John Lamro Hoopes
October 4, 2002
One of the many histories I have written about myself
This is the first time I have used a modern laptop computer. It is Friday evening, 9:30 pm. I am at Sun Valley, Idaho, staying at the main hotel to attend the Idaho Hospital Association board of director’s meeting tomorrow morning, which starts at 7:30 am. I am going to write about some of the things that have happened in my life that may, in the future, be of interest to my posterity. The kind of things that if written by any of my ancestors would be of interest to me.
I was born in November 1946 in Safford, Graham County, Arizona. I was born at the Ellsworth Maternity Hospital, which was across the street from the Buena Vista Hotel, the largest and finest in Safford. They were on the east end of Main Street, and both have been torn down, the hospital in the 1950s and the hotel in the 1970s.
When my mother was attending high school in Safford she had two jobs that she has told me about. One was as a waitress at the Star Cafe, on Main Street, which was owned by a Chinese family. The food was both American and Chinese. I remember eating there as a high school age person, but the café is gone now too. The other job my mother had was as a Anursefor Dr. Spencer Ellsworth, who was an osteopath. During the Second World Ward, nurses were in short supply and doctors took anyone they could, as the licensing rules were not as strict as they are today. She worked the Agraveyardshift, as she called the night shift. This consisted mostly of watching the patients who were staying all night. She was sometimes the only employee there. They taught her how to give medications, etc. She said that sometimes drug seekers would come in asking for a shot and she was shown how to give them a shot of saline water just to get them to go. I need to confirm this with her, as she is still alive and well and would tell me about this.
Dr. Ellsworth, being a DO, was, I supposed, ostracized by the other doctors, all I presume were MDs. I don’t think he practiced at the local hospital, called the Morris Squibb Hospital, which was a private hospital located in Safford, and was also torn down during the 1970s before they built the Mt. Graham Community Hospital. I had my plantar’s wart removed by Dr. Donald Nelson at this old hospital.
My mother, having worked for Dr. Ellsworth, felt comfortable going there to have me. The rest of my siblings were delivered by MDs at the other hospital, I suppose because Dr. Ellsworth moved, I believe to Mesa.
When I was born my parents were living in a Arent houseowned by my mother’s parents, Ida and Fred Russell, in Safford. I remember these places well. They were built by Fred during the 1930’s and early 1940s, when he was otherwise unemployed and then worked on after he was employed at the Inspection Station (where my dad worked after they were married and they at the end of his career.) The complex, which was across the street from the present Catholic Church in Safford, has also been torn down, as have so many of the old buildings. It consisted of a row of apartments, going east west, with my grandparent’s place at the northeast end. On that side of the row, from the northeast end was their house, really an apartment consisting of a small living room, small kitchen and one bedroom. Then, east of that was a laundry room used by the entire complex, and above the laundry room, accessible by a set of rather steep stairs east of my grandparent’s apartment, a bedroom used by the Russell girls, Elaine (until she was married), Caroldeene (also married by the time I could remember) and Jeanne, who was unmarried and sleeping in that bedroom when I can remember. My sister Jean and I spent the night in that bedroom on several occasions that I can remember. Since the bedroom didn’t have a bathroom, and to get to the bathroom required going down the stairs outside, and into my grandparent’s apartment, I remember taking a quart jar to Apeein during the night. I don’t remember what Jean did.
I remember my grandparent’s home well, even though my grandmother died when I was about 12 and they didn’t live there after that. In the living room was a large console radio set that my grandfather Russell listened to in the evenings. I distinctly remember listening with him to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth from England. Grandpa was quite interested in history and made listening to this historic event important.
In the kitchen, which was long and narrow, there was a table, which Grandma seemed to have a plate of left over breakfast on much of the time. At least I remember eating cold toast and crisp cold bacon in the afternoon and evening time. It seems that she made extra for snaking during the day.
I also distinctly remember that she used Palmolive soap and in the bathroom was Lava hand soap, which Grandpa used on his hands after working. Grandma washed me many times with a wash rag and that Palmolive soap, and to smell it today (although they may have changed the smell, etc.) reminds me of her.
Once I remember getting into some paint and she took me in and washed it off with the Palmolive soap. I thought it was a miracle, maybe because I thought all paint had to be removed with paint thinner, etc. (I don’t know if it was water based or oil based paint.)
Grandma was a small lady, very nice to me and I enjoyed being around her. She never learned to drive a car and always walked where ever she went if she couldn’t get a ride. I remember walking with her to the beauty shop and sitting while she had her hair done. On the way home we stopped at Tex’s Café, which was later moved to Thatcher. It was close to her home, on the main highway. I remember having pie, which the Texan who owned the café pronounced paa with her Texas accent.
Also at grandma’s I also remember playing in the back yard, which was east and behind the shop, which was on the south row of buildings. The shop had a garage on the end and places for grandpa to work, going west, there were 3 or 4 apartments, which were rented out. On the west of the north row, there was one apartment, I believe bigger and nicer than those on the south side, which was also rented out. Then to the south of the row was a lone rental apartment, where we lived for the first year of my life. I don’t remember living in it, but I did visit it later in life when there weren’t renters inside.
Behind (to the south of) the shop and the apartments was a fence and about maybe 10 feet of dirt. Along the fence grandpa planted blackberries, which I remember picking and eating. We had family parties in the lawn area to the east, and there is a picture taken during one of these parties showing Aunt Caroldeene, Uncle Keith and their children, etc.
Typing these things brings many other things to mind, and I suppose I could type pages and pages of things I remember.
In grandma’s bedroom, above the bed were the two pictures she and grandpa received as wedding presents that now hang above our bed. Also in this bedroom was a blonde spinet piano that belonged to my Aunt Jeanne. I was allowed to play it, but I had to be very careful with it. I don’t remember hearing my grandmother Russell play the piano, but mother has told me that she could.
From an early age I loved music and especially the organ and to a lesser degree the piano. I was given piano lessons from several teachers. My mother paid for these lessons by doing laundry for different people, including my dad’s boss Mr. Brooks. She also did laundry, including ironing, for Nell Caton, who gave Jean and I dancing lessons.
The first piano teacher I remember was a lady in Safford who also had an organ in her living room. If I was good (played well and practiced) she let me play the organ and also gave me orange soda to drink. I remember being given a new assignment and asking the teacher to play it for me so I could hear it. I was able to remember how it went, following along with the music, and didn’t have a very hard time remembering how to play it without really learning the notes or timing. I learned the notes by remembering little things like Aall cars eat gasetc. I didn’t have to practice very hard to do well with my lessons because I could remember how the pieces went and I impressed the teacher until she figured out what I was doing. Then we didn’t get along so well and I complained to my mother that she wasn’t a good teacher and we found another teacher. I had many teachers because of this and didn’t ever learn to read music very well.
As a youth I remember that Bishop Gordon’s Stowell’s wife, Bernice Stowell, always played the Hammond organ in church. I remember later in life hearing that she was the ward organist for over 40 years. When others played it when she wasn’t available, which wasn’t often, they didn’t play as well as she did. I really wanted to play that organ and I had to get past her to do it. I took lessons from her for a short period of time, but, like all the rest, when she figured out I was lazy and didn’t practice, she gave up on me. She didn’t want to teach me to play the organ and gave me several excuses. I later believed the reason is that she didn’t want to teach me to be a Aleft footed organistlike she was, which, maybe was a blessing, but at the time I didn’t think it was. When I turned twelve I asked Bishop Stowell if I could play the organ for priesthood meeting, since no one generally played. I was pleasantly surprised when he gave me my own key to the church so I could play the organ. I kept that key until I left for my mission and spent many hours, even late at nights, playing that Hammond organ. I taught myself and experimented quite a bit with it. When I took physics at EAC I even did an assignment on the elements of sound using that organ. (The teacher was from India and didn’t want to go to the church, so I just wrote about how the Hammond organ could imitate orchestral sounds by breaking them into the harmonic parts.)
Before leaving for my mission, perhaps a year before, I bought a Wollensack (made by 3M) reel to reel tape recorder to record the organ. When I was on my mission I wrote and asked my mother to sell the recorder and send me the money, which is what I bought my first 35mm camera with. My first camera I bought in Switzerland, it was, I believe made by Agfa, which I then sold in Italy and bought a Pentax Spotmatic for $100. This camera came in a wooden box from Japan and sent to Switzerland to the mission home, which sent it to me and I had to pay dearly to get it through the Adoganain Torino, Italy.
I went to Tucson once with a friend and we stopped at a music store, where I played a large electronic organ. We also went to a Baptist church, were we could see organ pipes in the front window, and they let me play the organ. I didn’t play many organs, except the Hammond organ at the church, until I was on my mission.
