Part 3: Men and Angels [Draft 2]
In 1962, as I recounted in Part 2, Daddy had a nervous breakdown and temporarily left the family to escape his troubles. Running away from difficulty was a pattern established in his teens. I’ve already mentioned the time he ran away and joined the Navy while underage. Daddy himself recognized the pattern—he would get fed up with his father, Elbert, run away from home, work for a while, then return home to try it again with his father. I expect he wanted a successful working relationship with Elbert; as a practical matter, many of the families that thrived in the mountains, like the Duncans, did so because they worked together. He also probably wanted not to distress his mother, whom he admired, despite the changes in her personality that emotional illness had caused: “Mother was a saintly person believing that you would one day be judged by how you had treated your fellow man. She did good things, because it was her nature to do good, and was much loved by our neighbors.”
Daddy was also drawn to return to the mountains and the way of life, already passing, that he loved so much. “I don’t really know,” he wrote, “but I would guess that the poor mountain farmer was the last truly free man to walk upon the face of the earth. He was not beholding to anyone as he was used to saying. This meant he had no debts to pay. He ate what he grew and he grew what he ate. The earth was his mother and the wind singing in the treetops sang not only his cradle song but his requiem. He was beholding to old maw nature and of this he was well aware and gave thanks. She was not always kind to him but she never lied.” [My quotations from his memoirs are edited for spelling, punctuation, and paragraphing.]
But he couldn’t stay at home for long. “I left home at a tender age,” he wrote in his memoirs, “and no greener boy ever went to town.” First, he “thumbed rides” to Aberdeen, Maryland, and worked for 90 days at the Proving Grounds till he got in “a cuss fight” with a captain, quit, and returned home. Another time he hitchhiked to Colorado, worked several months on a ranch, then burned down the rancher’s “ripe grain” field when he was cheated out of most of his pay. From there he went deeper into the mountains, worked until the end of the summer and, at a loss as to his next step, returned home. Then, he went back to Maryland, worked as a carpenter till the whiskey got him fired, and enlisted—under age, as we have seen—in the Navy.
He continues:
“Home again, hoping to mend fences and to establish a decent relationship with my old man. It worked in the early stages. I had saved some money so daddy and I bought a new truck as equal partners. I worked long hours hauling lumber, lime, fertilizer and more lumber.
We were making money and the future looked good until daddy started his old domineering ways. I stood it a while but grew restless again and began longing for the open road.
I had worked my sixty hours or more and Saturday night had rolled around. I had a date with Mary Tucker. On my way to see Mary in the truck I stopped at Mama Shephard’s store for cigarettes. [A few years later, Mama Shepherd would become his mother-in-law.] While I was there daddy walked in wanting to know where in the hell I was taking his truck. I told him I was driving my half of the truck out to see Mary Tucker and guessed his half would go along for the ride.
‘I’ll buy your god damn truck,’ he said.
‘OK!’ I said quoting him a price.
He pulls his checkbook out, writes the check, gets into the truck and heads home. I borrow the neighbor’s car and keep my date, and then at home the next morning, I am hanging light fixtures and getting madder by the moment. Finally I said, To hell with Daddy. I laid my tools down, caught a ride to town and bought a bus ticket to Birmingham Alabama. I had no sooner got to Birmingham than I met a good-looking girl on her way to Billings Montana. At her request I bought another ticket to Billings.”
Selling his half of the truck was the end of his last serious attempt to live at home. The last section of his memoir, “The Wild Years,” continues the story of the trip to Billings, but it goes in an unexpected direction.
“Living in an apartment with another man's wife in Billings Montana is a good place to start [this part of my story]. She had money—I don’t know how much—and got a monthly allotment check from her husband in the army. She was well known around town and most every night was a drunken party. My bankroll was soon too little to worry about and easy women soon wear on your nerves. I left her sleeping. I didn’t bother with any formal fare thee well. Hell, she was still drunk anyway.
I had found another free spirit at one of her parties, Jason Brown from Blackfoot Idaho, and we bought a bus ticket to his home. His folks were nice but didn’t approve of our way of hell raising all night and sleeping all day.
I left Jason and moved down to Jerome Idaho and went straight for a while. I was looking for work and a place to stay.
I was having a beer in the smoke shop on Jerome's main street when a kind big man walked in sat down by my side and paid for my beer.
