Joe Tippets biography by Wayne Tippets May 26, 1992 While we were serving our mission at Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota
Joe was the twin of John. Neither one looked like the other nor did they act or think alike. They both had their own way of getting things done and though it may have taken John longer to get something accomplished when they were younger, after they growed up there was not that much difference in how they did things.
I do not know why, for he was not ugly but some folks must have thought he was and they kidded him about it a lot. It must have been his freckles, and cowlick he had, for he definitely was a good looking guy and I have not always been blind.
Joe was good in school. Not as good as he could have been, for he says he was lazy but so was I and so is most all of us at one time or the other, not accomplishing what we’re capable of. He was always good with fixing things, which most of my brothers were except me and John, for Joe could fix most everything.
The math teacher out to Mound Fort one day was telling of an incident that happened to a couple of students a few years before. He said we are honored to have his little brother in our class right now and then he went on to tell about two boys who started to arguing in his class one day and it got so they were pushing and ready to fight, so he sent them down to the coach and told them to tell the coach they wanted to put on the gloves and fight each other. So they did. He said they left that room bitter enemies, and they did go down and get some boxing gloves from the coach and put them on and went in the girl’s dressing room, for it was empty and there they took their spite out on each other with gloves on and no one else around. In about half an hour, he said, here those two came back up to class arm in arm and from then on they were the best of buddies. I think the other kid was Kenny Daceese. I am not sure.
But sometimes that is what it takes to get anger out is to blow up and then cool down. And you know what really surprises me as I think about it, Mr. Richards was not that kind of a teacher to let kids fight. To me he was a peace loving man that would not like to see anyone hurt, but in this case he was inspired to let them fight it out, but was smart enough to get boxing gloves on so they would not hurt each other.
Joe must have been in the 10th grade then for that is when I took math from Richards. But he felt very good about Joe. In the trophy case was a picture of Joe. He was on the track team or some team like that and this was 5 or 6 years after he had left Mound Fort.
I can honestly say I hardly ever got along good with Joe. It seems like we was always disagreeing. But like I have said, I must have been the one to blame for most of my brothers seemed to hate me and the things I done. I recall one time I wanted to go someplace with them and the rest of my brothers did not mind but he did not want me to go and he grabbed hold of my hair with both hands and pulled me out of the car and gave me a shove down and I did not go. I usually can stand a lot of pain but I can still feel how much that hurt. Maybe that is why I do not have much hair on top. Just kidding. When I got a little bit older he used to not mind me going places with them but for a long time he hated to have me along.
(Continuation of Uncle Joe Tippets biography seen through blind eyes of brother Wayne)
Joe seemed while his kids were growing up to always be involved with Young Men’s Mutual and things like taking them camping, boating and such. The young men always seemed to like him. He taught his kids all how to mechanic although I believe only one is helping him anymore. I do not think the rest of them want to get their hands dirty. He has car business in his blood and it will never get out, although everyone including himself knows he would be better out than in right now for he should be retired and on easy street but he is not.
Both of them deserve to take it easy the rest of their lives and do things where they can go and relax and not worry about these big payments coming up on flooring and things like insurance, taxes and other overhead. Recently about 5 or 6 years ago they added onto their house and boy, it is a large house. This is what they needed while their family was at home. But they still enjoy it, especially when all their kids come to see them or they have our family parties there.
Right after the war he learned to fly airplanes, same time Uncle Reedy Pie did and he was a good pilot, although I think I only rode with him a couple of times. I do not think he flew as much as Reed did.
As far as the church is concerned, Joe has always been active and he should have been made a bishop or stake president or something like that for he is a good enough man to be one. Like is Thad, but for some reason the Lord missed calling him to that office so far. He has held just about every other position in church, though. Well, I do not think he has been Relief Society president or Primary president. But he has been Elders president, Seventies president, Mutual presidency, clerk, Sunday School and priesthood advisor in both Melchizedek and Aaronic, over temple preparation class and probably others that I do not remember.
I think because of his off time hours at the railroad he could not be at all the meetings all the time, but he still could have done it. He was a good teacher. He would teach, not preach. He always had a good discussion going and if he could not get one going he would say something sorta not according to the gospel just to get folks a thinking. And most of the good teachers do this, to get interest going in class.
Only one of his sons went on a mission. Roger went to Samoa and did a fine job. I could not tell you which ones are active in church right now. It is none of my business. I am sure there are a few of them. Just like every family.