I was called to the Swiss Mission to labor in Italy. My parents took me to the airport in Phoenix, Sky Harbor (the old building now was the only building then). As I was waiting in line to fly to Salt Lake City, mother spotted N. Eldon Tanner, who was then, I believe an apostle. She didn’t have any problem introducing us (much to my embarrassment) and she then asked him to Atake care of meon the trip to the mission home in Salt Lake. He did as asked, and I sat next to him and he had his limo take me to the Mission Home, which was an old building next to temple square, with an underground tunnel to the Hotel Utah, where we ate. Some of the other missionaries arriving at the time I did wondered what kind of a VIP I was, being left off with President Tanner in his limo.
We spent a week in the mission home before leaving for our missions. There was no language training then, at least not in Italian, and my mission call was for 2.5 years so I would have enough time to learn the language. While in the mission home they asked who played the piano to accompany the hymns, and I raised my hand. I was asked to play a time or two, and they must have been impressed with my playing, because they asked me to accompany the hymns for our Afarewellwhich was held in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square on, I believe, Friday or Saturday evening. I was able to go to the Assembly Hall to practice the organ (I believe it was an old Kimball pipe organ, not too remarkable, which has now been replaced with a wonderful tracker organ.) Jesse Evans Smith, wife of Joseph Fielding Smith, had a grandson leaving for a mission and she sang a solo of the 4th Section of the D & C for the farewell.
When I got to Italy and my companions wanted to take me to see the old churches, I got them to ask if I could play the organ (this is before I could speak well enough to do my own asking). It sort of embarrassed them, so I had to coax them along, but they generally obliged. The first old organ I played was in the cathedral in Pordenone. This was a very old organ not restored. I thought the sound was divine, especially the acoustics in that old building. We went on a regular basis to the church of San Giuseppi di Padova so I could play the organ there, it was newer and larger. I played many organs all over Italy and still remember some specifics about them. I took pictures of some of them, but didn’t have a tape recorder to record them.
Here are a few I can remember: The Duomo organ in Milano, one of the biggest in the world (I had my picture taken with it.) The organ at the cathedral in Cremona, where they made the famous violins. That organ had more than usual Avioltype stops on it. The small organ (the large one was not working) in the cathedral in Florence. I played many in Florence, including the one at the Protestant Church in Florence, where the likes of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, etc., worshiped. I remember playing one in a smaller church, probably very famous, where I watched a young German (hippie type, long blonde hair, in his twenties) play for quite a while. I remember he wore very short shorts and did not wear any shoes, but had a great pedal technique. He was playing Buxtehude, which is the first time I heard it and I really liked it. I played in an elementary school church in Torino which had lots of paintings on the walls of people in balconies, and from the floor it looked very real, I also took pictures of these. I played an old organ in Torino, of which I have a picture, where there was a stop that sounded like frogs croaking, and this is where I was given a very old leather bound prayer book by the brother (not a priest, but a man wearing a brown hooded robe) who led us to the organ. They had many of them they were apparently disposing of and thought it was a neat gift. I still have it. I also played a small organ in Cortena di Ampi, where they had the winter Olympics a few years previous. Elder John Blazard was my companion (this was before I could speak Italian, and he was more comfortable speaking German.) He took a picture of me playing the organ with the priest looking at me. I played the organ in the cathedral at the place above Bergamo where they bottle water. I played many in Bergamo, but not in the cathedral. In Pordenone I played at an old monestary out of town, where a professor of music, Giuseppi Zanaboni, had recorded the organ for a record of old Italian classical instruments. I also played the small portative organ, and photographed it, in his home. He wasn’t interested in hearing the missionary lessons, but did let us visit him. I also visited the home on the outskirts of Pordenone of a wealthy physician, who had a small pipe organ in his home, and played it. I was able to play one of the organs in St. Peter in the Vatican for a short period of time. I saw the organ at the cathedral in Venice, but they wouldn’t let me play it. I did play other organs in Venice. On my way home, I played organs in Amsterdam and Harlem, which are very famous, and then in London I played the one in the Methodist Church near the Catholic cathedral (St. Paul I believe) which is where the Westley brothers preached and introduced their hymns. I was not allowed to play the one in either St. Paul or Westminster. I did play many smaller organs and a nice pipe organ at the LDS Hyde Park chapel. It was while playing that 3 manual organ, of which I took a picture, that I wondered why we couldn’t have nice pipe organs in our chapels to play.
I could continue to write a lot about my organ playing experiences.
When I thought about writing this history, I thought about some of the things we take for granted now that I remember not having.
When I was in grade and high school in Thatcher I always wore white undershirts under my button down shirts, which had to be ironed. (I bought my shirts generally at either J Greens or Penneys in Safford, with money I made working. They cost about $3 to $5, depending on whether they were on sale.) It was okay to wear just the t-shirt for athletics, etc., and some guys wore the ribbed tank top type underwear, but they were not any color but white and did not have writing or graphics on them. No one I can remember ever wore a t-shirt like they do today. When I returned home from my mission, in the mid 1960s, people were beginning to wear t-shirts as shirts. The first one I ever had/wore was designed by a roommate at the Sigma Gamma Chi house in Tucson, where I lived. He was an art major, Pat was his first name, I can’t remember his last name. He was an art major who designed graphics for t-shirts for an institute car rally using a silk screen. He printed the shirts, I believe in just blue ink on white heavy t-shirts he bought at Penneys, on our kitchen table. I wore this shirt for the car rally, where I went with Ellen Gardner to Nogales, Mexico. This was the first time I ever wore a t-shirt as a shirt, by then I had garments under it, and I believe it was the first time that any of us wore a t-shirt.
When I was in elementary school we wore leather shoes, like dress shoes today. They were either black or brown and had to be polished. Big boys polished theirs with Kiwi wax, and put a Aspit shineon them. Little boys could use liquid polish out of a bottle, which I did at least every Saturday night to wear shiny shoes to church. We had Atennis shoeswhich were generally made from white cotton canvas, AKedswere a popular brand and cost about $5 or so. When they got dirty they could be washed in the washing machine and we only wore them for playing tennis. Basketball shoes were generally black canvas and football shoes had cleats. I remember wearing Keds white tennis shoes to high school when I was older, beneath my Levis (no respectable person wore any brand but Levies, except the Acowboyswho wore form fitting Wranglers.) When I was a freshman in high school we were Ainitiatedand I had to come as a baby, so I wore a white sheet as a diaper, but I wore my black leather shoes because it hurt my feet to walk on the rocks, etc., so we weren’t wearing tennis shoes then, as white tennis shoes would have gone better with the diaper.
Levis had to be Aboiledto shrink them to fit. I don’t remember wearing anything but black socks to school. I generally wore a Levi jacket in the winter. I enjoyed using Parker T-ball jotter ball point pens, which I bought for about $1 at my great uncle’s drug store. I also enjoyed writing with fountain pens and dip pens in high school, but never owned a good fountain pen.
When I was in high school we had a librarian, Mrs. Emily Philpott, who had been a librarian at the Library of Congress. She took a liking to me, even though I was obnoxious in her study halls. She used an Esterbrook fountain pen, blue I believe, and she wrote in a fairly fancy script. She turned the point upside down and could write very tiny. She never let me use her pen, it was too personal, but she did let me, encouraged me, to write with dip pens, which made a heavier line when you pressed and lighter when you didn’t. She had me letter signs for the bulletin board, which advertised new books. We didn’t call it calligraphy, just writing fancy with a dip pen. The style she taught me, by writing it out on a piece of paper and had me copy it, is called copper point engraving in a cursive style, not the italic calligraphy that was fairly popular before you could do it on a computer.
When I was a freshman I had to take a study hall from Mrs. Philpott. We weren’t supposed to take typing until our sophomore year. I went to study hall a few times and hated it. One day the superintendent/principal, Jack S. Daley (who was also the stake president) came in the study hall and said there weren’t enough students in Miss Nakamura’s (she was Hawaiian) typing class and asked for volunteers. I really wanted to leave study hall, so he let me go. I had damaged my little finger on my left hand some how and it was painful to type on those old manual typewriters with that finger, so I made a bad habit of not using that pinky, which took years to get over. I did learn to type quite well and was happy I was able to take the class. I wasn’t one of Miss Nakamura’s favorites, she liked the older girls and only put up with the boys, but I thought she was a good teacher. I remember taking timed writings and was getting in the 80s, which was pretty good for a boy. Boys weren’t supposed to be able to type as well as girls, and I was sort of an anomaly. The jocks in high school would not have been caught dead taking typing, that was for girls. I did take shop though, and was pretty good at making things from wood.
It is now Saturday afternoon, I just returned from watching general conference afternoon session at the church in Ketchum, Idaho, about a mile from Sun Valley. It was a wonderful conference session. However, rather than tell about the session, which one could watch on a recording, I will tell more about my personal associations with general authorities.