We talked and I found out that he was a farmer and was looking for a year round farm hand. I also found a man I liked and after a few more beers we went home. He was L.W Thompson and his wife was Stella. The children were grown and gone and they made me feel right at home. We worked as the crops required. He didn't make work and loved a trip to town for a beer. Irrigation of the crops was the most demanding thing about farming. The water master turned the water into your main ditch and you had to irrigate all your crops in a given time frame so that the next farm down the canal could water his crop [when his turn came].
Irrigation was a twenty four hour job. We watered the crops both night and day. I took the night shift and made many new friends as there was little work and much talk with the neighbor boys, who were doing the same work on three or four adjoining farms. We had a fire, fine food and a few drinks as we watched the night away.
I felt at home with the Thompson family. They were not demanding and were very liberal with their home, car and sound advice. If I had a date they insisted that I take the family car. My friends were welcome in their home for meals and even to spend the night. I ran with good boys as boys go but we were wild. Drinking, fast driving along with chasing the soiled doves and some hunting, fishing and camping.
Stella (Mrs. Thompson) and I became life-long friends, and her good advice and common sense probably kept me out of jail and played a major role in my family becoming members of the Mormon church.
Dwight Thompson, his wife and family of little girls lived and worked on the farm. Little Jean I remember well and spent many happy hours joining in their play. The little girls were very pretty, a lot of fun and made this a real home.
As the years ticked away I would visit Stella from time to time up until her death. This [was] thirty years ago and I still remember it was one of the best years of my life.”
Stella was the president of the woman’s organization in her congregation, the Relief Society. She didn’t drive, so she had Daddy take her to visit the sisters in her congregation (called a “ward,” in the lingo of the church) as well as the sick and needy. When I was going to BYU, on one of my cross-country trips Daddy asked me to stop in Jerome and visit the Thompsons. I don’t remember much about the visit—I don’t remember exactly whom I visited, but it included one of Dwight Thompson’s daughters. She told me that, when Daddy left Idaho, the girls made garlands of flowers to go around his neck and to deck his motorcycle—a sweet picture of kindness and affection.
*****
Daddy was also drawn to return to the mountains and the way of life, already passing, that he loved so much. “I don’t really know,” he wrote, “but I would guess that the poor mountain farmer was the last truly free man to walk upon the face of the earth. He was not beholding to anyone as he was used to saying. This meant he had no debts to pay. He ate what he grew and he grew what he ate. The earth was his mother and the wind singing in the treetops sang not only his cradle song but his requiem. He was beholding to old maw nature and of this he was well aware and gave thanks. She was not always kind to him but she never lied.” [My quotations from his memoirs are edited for spelling, punctuation, and paragraphing.]
But he couldn’t stay at home for long. “I left home at a tender age,” he wrote in his memoirs, “and no greener boy ever went to town.” First, he “thumbed rides” to Aberdeen, Maryland, and worked for 90 days at the Proving Grounds till he got in “a cuss fight” with a captain, quit, and returned home. Another time he hitchhiked to Colorado, worked several months on a ranch, then burned down the rancher’s “ripe grain” field when he was cheated out of most of his pay. From there he went deeper into the mountains, worked until the end of the summer and, at a loss as to his next step, returned home. Then, he went back to Maryland, worked as a carpenter till the whiskey got him fired, and enlisted—under age, as we have seen—in the Navy.
He continues:
“Home again, hoping to mend fences and to establish a decent relationship with my old man. It worked in the early stages. I had saved some money so daddy and I bought a new truck as equal partners. I worked long hours hauling lumber, lime, fertilizer and more lumber.
We were making money and the future looked good until daddy started his old domineering ways. I stood it a while but grew restless again and began longing for the open road.
I had worked my sixty hours or more and Saturday night had rolled around. I had a date with Mary Tucker. On my way to see Mary in the truck I stopped at Mama Shephard’s store for cigarettes. [A few years later, Mama Shepherd would become his mother-in-law.] While I was there daddy walked in wanting to know where in the hell I was taking his truck. I told him I was driving my half of the truck out to see Mary Tucker and guessed his half would go along for the ride.
‘I’ll buy your god damn truck,’ he said.
‘OK!’ I said quoting him a price.
He pulls his checkbook out, writes the check, gets into the truck and heads home. I borrow the neighbor’s car and keep my date, and then at home the next morning, I am hanging light fixtures and getting madder by the moment. Finally I said, To hell with Daddy. I laid my tools down, caught a ride to town and bought a bus ticket to Birmingham Alabama. I had no sooner got to Birmingham than I met a good-looking girl on her way to Billings Montana. At her request I bought another ticket to Billings.”