He got a job shingling the old 10th Ward chapel one year and it was a big job and he probably never made any money on it and did a lot of work on it. We had to put cedar shingles on it and it was steep and big, but we did get it done. He was always doing something for the ward as far as hauling gravel with his dump truck or using his back hoe or just a plain shovel.
Speaking of dump truck, he drove one of those or two for a long time and I guess he made some good money at it but he was working at the railroad at the time and hired some rinkie dink donkeys to drive for him and I think he lost money when he did that. But both him and Thad had a truck together. They would drive all day and then spend half the night fixing them up so they could drive the next day. And it was hard work skinning a truck, bouncing all day long and half of the night.
It seems like when they lived on Hilds (?) that he had his garage to work on cars but other donkeys seemed to have their cars in it all the time, and he was showing them how to fix something on their cars instead of his own.
Joe and Joyce alike have always been ones to take a lot of vitamin pills and such and it must have paid off for they have lived longer then I have. He always did respect our folks and cannot ever recall him saying anything derogatory about either one of them or anything that they had done.
I will have to tell you of something that happened in Georgetown that I cannot remember but he clumb out the window of the house one winter when there was a lot of snow on the roof and slid off and fell to the roundabout 15 feet below. By that time his twin, John, had run down and told our parents and they was headed outdoors. Joe was coming indoors unhurt but scared. I really think he lit on his head so it did not hurt him at all. One of those incidental things that everyone remembers all their life.
Both him and John was not supposed to live when they were born but they showed them dumb doctors, for they are still going and them doctors are long gone, I think. Ma put them close against her body to keep them warm and they came out of it and where they had went blue they got pink again. Thanks, Mom.
I cannot remember if I told, but me and Joe always did not get along. Again like all the others it was 99% of my fault. Joe was the one that tried to get me not to participate in sports after I had lost my sight for he knew that if I got bumped I would lose it for sure, what was left, but I didn’t listen to him either. I think I listened to him but did not do what he wanted me to do.
One time him and John and myself rode the train back to Omaha for cars and it was a lot of fun. A long ways back, though. We sat on the train and played that card game called O Shucks.
I went hunting with Joe and John and Reed one year and we took Joe’s trailer. And in the middle of the night one night I was sleeping on the top bunk right above Joe and it gave way and fell down and I lit right on top of Joe and boy O boy did I get some screaming and hollering out of him. It seems he was dreaming a dream and was about to fall off a cliff or something just as I fell on him and he thought he was had. I was laughing so hard at his hollering and shouting that I could not get up and the louder he hollered, the more I laughed, but I finally got off of him and from then on he would not let anyone sleep above him. I don’t blame him for it would be a surprise to have 200 lbs fall on you in the middle of the night.
The time that Joe and Thad and myself went to Yellowstone, we got arrested for having two too many fish in our possession and we had to drive clear back into Mammoth Falls for a trial and after we waited for two hours for the judge to sober up enough to try us, he said “I fine each and every one of you $5,” and it was either Joe or Thad said to him, “You cannot do that for I was the only one to catch too many fish,” talking about himself, not me. And so the judge said, “Okay, I will fine the group of you $5.” But we had to pull the boat and everything clear back there from West Yellowstone.
On the way out we stopped to watch this big bear and we gave him a cracker and he ate it and then he stuck his nose in the wing window and Joe rolled the window shut on his beak and when the bear reached up his paw to pull the window open, off of his beak, Thad pulled the car ahead so the bear fell down and then I lit a firecracker and threw it out the window and the bear, thinking it was some goodie, went over and was just about to eat it when it went off and boy O boy, that bear headed off through the toolies over trees, bushes and everything. And he may still be running. Now if we had got caught doing that, we would still be in jail, but we never.
Him and John were both in Rotten old TC (ROTC) up to Ogden High and Joe was some kind of an officer or something, for he had something different on his uniform than did John. I do not to this day know what rank he was but he was something. Joe never participated in school athletics on a team, that is, like John did, for John played football for Mound Fort, but he was a lot stronger and rougher than was Joe, I think.
Both Joe and John went into the Navy together, and trained at Farragut, Idaho. And then they got split up from then on. I do not think they was ever close to being together after that. Joe was stationed at Norfolk, Virginia, I know that, and I cannot even remember what kind of ship he was assigned to. I should for I used to really enjoy reading letters from all of my brothers that Ma would get from them telling of their exploits and feelings.
One story Joe tells is on Christmas Day he and another of his friends was walking down the street and I think they started to fight on Christmas Day, it was, and pushing each other around and this drunk came up and told them to quit fighting for Jesus did not like anyone to fight especially on Christmas. And so they quit fighting. I think they were just getting ready for the Japs, getting toughened up.