I was raised in Thatcher, Arizona, hometown of Spencer W. Kimball, who was a prophet, including the years he served as an apostle, which is when I had the most to do with him. My mother said that before he left Safford to become a general authority, he was the stake president, he was the ward teacher, which is what home teachers used to be called, to the Fred Russell family. When he visited he enjoyed playing their piano. He came to visit them before he left, as he did many people in the Gila Valley to ask their permission if he had done anything to offend them. I remember driving past his home on Reay Lane in Safford.
From time to time he would attend our sacrament meeting in Thatcher. In those years we held our meetings in the only church in Thatcher, the old tuffa stone building built by President Kimball’s father, Andrew, who was sent to Thatcher as the stake president. This grand old building, which in Utah or Idaho would have probably been called the Atabernaclewas the building I attended when I was being raised, and left from my mission from. It had some gothic designs, the windows were classical gothic and it had an old grandeur. There were two pulpits, one lower in the middle and one higher, on the right hand side (as you looked at it.) There was a large choir section in front and desks on either side of the center pulpit for the sacrament. As I recall, the bread was on one side and the water on the other (maybe this isn’t so, I need to ask someone else to see how they remember it, even though as a deacon I was given the trays from this or these desks and as a priest I blessed the sacrament. I remember the old silver, it needed to be polished, service for the sacrament, including a very large ornate pitcher for the extra water. We used paper cups, although originally there were little glass cups. Unfortunately, there was no pipe organ, only a Hammond organ, which I suspect replaced a reed or pump organ. In the front, center wall, was a picture of the prophet, David O. McKay, the current prophet. On the right was a board on which was put up in moveable letters, the sacrament gem, which we said before the sacrament was served in Sunday School. In the back, on the west side, was a door leading to the closet that contained the rope for ringing the big bell in the belfry on the roof. Near that door was Brother Bailey’s bench.
Bro. Bailey was a black man who lived on the road to Central in a shack by the side of the railroad track. Some said he made moonshine, but I never went to his house or knew anyone who did. He was generally at sacrament meeting on Sunday. Only the young kids sat with him, as there was sort of segregation then. (Actually, the two theaters in Safford only allowed colored people, also called niggers, to sit in the balconies in the back.) I distinctly remember while sitting at the sacrament table, where I could see the congregation, seeing a little man in a suit come in late and sit down by Brother Bailey, and shake his hand. I didn’t, at first recognize the man, but after Bishop Stowell realized who was there, he got up and asked Apostle Kimball to come up to the stand and address us. Spencer acknowledged his old friend, Brother Bailey. I remembered that and thought of it on that day at work in Douglas, many years later, when our laundry man, Brother Huish, came into my office and said he heard on the radio that the prophet, Brother Bailey’s friend, had received a revelation to give the priesthood to all worthy men, regardless of race. My first reaction was anxiety, as I had always been told that when the day came that black men could hold the priesthood the world would be coming to the end. I wished that old Brother Bailey could have been alive then to know what had happened.
When I was on my mission in Italy the president of the European Mission was Ezra Taft Benson. He came to a mission conference in Florence, addressed us in conference and then interviewed all of us individually. When he talked to me he asked how I was related to the Hoopes’ in Oakland, California (Lorenzo Hoopes and his family) as Lorenzo had worked with President Benson in Washington, DC when he was the Secretary of Agriculture. Lorenzo went on to become a senior vice president of Safeway. I told President Benson that I didn’t know how we were related, but I suspected we were (we are). Then, because my companion and I were asked to accompany President and Sister Benson around the town, as he went to get a hair cut, shop for his grandchildren, etc. I had my picture taken with them and spent the greater part of a day with them. I served as a translator and remember telling the barber, who had cut my hair before, that he had just cut the hair of an apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ.
When we were living in Cottage Grove I was a home teacher to Brother Jim Spear, who was from Louisiana. He had become re-activated and sat by us in stake conference when the visiting general authority was Bruce R. McConkie, an apostle. The evening before, for the adult session of conference, for which I had played the tracker pipe organ, I watched Elder McConkie come in looking like Adeath warmed overand not spend much time shaking hands after the session. Apparently he offended a sister, who called the stake president to complain. Word reached Elder McConkie, who I think was suffering from cancer and who was doing well to just attend conference. However, the next morning he came early and did not attend meetings prior to conference. He went in and spoke to the junior Sunday school children, who were meeting in their own room, and then went to the back of the cultural hall, which had been opened to the chapel, and started shaking hands with everyone who was in the building, making his way to the front of the building. When he came to us, he shook our hands and Brother Spear, who I was not sure knew who the apostle was, said in his Looziana drawl Aso, you’re one of the head honchos, aren’t youto which Elder McConkie responded something like, AI guess you could say that. It was sort of embarrassing, but interesting to see. I believe Elder McConkie gave his final address in general conference and then died not long after that from cancer.
I was always fascinated by Catholic churches. There was an old one across the street from the high school in Thatcher, both have now been razed. When I was a kid the old adobe church was there but not used, it was boarded up. Once, after school, some friends and I were able to break in from the back, as we wanted to see what it looked like inside. The pews were still in place, and they had left large colorful flowers, made from crepe paper, on those pews when they closed it up. There was also an old Catholic church in Safford, where is now (unless they have torn it down too) a bank across the main highway from the post office. I went inside briefly, like looked inside from the front door, before I went on my mission, as I was afraid to enter Catholic churches. Of course, I saw many of them on my mission, and was still fascinated with them and with their rituals. When we went to a new city, one of the first things we did is check out the big churches, including the duomo (cathedral) which was in the middle of town. Their doctrines were interesting, but I enjoyed the rituals, and was able to play the organ for several masses in Italy. Once, in Piacenza the entire district went to mass when I played the organ. Everything I played was a Mormon hymn, which was not known by the priest or the people, but certainly was by the missionaries, who thought it was great.
Before the Sunday that Mark was blessed we went to three different church meetings a day. Priesthood meeting was generally first, after which we went home and came back in the morning for Sunday School. In Thatcher they rang the big bell, which could be heard all over town, for Sunday School. Sometimes if I came early I got to ring it. It was Brother Moody, the head custodian’s job to ring the bell. In Sunday School, which included Junior Sunday School, we took the sacrament. We had Aaronic priesthood in both Sunday Schools to administer the sacrament. Then we went back during mid afternoon or early evening for Sacrament meeting, which lasted at least two hours. They started the 3 hour blocks while we were living in Cottage Grove on the fast Sunday that Mark was blessed.
Some other things have been changed somewhat in the church. You could go do baptisms for the dead after you were baptized, at age 8. I remember going to Mesa from Thatcher several times with my Primary teacher, in the back of her station wagon, to do baptisms. The set-up was different at the temple for baptisms. We had a chapel session. I remember a white reed (pump) organ there, which I wanted to play so badly my teeth ached, but they only let the old ladies play it. We were baptized by the temple workers, who I remember said the words so fast we couldn’t understand them. On the way home one time we stopped and had Harmons (later to become Kentucky Fried) chicken.
I had my patriarchial blessing on my 12th birthday from our stake patriarch, Charles Ether Ferrin. He did not have anyone to take notes, and they weren’t using tape recorders, so my mother went with me and wrote down, in longhand, everything he said. He talked slowly and repeated himself for mother. She typed it out too. Among other things he said that Ayour sins in this life are forgiven youand for many years I wished that I had waited to have that blessing so I would have had my sins forgiven. This was before I understood the principle of repentance and its relationship with the sacrament, which means that you can be as free from sins after worthily partaking of the sacrament as you are when you come out of the water of baptism. Later in his life mother took care of Brother Ferrin in the nursing home.
Mother worked in the nursing home in Safford to earn money to send me and Fred on our missions to Italy. She was a nurse’s aide and the work was hard. I appreciate her doing that for us. She always wanted to be a nurse, and after Eastern Arizona College got its nursing program started, she was accepted. She had previously testified in a malpractice trial in Safford against the doctors, and so she was sort of on their blacklist. She did not do well in math, so they did not pass her. She become an EMT instead and actually went on a few calls. She then started taking care of elderly people in their own homes. She took care of Mrs. Norwood for years, and also a lady who lived a long way out on a ranch at Klondyke, which is southwest of Pima, perhaps more than 40 miles from Thatcher on a dirt road. This lady’s son, who was in his 20s, and was somewhat retarded, had a crush on mother and she had some interesting stories to tell. She ended up taking care of Grandpa Russell and Martha, his second wife. She did this in the house they bought across the street from us from the blind EAC English teacher, Brother Johnson. For doing this and not receiving compensation at the end through the estate, she ended up owning the home, which she and Dad moved into. They rented out their old home that Dad built, and mother sold it when Dad died.
