, Sunday School, Priesthood, and Relief Society all sponsored numerous ward movies, parties, socials, dances, plays, and other recreational activities.  The Granite Stake of which we were a part sponsored formal dances, and stake basketball, volleyball, and baseball leagues.  The importance of the ward and the community are illustrated by the fact that I never dated a non-Holladay girl or had non-Holladay friends until I went to high school.

There were many men and women in the Holladay ward, farmers, postmen, businessmen, professionals, and teachers who had a deep love for young people in the community.  I shall always be grateful for the support and the assistance that I received from them during my critical adolescent years.  I would like to mention just three of them, Doral Cutler, James Moss, and Charles Pike.

Doral Cutler, a mailman, was a humorous kindly man with a special gift for working with boys.  Called to be scoutmaster of the Holladay Ward Boy Scout Troop No. 50, he tried with considerable success to bring every boy of scouting age into his troop.  Brother Cutler every Tuesday night at Mutual drilled us in Boy Scout skills, and played competitive games with us.   He also led the troop on many hikes, nature study trips, and outings.  He gathered us around innumerable campfires and talked about life and matters of concern to young boys.  He coached us in athletics, monitored our priesthood assignments, and helped us in every way that he could.

Scoutmaster Cutler and members of the local troop committee hollowed out a large thicket of scrub oak on a nearby foothill providing the scouts with a romantic hideaway.  To approach the opening, one had to find the concealed opening and then crawl along a concealed tunnel.  This little clearing in a thicket was important to us.  As Boy Scouts we used it for campfires, cookouts, games, sleep outs, and as a secret hideaway.

James Moss known to us as Jimmy Moss, was a local farmer, a high school, seminary and Sunday School teacher, and a high school coach.  He was one of the most popular men in Holladay.  He coached our ward athletic teams, taught us in school, seminary, and church, helped us to find jobs, counseled us, rejoiced at our successes, and sorrowed with us over our failures.  Always available to the young people of the ward, he took a personal interest in all of them.  He had a great gift of love and could meet young people on their own level.

Charles Pike, known to all of us as Charley, was a big tall man with a large bald head marked by a heavy Roman nose.  A man of patience and kindness he drove the school bus.  If any of his students did not show up at the bus, he called immediately to find the reason.  He had few problems with discipline and entertained us on the bus with songs and stories.  He also talked to and advised us about our educational problems.  A fine musician, he created in the Holladay Ward one of the finer ward choirs in the Salt Lake Valley.

The fears, worries, and anxieties of the depression years cast a pall of gloom over the community.  The farmers no matter how hard they worked, could not earn enough to pay their expenses.  Many men working in Salt Lake City lost their jobs.  Some homes and farms were lost as bankers foreclosed.  For many years bankers were not popular in Holladay.  Money became very scarce and people spent as little as they could, saved as much as possible, and made do with what they had.  The entire community hunkered down.  As we were largely a farming community, no one suffered from malnutrition.  Unsold farm produce and fruit were for the taking.  The local ward and stake did all they could to help the unemployed.

The election of President Roosevelt changed the psychological attitude of doom.  Suddenly there was hope.  The avalanche of New Deal programs physically saved large numbers of people from destitution.  Many homes and farms were snatched from foreclosure sales.  The Works Process Administration and Public Works Administration put large numbers of men to work building schools, paving highways, cementing irrigation ditches, creating parks, developing recreational facilities, replanting the foothills, and carrying on conservation activities in the canyons.  Quite a few older boys joined the C.C.C.  Several wards and stakes secured P.W.A projects for the unemployed among their members.  The New Deal saved the inhabitants of Holladay from destitution, and loss of farms, and homes.  President Roosevelt was literally worshiped by the people of Holladay.  They voted for him time after time against advice of church leaders.  Today when I listen to some public leaders in Utah attack public welfare, I ironically remember that many of their parents and grandparents were employed on government Relief programs. 

All through the 1930s our lives were shadowed by the political events of Europe and Asia.  The members of our family listened with fear and anxiety to the news broadcasts about Nazism and Fascism in Germany and Italy, the Italian attack on Ethiopia, the civil war in Spain, and the Japanese invasion of China.  The world outside the United States, seemed dominated by murderous madmen.  The people of Holladay were isolationist.  They had little knowledge about the world outside the country and indeed outside of Utah.  They hoped and prayed that the United States would not become involved in war.  We teenage boys listened, discussed the news events, gossiped about weapons, planes and tanks, and wondered what the future held.  I remember that when the Japanese attacked Shanghai, I was having an intense discussion with a young lady about our future relationship.  She asked me what I was thinking about and I replied the battle in Shanghai.

As I look back upon my adolescent years in Holladay during the 1930s, I am very grateful that my parents moved there.  The Holladay of friendly Mormon people, of sunlit pastures, of herds of livestock, of fields of corn, sugar-beets, and vegetables, of orchards, woods and streams, of happy times and sad times, of laughter and tears is forever enshrined in my memory.  Holladay was my home, and I loved it.

I am forever grateful to the friends of my youth, Hal Friedel, Waldo Henrichsen, Roy Peterson, Don and Merle Selin, Alvin and Vern Taylor, Roland Thunell, and Bryant Zimmerman for the gift of their friendship and for the many good times that we had together.