I don’t think he drank in the service, but he did send home a picture of him holding a bottle of beer in his hand. Maybe he was just advertising that brand.
I always thought they looked so neat in their bell bottom trousers with their thirteen buttons that had to be buttoned down, or up, whichever. I know they had to wear them while they were home and I was walking down the street one day downtown with Joe and Thad and an officer came along and Joe saluted him and I just about laughed but Joe said if he had not done it, he could be put in the brig for not saluting an officer. Later we had passed an army officer and he did not salute him. I asked Joe why. He said he was not in the army, but navy.
One time they all got leave at once and came home and we went to church and filled one whole row plus part of another. Ma was so proud and the same year we all went deer hunting together. That was the time that Pappy asked to get off work to go hunting with his boys who were home on leave and they would not let him off so he told them to take the job and shove it for he was going hunting with his sons, and he did. That must have been about 50 years ago.
When they got out of the service, Joe went to work, I think at a new car dealership on 28th and Washington, as a grease monkey. I think he had worked out to 2nd Street before he went in the service, or it may have been after, but he did work out there as did Thad and myself.
He leased a service station later on the corner of 18th and Washington. He called it Ace Hi Service and he did do a good job. His only problem was he hired too many crooked people to work for him and he would work his fanny off and his help would steal money, gas, and anything else they could get away with. Plus they would not do the outstanding work that Joe always did for folks and a lot of times he would have to do the work over again, where they all had goofed.
He married Joyce Jones not too long after he got home from the service. We were all impressed with her for she was a baton twirler for the railroad band and she really knew how to strut her stuff and she was a pretty girl.
One July 24th parade, after it, I remember Joe meeting her at the corner by the tabernacle and took John and another girl up to Monte Cristo and a bee happened to find its way into the car and was about to eat Joyce up and Joe went to slap it and ran off the road and Pappy’s Buick was just a teetering on the edge of a very steep cliff. They all got out okay and when they slammed the car door, he said the car rolled down the hill a few more feet. He never did say if he had killed the bee or not or if it had stung Joyce. I do not blame Joe for I would not like to have a bee get my honey either. He got a ride down to Ogden and Pappy had a neighbor take him up and pulled him back onto the road and the car was not hurt at all.
When I was 17, Thad and Joe and myself decided to go to Yellowstone and that was as good a trip as I had ever been on. We took Thad’s boat and we caught so many fish at Yellowstone Lake and it was a lot of fun. I think that Joe had gotten into trouble with Joyce for going up there that time. Anyway, she said she was about to leave him for doing it, which always made me feel like I was a jerk for having him take me. I really think that that was when I started to getting along with Joe better.
During the Korean War, John got called back into the Navy from being in the reserves and while he was stationed at San Diego, we decided to drive down to see him. Joe, Joyce, Nellie and myself. I had laryngitis and could not talk the whole trip and took sick leave from 2nd Street to go. It was an enjoyable trip. I think Nellie was pregnant with her Ricky at the time. We got into a very bad blizzard around Cedar City and could not even see the road, just could get in the tracks of a semi and follow them until the semi ended up in the bar pit. We stayed in a motel called the Blue Bell, close to the ship yards.
We went down to Tijuana where the three of us boys was walking down the road and this cab pulled up alongside of us and said, “let’s go see the girls,” and we kept on walking and he pulled up again and said the same thing again and we told him no and he dug out of there praising the Lord in Spanish, I think is what he was doing. We also went up to Los Angeles and drove up through Hollywood and some fancy houses.
On the way we bought some oranges and boy were they ever good. I have never tasted any better oranges in my life than they were. John hated to go back on his ship but he did and we came home and it had snowed at least a foot when we got home.
Joe always seemed to be the one to get his deer when we went hunting. He got his money’s worth out of it, though, for he would usually take him a dozen shots to get it but get it he would.
I will tell a little about Joyce now. I really think it was hard for Joyce to get accustomed to our family, for she had come from a family where she only had one sister and no brothers. And although she was not a high falluting gal, she had not been around jerks like myself. She had met Joe when she was 14 years old at something up to Ogden High although she was not going there yet. Then Joe went into the Navy and she waited for him. She came out to see Ma a couple of times during while Joe was gone and she was very friendly and courteous and treated Ma and Pa very good as far as I could tell.