My relationship with my father was, I thought, pretty good, but we were not as close as Fred and he were. I always regretted that. While I was on my mission Dad acquired the back fields from Grandpa Hoopes, and Dad raised horses and calves. Fred learned those skills, but I didn’t learn to do anything but mow the big lawn, which he turned into a garden.
I also had, what I thought, was a good relationship with my Grandpa Hoopes. He owned a hardware store right next to the Thatcher Pharmacy on main street. Grandpa had a lawn chair in the front on the store, which I remember him sitting in most of the time, talking with the other old men. Grandpa did not Aretirehe just sat in the store. I am not sure he sold much stuff, and remember the shelves not having much and what they did have was dusty, etc. My Dad did clean out the front and put a desk in when he sold insurance for Farm Bureau for a few years.
Grandpa had an old red pickup truck and he drove home for dinner (lunch) every day, leaving a little after noon. I tried to time my walking home from school for lunch so I could meet him and ride home. I generally walked back to school after lunch.
I went on lots of hunting trips with Dad and Grandpa Hoopes, mostly quail hunting. They really enjoyed their deer hunting trips, which they spent a week out with the other old men in town. I never went on these, as they happened when I was in school. I remember walking miles with the heavy 12 gauge shotgun and shooting a coveys of quail, generally doing pretty good. Many times we started early and had quite a few by mid morning, when it was warming up. We went in the fall, so it was not really hot. We went to a wash and sat under big mesquite trees and built a fire. Dad and Grandpa cleaned the quail, floured and salted and peppered (they liked to use lots of pepper) and cooked the quail in hot Crisco in a Dutch oven. We had bread (generally white from the store) and butter to eat with the quail. They were pretty good that way. Then we napped and went hunting again in the afternoon.
I also remember sitting many hours on the banks of lakes, especially Riggs Flat on Mt. Graham, with Dad and Grandpa. We used treble hooks with salmon eggs and caught the planted rainbow trout. Sometimes we stayed overnight in Grandpa’s cabin. I remember one trip when we took my cousin Jack. We (Jack and me) slept together in a soft old bed with squeaky springs and didn’t sleep very well. It rained pretty hard that night and the noise on the tin roof also kept us awake. We talked a lot about bears, but didn’t see one until after I was married and took my little kids to Riggs Flat Lake, when we saw a bear cub by the lake.
I enjoyed fishing more than hunting, but I did both, just to be with my Dad and Grandpa Hoopes. Grandpa Russell hunted some, but I don’t ever remember going hunting or fishing with him. He was always working on the farm,7 days a week. We went to the farm and visited, and we fished for bluegill and sometimes we also caught turtles, catfish and occasionally a bass in the ponds by his house. He wanted to know what we caught, but never did fish with us. He was always working on a tractor or something. I remember one time going out on a Saturday and going swimming in one of the ponds with some cousins. Grandma Russell was there and I remember her sitting on the bank watching us, remarking to mother and to us how beautiful and perfect our bodies were. She died shortly after that, so I did not have many experiences with her at the farm. In fact, that was even before Grandpa built the house.
Grandma Russell had a house in Safford, on the way to the farm, that was painted yellow, she called her Adream house She wanted Grandpa to build one like that for her. She died before that happened. Grandpa was pretty lonely when Grandma died, so his boss, (Grandpa was working at the employment office) fixed him up with a widowed secretary at the welfare office, Martha Pauline Mullins. She was a Methodist, although not too active. He was not active at all in the LDS Church, so that didn’t matter to him. We called her Martha and her friends called her Pauline. Grandpa bought a grocery store, which he and grandma tried to run for a while, but that failed. Then grandma died and grandpa married Martha, sold the apartments and moved into her house, which was on the Bowie Highway (which is what we called the highway leading South from Safford to the freeway, east to Bowie and west to Willcox and Tucson.). They were building their home in Lebanon, or Cactus, or Cactus FlatCwe called it all those things.
We would go to the farm on Sunday afternoons and mother would fix Martha’s hair, we kids would hang around Grandpa, who was fixing his tractor or something, then he would come in and we would either eat dinner or some dessert, like watermelon or ice cream. Mother would tell Martha about the church and just about had her converted. Martha said she would join the LDS Church in a heartbeat if she thought that Fred would be okay with it. She read the Book of Mormon, perhaps mother read it to her, and I believe she had a testimony of it and of the restoration. She became senile, as did he. In his senility and while writing his life story so he would have something to leave to his posterity, his testimony was re-kindled and he became active enough to go to the temple and have Ida and his children sealed to him. We were living in Oregon and I came to Arizona for that, which was a wonderful experience. It is too bad he was so old to appreciate it. Unfortunately, Martha was too senile by then to be baptized. Her only daughter, Mary, did not want her to be baptized. After Martha died mother went and did her work, although she didn’t have Mary’s permission to do it. After Grandpa died, Mary took Martha to Nogales, where she lived, and put her in the nursing home there. We went to visit her once there and she was pretty senile and I am not sure really recognized us. Mary was pretty antagonistic toward the church. When Martha died Mary had her cremated before anyone knew what had happened. I actually knew Martha more and for more years than I did my grandmother. I never did call her anything by Martha.
My paternal grandmother Nora Lamoreaux, died in July when I was 7 months old, and could walk. I can’t remember her at all. Grandpa had mother and dad move in with him so mother could take care of the house and his kids. I could look up the ages to be sure, but I think Jerry was about 12 and Nell was about 8; pretty young to lose their mother. She died of heart disease when she was in her 50s. Nell went to live with Uncle Glen and Aunt Lavona, who didn’t have any children. As far as I know, she always called them that, because she saw her dad almost every day at the store next Uncle Glen and Uncle Nat’s drug store. The uncles married sisters, Lavona and Ilene Larson, so they were pretty close.
After being single for about a year, Grandpa Hoopes married Olive Palmer Robinson. She was a widow and had two sons who came to live with them. Jerry Hugh was a few years older than Jerry Hoopes, and I don’t think they got along. Joe was about Jerry’s age. Olive had a daughter who was older and perhaps married by then, I never knew her. Jerry had a real rough time and joined the Navy as soon as he could. Olive seemed to get along well with Grandpa and she was always cordial with me, but never treated me like a grandma. I never did have much to do with her and when I went to their home for Thanksgiving or to see our cousins, felt like a stranger in their home.
There was an old lady, Lizzie Young, who lived in a house between our house and Grandpa Hoopes home. Our house was on First Street at the end of Stadium Avenue, and Grandpa’s house was on First Street at the end of College Avenue, one block apart. (Grandpa’s house has now been torn down and a doctor has built a nice home there.) Lizzie was a widow and liked kids, so we visited with her quite often. I pulled out my own first tooth in school and stopped by her house to show it to her before I even showed my mother, who was home. Lizzy gave me an air plant (one that didn’t need water) for showing her the tooth, and I think she also gave me 50 cents, more than my parents gave me. (I think we got quarters from the tooth fairy.) I remember picking Lizzies pears and peaches, and she gave us candy and cookies when we visited with her. She was killed by a car when she was crossing the highway in front of the drug store. I was pretty sad about that.
The first funeral I remember attending was my Grandma Russell’s in Safford. I got to get out of school, I think I was in Mrs. Marble’s 5th grade. Mrs. Marble was somehow related to us and she attended the funeral. Mrs. Marble lived in a second story apartment across from the old high school gym. She knew I liked pump organs and one day invited me to her house to see hers. She had a missionary pump organ that folded into a little case. I was really in thrall with it.
We went to Primary on Wednesday afternoon after school. I walked to the church after school instead of walking home. I was there early, and instead of playing outside with the other kids, sneaked into the church and went up to the storage room above the stage in the gym, where they stored the old pump organ that came out of the junior Sunday School room. They had purchased a new Estey reed organ, but it was electrically pumped. I really enjoyed playing the old pump organ, hoping I could somehow acquire it. It was purchased from the Church by Harold Reed, who painted it white and it was in his house for years. I was always upset that we didn’t have a chance to buy it. The grade school also had old reed organs in storage. When I was in Mrs. Brown’s first grade, we had a reed organ, which she played. Then, Mrs. Fiffe had one in her second grade class. We had those old desks with ink wells, etc. In third grade, Mrs. Overson had new blonde desks and a piano, that wasn’t so fun. Later when the first and second grades got pianos, they stored the organs in a room across from the principal’s office. I would sneak back into the school during lunch hour, when I ate at school, and played the organ. I think the principal, Rollie Childrers, knew, but didn’t ever stop me.
In school we had singing time once or twice a week in the room with the old organ. I believe there was also a piano there too. I remember having learn to sing Ait ain’t a going to rainand remember that Robert Layton, my best friend, taught me the words Ahow in the hell can the old folks tell, it ain’t a going to rain no more no more. That was my first experience with saying Ahell,and I felt quite wicked, and quite grown up. My dad used swear words and mother always berated him for that, and forbade us from using them. If you used swear words you probably smoked too. We used to go pick large milk weeds and try to smoke them, but it didn’t work too well. One time we were smoking milk weeds in the back of a full cotton trailer, and that night it burned and the fire truck had to come to put it out. We never told anyone that we probably started it, and we would have been in big trouble if we had.
Next to our house, on the east side, was a large irrigation ditch, which usually had water in it. It looked somewhat like a little river or stream to me, and we played with boats, got our feet wet, occasionally saw fish (carp) etc. There were huge cottonwood trees along the ditch banks, which probably drank a lot of the water. In the one closest to the road there was a large (it seemed large to me) Acrow’s nestwhich we hollowed out and played in for years. We made lots of tree houses and spent quite a bit of time doing that. I don’t ever remember getting hurt or falling out, although I suspect they weren’t too safe. We also dug large holes in the ground and put roofs on them and played in these houses. From time to time in the summertime, before they built a dam south of town, we had floods. I can remember seeing the flood waters come down the road, and it flooded our holes in the ground houses. There was so much silt on our front lawn that dad had it moved and made the driveway with it. Later when they built the dam we didn’t have any more floods. These happened during the summer time during the monsoons.
Neighborhood children we played with included the Sanders (Arlene, my age, who died of cancer after graduating from high school, her younger brother, Scott, and their younger sister, Linda.) Scott was a bully and was always wanting to beat me up. My dad encouraged this because he thought I needed to learn to fight. Another neighbor, Dale Blan, also waited for me after school to beat me up, and on one occasion my dad also had me fight him. I never was a good fighter. Danny McEuen was another friend neighbor, as were our cousins, Brenda Hoopes and her older siblings, who were too old to play with us. We went with Brenda out to Cluff’s ranch swimming on many occasions. Billy Griffin, who lived up the road and was Jean’s age was at our house a lot. He called mother Aunt Elaine, because his grandmother was a Hoopes, one of Jonathan’s second wife’s children. Then we had friends from other parts of town who came to play. Later, the Morris’ bought Sanders’ home (Sanders built another one in the field in back of the house.) They had one son, Charlie, and a cat named something. They adopted a little boy and his name was the same name as the cat. They also had a whippet dog, which I thought was weird. I went with Morris’ on a swimming trip to Cluff’s ranch once and we had a picnic. At this picnic Marty, who was an RN, opened a can of VanCamp’s pork and beans, which we ate too, but she served them cold, right out of the can. I had never eaten them without cooking them and though this would make us sick, but she was a nurse and I trusted that she knew what she was doing.
My mother made chili beans frequently, and generally made Alight breador hot rolls when she made beans or stew. She also made butter beans when she had a ham bone. In those days she bought hams with bones. I liked the beans and her stew. She went grocery shopping on Fridays and for dinner on Friday’s we had interesting things she bought. We frequently had enchildadas. For the sauce we generally used either tomato soup our tomato juice with El Pato sauce in it. I always wanted it to taste like the restaurant’s (by then I had eaten at Shorty’s or The Casa Manana and knew what it was supposed to taste like.) I was sure we just needed to change the proportions of El Pato and tomato somehow to make it taste right. My dad liked to put a fried egg on his enchiladas, which I thought was pretty good too.
The first thing I remember learning to cook was to boil an egg, they fry one. I felt pretty big when I could cook an egg. For breakfast we had eggs and bacon quite a bit, and no too much cereal. I remember that my mother bought cracked or bulgar (which for a long time I thought was vulgar) wheat at Robert Layton’s parents grocery store. Robert was pretty smart, although I was too, but mother said he got so smart eating that wheat. So we ate it too, although I never did learn to like it much. We ate Amushtoo, which was cream of wheat or oatmeal. We ate a lot of hamburger too, browned, canned tomatoes, put over over cooked noodles and sprinkled with cheddar cheese, which she called goolosh. We got our milk from either Grandpa Hoopes or from the Rowleys. It was raw, whole milk, from which we strained the cream. Mother would make ice cream or whipped cream, but not too much butter. We ate Safeway margarine mostly. She tired to make cottage cheese, but it generally didn’t turn out well. I never did taste yoghurt until I was on my mission in Switzerland. Only weird people (which included my aunt Jeanne) bought the stuff, and they ate it plain. In Switzerland I realized it could be mixed with fruit, and it was pretty good. I got home from my mission liking yoghurt with fruit and also carbonated water, which was mineral water in Italy.
Before I got to Italy, I didn’t know much about Italian food except for pizza and spaghetti. I lived on pasta for two and one half years and never did get tired of it. We didn’t actually cook much, we ate in school cafeterias, which are open to the public, train stations, which all, by law, must have cafeterias, tratorias, which are small restaurants generally without menus, you just eat what they have, and in homes with people. I especially enjoyed eating with people because they generally ate good food. Italians love to share food. We did have apartments where we could cook, and sometimes we tried to fix what the people fed us. For example, in Bergamo they eat polenta, which is corn meal mush cooked very thick, cut with a knife and served with a tomato sauce. Of course, we didn’t drink wine, but were always being offered wine. They do cook with wine, especially putting it in sauces, etc. and we ate that and I like the flavor that wine gives to a tomato sauce. Not all of the sauces had meat and we didn’t think we were cheated if we didn’t have meat in the sauce. Two reasons for that is the sauce was so good it didn’t need meat, and the second is that generally pasta with sauce was only the first course. We had a piece of meat and vegetables, several of them, after that. I enjoyed having mushrooms as a vegetable, something I had never though of before going to Italy. Italians don’t cook their pasta as well done as we do, they serve it Aal dentewhich means you can bite it with your teeth and there is some resistance. They don’t eat it raw, however. I thoroughly enjoyed the bread, it was wonderful, and never served hot or warm. Italians never baked their own bread, in fact, they don’t usually have ovens in their kitchens, only large hot plates, etc. They buy their bread daily and when it is fresh the outside is crisp and the inside is no doughy and flavorful. I do remember seeing sacks of flour through the back doors of some of the better bakeries in Florence, and I was shocked to see some with stenciling saying Adonated by the people of the United States to fight hungerwhich, in English, didn’t mean much to the Italians. I don’t know if that was an anomaly or whether it was a widespread practice. They didn’t serve whole wheat in any form that I recall, it was all white bread. Some of the breads were very large and had to be cut with a knife and were fairly tough, but tasted good. There were many types of bread and rolls, and many types of cheeses. My favorite cheese was gorgonzola or stracchino, soft flavorful cheeses that we spread on bread sort of like cream cheese. I also enjoyed the mozzarella, which was made from buffalo milk from Southern Italy. We bought it in balls about the size of baseballs, floating in whey. The shop keepers fished it out and put it in a piece of wax paper and then wrapped it up in newspaper. When we got it home we put it in a large bowl from which they eat pasta (these are really large bowls with low sides), cut it up, drizzled olive oil and wine vinegar on it, salted and peppered and sometimes put either oregano or basil leaves, crushed with our fingers, and enjoyed it with bread and aqua minerale (mineral water). They don’t use salt or pepper shakers, just little bowls and you learn to take what you need with your knife and sprinkle it on your food. Italians never put their hands under the table, like on your lap, that is considered bad manners. You keep your hands on the table at all times. It is okay to put your large cloth napkin under your chin, etc., if you think you will spill something. They use larger spoons and forks than we do, and only use tea spoons to stir tea or coffee, they eat with what we would call table spoons. Most Italians could eat pasta, especially spaghetti, without making much of a mess with it. It was considered poor manners to eat the rest of the sauce left after you at the pastaCyou just left it in the plate. Their sauces generally had quite a bit of oil in them. They would cook meat and then carefully take out all of the fat, and then add good olive oil or butter. In the south they cook with olive oil, in the north they used real butter. The oil would be red and that would flavor the pasta, and they didn’t have a problem leaving sauce in the bowl after they had eaten the pasta. They cooked rice in the north sort of like they cooked pasta, boiled it in plenty of water, and then strained it. They would put sauce on it or perhaps just butter and cheese. They used hard cheeses, which were freshly grated. There are many types of cheese. Parmesian cheese is just one kind from Parma, there are lots more types and they have different flavors. Cheeses were made from different animal milks. As I said, mozerella was made from buffalo milk, water buffalos, there was peccorino made from sheep milk. I think they made cheese from horse milk too, but I can’t remember the name. They did eat horse meat, carne equine, and the favorite way was to eat it raw in a dish called Acarne crudewhich was raw horse meat hamburger, served with oil and vinegar and spices and other vegetables. I couldn’t bring myself to do more than taste it, and it wasn’t bad, but not wonderful either. I ate very well in Italy and perhaps because we did so much walking, I did not get fat. When I returned I was 6 feet 1 inches tall and weighed 180 pounds, although I can’t say I had a lot of muscle or could run long distances or bench press large masses.