She tells of how Ma advised her to go everywhere with Joe and that she has done most of the time even to get cars, she did go. Unless she was going to or having or had a young one. I cannot say whether I got along with her okay or not. Probably more not than did and there again it was my fault for I was an unadulterated jerk that did not know how to mind my own business. For some reason, I always felt like I was not…well, forget about that part.
Of all the in-laws, I think Joyce changed more than any of them. My way of looking, it was for the better. Maybe to her folks’ way of looking, to the worse, for it did not take her long for her to start enjoying getting out and so to speak, letting her hair down and joining in and having fun. I think she realized that the Tippets was not going to change and so she had to if she wanted to enjoy life. I think we got a little bit more civilized too.
One thing I admire about Joyce is that she has never had a mansion to live in, always a nice house, but nothing fancy at all, and never have I heard any complaints about how someone else is living better than do they. She has always been a good mother to her kids and although, like some of all of our kids, they do not admit that she really did, and she loved them all and still does, and like Joe would do anything for them, even if it makes it a hardship on them, financially and otherwise.
Joe was the only one from my family that went down to the temple with us when we got married, and I really appreciated that. As a matter of fact, if it had not been for him, I would have given them down there the wrong name for my mom. I always thought her name was Retta Wixom, but it was not. It was Hanna Emeretta Wixom, for I had told them wrong and he said I had to give them the right name and I told him that was her right name and he said it was not. Thanks, Joe.
He started to work for the railroad around 1952 or 1953 and worked for them the rest of his working days until he retired in about 1980 something. Both him and John hired in at the same time as switchmen and that is what they stayed as. They had to work some of the dumbest shifts, I thought.
He always has sold cars along with working and I think he will always sell them, although now it is doing him dirt. I remember getting in a wreck once and he took the blame for it so it would go on his record instead of mine, for he thought I would lose my license if I got one. I cannot recall how it all happened, but he sure nuff did. I think it was I ran into a car once and did not call the cops and he told the insurance man that I was not driving, that he was. Thanks again, Joe.
One year Joe and Joyce went to Yellowstone and he told us if we wanted to, to come up there. It was before we had any kids so we did drive up with them to fish and stuff with them. But Joyce’s folks was there and he did not like it for us to be there. Joyce’s dad, I mean, and so he would not even eat with us. He would go and buy him a hamburger or something. But still he was a good feller. I really liked Wally and his wife got along good with them as far as I know. Before I closed up the store, she would dial my number instead of Joe’s and I would enjoy visiting with her.
Joyce is a very good cook, nothing fancy, but just a good ordinary cook like I liked her cooking. I really think she would have been an excellent pioneer, for she would get along with whatever she had to get along with or without. She is not against to get her hands dirty whether it is working in the yard or helping on a car or chopping wood or even dragging out logs from the mountains, and not complain and as a matter of fact, last year while she was chopping wood, she said, “I really enjoy doing this,” and she wished she could do it longer at a time for it made her feel good, but her muscles would ache if she did it too long. We used to go on overnighters with them and it was fun.
He bowled, did Joe, with us in a league one year and he did good except where he had a broken leg, it threw him off just enough so he could not control the ball the way he wanted to, for it must have hurt him when he approached the line.
The last operation I had on my eyes, Joe and Joyce let me stay down there to recuperate for no one at home to take care of me and I had to be on my back for three weeks after I got out of the hospital and I really appreciated it. For taking care of a 20 year old turkey, everything from food to bed pan had to be done for me and that is not easy. And not a word of complaint. This would have to have been around 1950.
I cannot recall Joyce holding any position in the ward, although I am sure she did. Joe has never been afraid of talking in church or doing his duty otherwise, work for the Lord, nor has he asked to do anything. He just does his job, whichever he can. While I was Elder’s quorum president, he taught the class and did a fine job. One day I had just got my artificial eye and was sitting on the front row and he was teaching the class and I reached up to scratch my eye and that artificial eye popped right out and rolled across the tile floor. Joe tried to appease me later by saying that no one had seen it, but both he and I knew they had seen it, but I reached down and picked it up and went and found Terry and had him put it back in for me. Thanks again, Joe.
I forgot about the time that we was building our house and he would get up early in the morning, come out and help me haul gravel and then help me mix cement for our footing and foundation. As a matter of fact, most of my brothers did.
We went back on a trip to get cars back to Kansas City and to Omaha, Denver and Texas and other places and it was a lot of fun and a lot of work. Barbara went to Kansas, to Texas, to Denver with us and Joe to drive cars back. He had enough faith in Barbara enough that he hooked up a tow bar and had her tow a car all the way home from Texas 1200 miles.