After I returned from my mission I was asked by the stake president, Jack Daley, to work with the apaches on the San Carlos reservation in Bylas. My companion was Cory Mulleneaux, who was a couple of years younger than I was. His sister Susan was my age and graduated from high school with me. Cory was a nice guy but I didn’t know him well. I can’t remember if he had just returned from a mission (probably not because he was a year or so younger than I). We drove to Bylas together some of the time. I had a Volkswagen bug, a blue one. We did whatever the branch president asked us to do. I frequently played the piano, taught lessons in Sunday School, talked in Sacrament meeting, etc. We didn’t do much during the week as we were working. I worked that summer for the Arizona Highway Department, cleaning up trash on the side of the highways. There was a core of Apache members who came nearly every week, but lots who came occasionally. I think the average attendance was about 20. Later, when we were living in Globe, I went to church in San Carlos, on the other side of the reservation and about the same thing happened there, about 20 faithful saints and the rest came as they wanted. I was a high counselor in the Globe stake and was also Stake Young Men’s president, so that is why I went to church in San Carlos from time to time.
I am not sure if I can remember all of the church callings I have had, in order, but I will try:
Played the organ for Priesthood meeting for about 6 years before going on my mission
Served as president, counselor and secretary for several Aaronic priesthood quorums
Gave lessons about once a month for the priest’s quorum
Served as a full-time missionary in the Swiss Mission in Italy. While I was there it became the Italian Mission. My Swiss mission president was Rendell N. Mabey, an attorney from Salt Lake, who had previously and afterward served in Africa. In Italy, the mission president was John Duns, an engineer who had worked for, I believe, Lockheed, in Torino. His son, John, Jr., was called on a mission to Italy when his parents was. I was never his companion.
On my mission I was a senior companion in Pordenone, Bergamo, Napoli, Florence, Piacenza, and Pisa. I also served as the branch president in Pisa for about six months or so, which included tithing settlement, etc. I was never a district or zone leader or even a companion to one. I played the organ for mission functions and, of course, taught lots classes. Frequently it was just my companion and I in a city and we held church meetings by ourselves or with an investigator or a member or two.
I was asked to work for a couple of days with President Ezra Taft Benson, an apostle who was the President of the European Mission. My companion at the time was an elder from Argentina, Francisco Real, who was an interesting character.
On my return home I was called to work with the Apaches on the San Carlos Indian Reservation in the branch they had there.
I went one year to Eastern Arizona College (I went one year before leaving for my mission, but I attended my parent’s ward)
After graduating from EAC, I transferred on a full-scholarship to the University of Arizona in Tucson. I lived at the Sigma Gamma Chi house, which was an experiment through the Institute. I was asked by the other guys, there were 16 in all, to be the permanent cook, which paid my room and board.
My first calling in the student ward in Tucson was as the Executive Secretary to the bishop, Newel K. Richardson, who was a radiologist. He later moved to Rexburg, Idaho (his wife was from Idaho Falls) and in October 2002 became the president of the Idaho Falls Temple.
I was then the ward organist and also the teacher for the gospel doctrine class. There was only one gospel doctrine class. I was somewhat intimidated at first, but became more comfortable in teaching.
I was also the family home evening Afatherof my group. The Amotherwas Ellen Gardner, who was my girlfriend. She was from Snowflake, Arizona and a home economics major. She lived for a semester at the Home Ec house on campus and I was her escort to several official functions, etc. I visited her mother, Ruby, (who was divorced from her father, who lived a block away).
When I graduated from the U of A, I moved to Douglas, Arizona, and went to the Douglas Ward and helped build the new chapel. I served as a counselor to the Elder’s Quorum President, Vaughan Stock. I also served for a year or so as the Teacher’s quorum advisor. I served as the Elder’s Quorum President for several years, and was then called as the Stake Sunday School President. In this capacity I attended the Sunday Schools in the stake, which was interesting.
When we moved to Cottage Grove, Oregon, I was first put in as the Priest’s quorum president and then YM president. I was then called to be the Elder’s quorum president and then a counselor in the bishopric, with Wayne Workman, bishop. I served as the ward and stake organist for many years. The stake built a new stake center on East 18th Street, which had a very nice tracker pipe organ, built by a member of the stake. I enjoyed playing that organ immensely and played for a lot of meetings, including conferences. Just when we moved in they were asking people to sing in a choir for the dedication of the Seattle Temple. I was not asked to sing in that choir, which I felt badly about. Then, when the Portland temple was to be dedicated a few years later, I was asked with Milton Gifford as the only two men from our ward to sing in a regional choir for a dedication service. We met in Southerland. I really enjoyed that experience and have a cassette tape we made of one of our practices. I was then called to be the bishop and served in that capacity until we moved to Arizona, which was almost four years.
In Arizona I was first called as the Priest’s quorum advisor then ward YM president.
I was then called as a high counselor and then as a counselor in the Stake YM Presidency. I was then called as the Stake YM President, while still serving as a high councilman.
We then moved to Bullhead City, Arizona, where I was first called as the high priest group leader and ward organist.
When we moved to Soda Springs, Idaho, I was called to be the assistant Deacon’s quorum advisor and assistant Scout master. The advisor, who was a young seminary teacher, moved to Grace after a couple of months and I was called to be the Deacon’s quorum advisor, in which capacity I have now served for about three years. I have generally enjoyed scouting and was encouraged to attend Wood Badge by Kent Harmon, who is now our scoutmaster. I enjoyed this experience, learning more about scouting than I had ever learned before. I have recently been called as the Grand Teton Council District Commissioner for the South Caribou District, under Judge Ron Hart, who is the Chairman. I am still learning about this voluntary position. I enjoy being with the deacons, we have 12, all but two are active and the less active boys come on the campouts and are good boys. I am the ward organist and play for priesthood functions for stake conference most of the time. I also sing in the ward choir, which I enjoy.
My health has generally been very good. I have never been too athletic, although I did play football in high school, although I disliked it. I have never had a broken bone and only been a patient in a hospital once when I was young to have a plantar wart removed from my foot. Once, when we were living Douglas, I ate something that was not wholesome at a Dairy Queen on the way back from a wedding and had diahrrea and vomiting all night which required my having an IV at the hospital the next day (a Sunday), which made me feel better. In Cottage Grove I started having a hard time reading , so I went to the optometrist, who said I had presbyopia and gave me some sample reading glasses. 1.5 strength, from his desk drawer. I used these for years, and bought other drug store glasses. When I was in Bullhead City we had optical insurance, so I went to an optometrist in the ward, Bro. Richardson, who gave me some Arealglasses with a progressive lens. I still use these frames. The plastic lenses became scratched, so I had an eye exam about a year ago at WallMart in Pocatello and had new lenses put in my old glasses, which I am still wearing. When we got the dog, Molly, I left these glasses on the coffee table and she got up and chewed them (I was taking a shower) and she ate off the nose pieces and ends, which I had to make a special trip to WallMart to have replaced. When I was about 53 and living in Soda Springs, I had my blood sugar take and it was high, about 140. I went to Dr Obray, who was Myrna’s surgeon and he had me take a fasting blood sugar, and it was about 130 and we repeated it, and it was about that the second time. The A1C has never been high. Anyway, he put me on Glucophage, 500 miligrams once a day, which he has increased to 500 in the morning and 500 at night. My blood sugar, I have a machine and take it frequently, is in the range of 80 to 130, usually between 100 and 120. He also started me about six months ago on Lipitor,which is to lower my cholesterol, which, I believe, was about 120 or so. Other than that, I have been quite healthy. For the past couple of years my feet, both of them, occasionally in the evening bother me. They are super sensitive and tingle and burn, which I think may be related to Diabetes. I have gone to a podiatrist, who gave me some pain pills, which I don’t like to take because they make me too sleepy. I just put up with the inconvenience. Other than that, I have been very healthy. I always have a flu shot in the fall and have not really ever had the flu, that I can remember. I have always had ear infections, for which I have been given oral antibiotics. Sometimes they are outer ear infections, for which I use drops and even drops containing vinegar, which changes the Ph in my ears and stops the pain. I had ear aches when I was a little boy. My mother used Aralgin, which generally stopped the pain. I suppose that today they would have put ear tubes in me. Doctors have said I have small canals and damaged ear drums. I have had hearing tests, Darrell Farnes, who works for the hospital, did it last and said I have hearing loss in the upper frequencies, but not bad enough to wear hearing aids. I seem to have a harder time hearing now, and when I play the organ I like to put on the 2 foot and 1 foot stops, because I can hear the sound better.
It is 9:00 pm on Sunday, Oct 6, and I just returned from having dinner at the River Run Lodge at Ketchum, Idaho, while attending the hospital association annual convention. I was elected to the board of directors of the IHA for a three year term today. It was a good dinner, it cost $50 per person and Farmers Insurance sponsored it, so it imagine it cost even more than that per person.
In my life I have been to quite a few resort places because of my job. Myrna and I have been to Hawaii twice for hospital meetings, which was fun. I could go to meetings in Washington, DC if I wanted to, but I have been to cheap to want to do it, even at hospital expense. Now that we are making more money at the hospital, we now have $1.6 in cash reserves, I will start doing more of that. Besides, I can visit Kristin when I go there. Myrna and I are going to Arizona during the first week in November, and I am looking forward to that.
I was just thinking about ancestors I have known that I haven’t talked about. My great grandmother was Harriet Louisa Brewer Russell. She lived in Mesa, Arizona on Perkins Lane, which was a little side street, I don’t even think it was paved, near the temple. It does not exist any more. When I was a kid sometimes we went to visit great grandma Russell, and I remember her well. She was a fairly short, rotund lady who always was knitting or crochetingCI didn’t know the difference then. She was kind and liked to tell pioneer stories. My mother liked to go there to visit her. She lived alone in a little house, a very small house that consisted of a small living room, kitchen, bedroom with a bathroom. I can remember when she died, although I didn’t go to the funeral, I don’t remember why. But I do remember visiting with her in her living room on more than one occasion.
When she died her son, Uncle Ernest, went to live in her little house. This was my mother’s favorite uncle, I think. She also liked Uncle Utilis, who they called >Tilis. When I was to go on my mission mother took me to Mesa to go to the temple for the first time. We stayed with Uncle Ernest in great grandma’s house. I slept in a bed with him, it was a double bed, very soft mattress where you sunk down and came together. Mother slept with his wife. It was quite a night. They had an old reed organ with a high ornate back. I played it, of course. He was my escort at the temple. When we went in, the temple has since been remodeled, you took off your shoes in an outer room and then proceeded to a dressing room. I didn’t understand what I was to take off, and started to completely undress in the shoe roomCwhich was quite embarrassing. He helped me more from then on. The session was live in those days. As part of the session, we sang AO God Our Help In Ages Pastwith the preacher leading us, which does not happen today. I don’t remember singing any other songs but that one, maybe we did, but that was a good one because it is a Protestant song and quite short. At the mission home in Salt Lake we went through the Salt Lake temple. Several of the missionaries hadn’t had their endowment, and so they did it then. I remember one guy who was going to Japan, and I thought he would be pretty smart to be able to learn Japanese. He could not figure out how to put on his garments, the one piece kind is what we wore then, when he was dressing to go home and he asked me help him figure them out because I had been wearing them. I wondered if was smart enough to learn Japanese. When we went through the Salt Lake temple they took us as a group and let us go to the solemn assembly room. We sat there in that fairly bare but large room, I remember it was cold too, and a member of the temple presidency said we could ask any question we wanted to. Someone asked if anyone had ever seen Jesus in that temple, to which the answer was yes. President Joseph F. Smith saw him there, that he talked about. We assume others had also seen him but haven’t talked about it to the general membership of the Church. Apparently there is a room that only the president of the church can go in. Not even the housekeepers go in thereChe does his own housekeeping. I have often wondered what it would be like to be the newly ordained president of the church and have the key to that room and go in there for the first time.
I hope all of my posterity will read the autobiography of my grandfather, Fred Russell. I found it to be a real testimony builder. He did have a hard life and made mistakes and his posterity has suffered, but they have also been blessed by his pioneer heritage and all of the people who have sacrificed so much for their children, us. I wished that our other ancestors would have written about their life experiences, it would make for very interesting reading, and I imagine it would also be testimony building.
I have written elsewhere about my experience in the Portland temple, when I played the organ for several hours for the open house. In the large solemn assembly room, which has a wonderful Rodgers organ, as I was playing I could hear angels singing along with me. It was an awesome, to use the work appropriately, experience I will never forget. I can still recall the sound, and have not heard it since or before. It was not a loud sound, but it was penetrating. Something like what I suppose the sound of Heavenly Father was like when He introduced His son.
It was also a humbling and inspiring experience to come into the Celestial Room in the Portland temple and stand behind the First Presidency, I was on the front row and could have patted their bald heads, to sing for the dedication of that temple. I was choked up and could not sing, but still noise did come out and we were told we sounded heavenly. Our leader described the Hosannah Anthem as the Agut busterwhich it really was, from the spiritual standpoint. It was also inspiring to sing AI Know That My Redeemer Livesbehind the man who wrote the words, Gordon B. Hinkely. We were originally supposed to stand on the stairs, which circle around the door leading from the veil to the Celestial Room and goes up to a balcony. But they were afraid it wouldn’t be modest for the women to stand there, so we didn’t.
Myrna and I were also allowed to go do the cleaning before the temple was dedicated. That was a spiritual experience. We cleaned the ceiling lights in the solemn assembly room, standing on a scaffold. I was the bishop and Myrna was in the Relief Society, I believe. I have heard stories about cleaning other temples. The Mexican sisters who went to clean the San Diego temple kept their cleaning rags, I believe.
Between the conference sessions yesterday they had a documentary on the Mormon colonies in Mexico. My great great grandfather, Price Williams Nelson, moved there and that is where he died. It was a wonderful place, I wish I could visit there. There is now a temple in that little valley in Mexico.
Myrna said that in conference yesterday President Hinckley announced that starting in November, I believe, temple recommends will be good for two years instead of one, and they are not allowing missionary farewells, which is a good thing. They become so silly with everyone wanting to put in their two cents. I really appreciated the talks my children gave at theirs, we tried to keep them from taking away from the Spirit, and we did a good job.
This is Monday, Oct. 7. I am at Sun Valley, staying in room 183 in the old lodge. Tonight I had dinner at the restaurant in the lodge, which has fed the rich and famous of the world. I took pictures of some of their pictures with my new digital camera. Lucille Ball, Jacqueline Kennedy, Arnold Swartzeneger, etc. They turned out well. For dinner I was served by a young lady from New Zeland. Most of the employees are foreign youth, who wear their names and country of origin. She was very pleasant and very interested by my new camera, which she said she was looking to buy. She asked the pros and cons, and I told her. She was fascinated with the fact that I could change the light, from auto to tungsten, which changed the color in the pictures. For dinner I had beef soup, in a clear broth with lots of veggies, including fresh mushrooms. It was very good. I had wonderful hard rolls, with butter. Then, I had a salad, which was shrimp served in an avocado half served on interesting greens, certainly not lettuce. Then, for dessert I had a classical crème broule, which is a French version of cream caramel. It is a nice custard with a carmel sauce and slightly burned in the oven and served hot. It was a wonderful dinner. It cost $20 and I tipped the New Zelander $5, which was all charged to my room.
I have had some wonderful food in my life and I enjoy gourmet food, when I can get it. I enjoy breads, especially French or Italian type breads. They are good with butter, real butter, dipped into extra virgin (green) olive oil in which a drop or two of basalmic vinegar has been dropped. To be called basalmic, vinegar has to come from the same region in Italy, and it is all the same. You can pay $1 for a bottle or $20 a bottle and it will taste the same, perhaps you get a fancier bottle, but that’s all. Interestingly, in Italy while on my mission, I don’t remember basalmic vinegar, but always wine vinegar, either red or white. Grape juice contains sugar, which turns to alcohol, which then turns to ascetic acid or vinegarCso there is no alcohol in vinegar. I enjoy salads, especially with home grown tomatoes, onions and lettuce, with oil and vinegar. I like all types of meat, and I enjoy the served with sauces. In our garden in Soda Springs, we have lots of horse radish, which David showed me could be dug and grated. Add a little lemon juice or white (wine is best) vinegar and it is wonderful on beef. I like all types of veggies, aspargas is my favorite. I like broccoli, beets, spinach (fresh) and, as a vegetable, mushrooms, which I first ate on my mission. For desserts, my favorite are home made ice creamsCMyrna makes excellent home made ice cream, strawberry and peach. My favorite cake is German chocolate. Of course, I like Mexican food. Green chili burros are my favorite, with a good enchilada sauce, which is made with mild red chilis made like a gravy. Much different from the tomato juice or soup with El Pato sauce I was raised on. I do like El Pato sauce on meat, eggs, etc. Speaking of eggs, I like omlettes, especially with home grown tomatoes and cheese. I also like the decadent breakfast of Myrna’s biscuits and gravy made with bacon. I don’t like gravy made with sausage too much.
As the deacon’s quorum advisor I have tried to have monthly presidency meetings. When our meeting schedule permitted, we had them on Sunday morning and fed the boys breakfast, biscuits and gravy. It is interesting how many of the boys had never had that, and some would not even try it, although they did like the biscuits with butter and jam.
I haven’t written much about my dad, and perhaps I should write more. He was a small man, perhaps 5 feet 8 or 9 inches tall, and I think this bothered him all of his life. My mother was always bringing it up, she was about an inch taller than he was. Once when we needed a new car, he was going to buy a large Chevy, but he test drove a small Chevy II, and mother said to all of us that we should buy it because it made him look bigger to drive a small car. He gained weight during this middle age, but was relatively thin during his later years. His hobbies were hunting and fishing, and he was not a bad wood worker. When I was young he worked for Brooks Lumber Company. During the evenings he installed, or glazed, glass being put into the new houses. The windows were metal and needed to have the glass cut and installed with putty. Sometimes I went and watched him work. He was good at it. He could cut glass and grind mirrors. Once, my Aunt Jeanne received an oil painting from a friend from China, Tessie Dong. Tesse later became a gifted artist, but when she was young she wasn’t too good. The painting was done when she was young but she treasured it. Jeanne was still living with her parents in Safford, but mother had a house in which it could be hung. Dad made a very nice wooden frame, in the Awhite oaklook then popular. We kept the picture for years until Auntie Jean asked for it.
Dad quit work for Brooks Lumber when I was about 12 or so and went to work for Farm Bureau, selling insurance to farmers. He set up his office in the front of his dad’s hardware store in Thatcher. Dad had to go to Purdue in Indiana to a school to learn about insurance selling. He did okay with selling insurance for a few years, but had competition. He also sold life insurance, which provided commissions as those who bought it renewed their policy. This continued for the rest of his of his life, even though he stopped selling insurance after a few years. When he quit selling insurance he became the town constable for Thatcher. Half of his salary was paid by Eastern Arizona College. This was while I was in high school and was somewhat embarrassing to me. He only did this for a year or two, then he applied for a job with the State of Arizona Inspection Stations checking agriculture at the border. For a few months before he got the job he worked at the Jiffy Market in Safford. This was while I was a senior in high school, and I was also working for the Jiffy Market in Thatcher. He got the job with the state and started working in Gripe, Arizona, which is east of Solomville. The first job he had after he was married, which I think Grandpa Russell got for him (grandpa was working for the state at the employment office in Safford) was with the state at the Inspection Station. Dad quit this job after a year or so to work for Brooks Lumber. So he began his career working for the state, and ended it. He was promoted to manager of the station and also licensed to work with farmers and pesticides.
Dad served a mission to the Southern States. He was, from the records he kept, a faithful missionary. The war was starting, and when he returned he was drafted into the Army. He was sent to work with the Corps of Engineers as a medic, and served in Northern Africa, and then walked up the boot of Italy to Florence, where he was camped on the south side of the Arno River for a year. It was here that he saved the life of an Italian man, who was too frightened to cross a mine field. Dad carried him out, which got him a soldier’s metal. While in the Army, Dad took up smoking and drank wine, which he admitted to me. He was able to hide it but generally continued this for many years, until he had a heart attack in his early 50s. He then stopped smoking.
Dad attended church and had several callings. He was a stake missionary and I went with him on several assignments, including to Klondike and Globe, where I played the piano. This was when I was 12-13 years old. He was also the teacher of the senior Aaronic for several years. These men were his hunting buddies. They enjoyed going to the father and sons campout and cooking in Dutch ovens. They were great cooks and Dad enjoyed this calling. He generally didn’t have a temple recommend, but was able to baptize his children and ordain his sons to the priesthood.
When I was to be ordained an Elder, which was after stake conference, I went over to the stake office building in Thatcher. Ezra Taft Benson was our visiting authority and when I was asked who I wanted to ordain me, I chose my bishop, Gordon Stowell, instead of President Benson. Dad was not there as I recall.
Dad wrote me while I was on my mission and I believe he was really happy that I was called to Italy, where he had spent time in the service. Later when my brother Fred was also called to Italy, I believe that Dad felt this was more than a coincidence. Later, Fred suggested we write this up for the Church News. I wrote the article but submitted it under Fred’s name.
Dad was happy that I married Myrna and several times, when we were alone, encouraged me to be kind to her, which was something he wasn’t always to my mother. They seemed to grate each other the wrong way, a personality conflict, and I have sort of sided more with him, although I felt badly, and was disappointed and embarrassed, he wasn’t more active in the Church. I believe he could have been a leader, but he needed a better self image, which mother didn’t foster. I certainly don’t think it is all her fault, but she is not blameless.
Dad always seemed pleased with me and my choices and I think he was proud of my accomplishments. I knew he did not want me to move so far, but understood I needed to get away from Thatcher and mother to be more successful. We had this discussion when we moved to Oregon and lived there for more than a decade.
Dad came to visit us in Oregon twice and seemed to enjoy it. He had a hard time with change and did not like to fly. Mother visited several times. Once, I took him fishing on the river and ocean with a friend, who had a boat. He seemed to enjoy this, even though we weren’t too successful fishing. He seemed happy when we moved to Globe. We talked about doing more things together, but didn’t do much. We were busy and so was he. We did meet several times at San Carlos Lake to fish, using his boat. He also enjoyed taking me and David in his pickup to Bonita Creek, north of the valley. He trapped up there and was very familiar with it.
In his later life, Dad trapped a lot. He went out every day to check the traps. He caught foxes, coyotes, badgers, skunks, and even bob cats. If they weren’t dead in the trap, he hit them on the head so as not to make a hole in their pelts with a bullet. He skinned them and even worked with a retired chemist from Arizona State University to learn tanning. His leather turned green, but it was well tanned.
Every fall Dad went hunting with his dad and their friends, Uncle Nat, Ned Daley, Ed Moody, Ed Nelson (who was a relative of mother), Harold Reed (both Ned Daley and Harold Reed were counselors to Bishop Stowell), and others. They spent a week in camp and thoroughly enjoyed it. They didn’t take young kids and I never once went with them. Fred went when he was older, as did the other sons. Dad looked forward to this hunting trip all year. Grandpa Hoopes kept horses all year just to ride them during this special week. Sometimes they brought home deer, sometimes they didn’t and it didn’t matter. They had fun.
Grandpa Hoopes had several brothers. Uncle Nat lived next to us, and Uncle Glen lived a block away until they (both he and Uncle Nat) built new homes near the high school. Uncle Cecil lived one house to the west of Uncle Nat, and two away from us, for years. There were 5 Hoopes’ on First Street for many years. Uncles Glen and Nat were pharmacists and owned the Thatcher Pharmacy or drugstore, as we called it, on Main Street. This was the unofficial city hall, and Uncle Nat was always the mayor. Uncle Glen was a county supervisor for many years. The noon whistle was rung from the drug store, and when I was young they let me push the button right at noon.
Uncles Nat and Glen were known in the valley as pharmacists who could make medicines that were effective. There was an old time doctor, Dr. Platt, who taught them to be pharmacists, although tye did attend pharmacy school for about six months in DenverCthis is all that it took then to get a license. Their favorite remedy was creolin and glycerin for swabbing throats. It was a small bottle of glycerin with a few drops of creolin, the stuff they use for sheep dip and preserve logs for telephone poles. Uncles would swab your throat, Adown to your toenailsif you asked them to, and it worked. I also used to have the soda fountain person, who for years was my sister Jean, put phosphate (I think it is phosphoric acid, also used to clean out the glass coffee urns) in my coke. This would cut through flem when you had a cough and was a pretty good cure for a sore throat, at least it made it feel better.
Dad worked for his uncles in their drug store before he went on his mission, and when he returned. He bought a classic black cigar shaped Sheaffer fountain pen from them, which he used as an accountant at Brooks Lumber Company, which Dad gave me later in life. He kept this and other precious things in his Agun closetwhich was in his bedroom. When I was a teenager I learned I could take the screws out of the hinges to open this closet when no one was home and look at the contents.
After I was married and became interested in family history, I interviewed Grandpa Hoopes and Russell, as well as Dad to get written histories from them. Of course, I wish I could have gotten more, but what I obtained is precious to me and I hope will be read and understood by my posterity. I also interviewed and helped write up histories for Myrna’s parents and her grandmother, Irene Merrell Gale. Of all the histories I have, I like the one written by Myrna’s great grandmother, Mary Lybbert, mostly because of her writing style and way of phrasing things. I hope my posterity loves these as much as I do and in reading them can know what wonderful ancestors we have. I have also attempted to write Ahistorical fiction,which includes stories about Jane Taylor and Jonathan Hoopes, Jr., who did not write their own histories (I wish they would have), so I wrote for them. Doing the research and just thinking about their lives was the most interesting part of writing.