Selling his half of the truck was the end of his last serious attempt to live at home. The last section of his memoir, “The Wild Years,” continues the story of the trip to Billings, but it goes in an unexpected direction.
“Living in an apartment with another man's wife in Billings Montana is a good place to start [this part of my story]. She had money—I don’t know how much—and got a monthly allotment check from her husband in the army. She was well known around town and most every night was a drunken party. My bankroll was soon too little to worry about and easy women soon wear on your nerves. I left her sleeping. I didn’t bother with any formal fare thee well. Hell, she was still drunk anyway.
I had found another free spirit at one of her parties, Jason Brown from Blackfoot Idaho, and we bought a bus ticket to his home. His folks were nice but didn’t approve of our way of hell raising all night and sleeping all day.
I left Jason and moved down to Jerome Idaho and went straight for a while. I was looking for work and a place to stay.
I was having a beer in the smoke shop on Jerome's main street when a kind big man walked in sat down by my side and paid for my beer.
We talked and I found out that he was a farmer and was looking for a year round farm hand. I also found a man I liked and after a few more beers we went home. He was L.W Thompson and his wife was Stella. The children were grown and gone and they made me feel right at home. We worked as the crops required. He didn't make work and loved a trip to town for a beer. Irrigation of the crops was the most demanding thing about farming. The water master turned the water into your main ditch and you had to irrigate all your crops in a given time frame so that the next farm down the canal could water his crop [when his turn came].
Irrigation was a twenty four hour job. We watered the crops both night and day. I took the night shift and made many new friends as there was little work and much talk with the neighbor boys, who were doing the same work on three or four adjoining farms. We had a fire, fine food and a few drinks as we watched the night away.
I felt at home with the Thompson family. They were not demanding and were very liberal with their home, car and sound advice. If I had a date they insisted that I take the family car. My friends were welcome in their home for meals and even to spend the night. I ran with good boys as boys go but we were wild. Drinking, fast driving along with chasing the soiled doves and some hunting, fishing and camping.
Stella (Mrs. Thompson) and I became life-long friends, and her good advice and common sense probably kept me out of jail and played a major role in my family becoming members of the Mormon church.
Dwight Thompson, his wife and family of little girls lived and worked on the farm. Little Jean I remember well and spent many happy hours joining in their play. The little girls were very pretty, a lot of fun and made this a real home.
As the years ticked away I would visit Stella from time to time up until her death. This [was] thirty years ago and I still remember it was one of the best years of my life.”
Stella was the president of the woman’s organization in her congregation, the Relief Society. She didn’t drive, so she had Daddy take her to visit the sisters in her congregation (called a “ward,” in the lingo of the church) as well as the sick and needy. When I was going to BYU, on one of my cross-country trips Daddy asked me to stop in Jerome and visit the Thompsons. I don’t remember much about the visit—I don’t remember exactly whom I visited, but it included one of Dwight Thompson’s daughters. She told me that, when Daddy left Idaho, the girls made garlands of flowers to go around his neck and to deck his motorcycle—a sweet picture of kindness and affection.
*****
|
When the missionaries found my parents in Marion, Virginia, in the early 1950s, they found a family well disposed towards Mormons. My mother once told me she’d just had a dream in which Jesus appeared to her, so she could readily believe Joseph Smith’s story of the First Vision. She was baptized then. Daddy was not baptized for another ten years or so.
In his 1962 letter to me, written while he was in a mental hospital, he said, "I have learned a lot from being sick, I know that God's way is the only way, I know that I want to attend church with you. I also plan to be baptised[.] I know this will please you. And I do wish to please you and Mother." (The letter can be seen at the end of the previous part.) |
Daddy was baptized a few years later, but he never completely gave up tobacco. He mostly quit smoking, but often had an unlit cigar in his mouth; he made a point of it, I think, when visitors from the church dropped by, though I didn’t know whether he meant to avoid hypocrisy or to intimidate the visitors; maybe both. He sometimes took a drink of alcohol, though there was none I knew of in our house. Doing the right thing became important in the family, in theory if not always in practice, and this I think played a role in how his final tragedy played out. I don’t know if he felt he’d let down the Lord, but I’m sure he felt he’d let his family down, as we will see.
*****
My depiction of the missionaries in Marion is a bit fanciful, full of the joy of nature and of the Gospel, but we do encounter Brother Brown, the agreeable interlocutor featured in the missionary discussions published a few years later, A Uniform System for Teaching Investigators.
The Rain on Alan Avenue
How the Missionaries Came to Marion, Virginia, 1955
In that far year when I was a child
(you were not yet), I saw how rain
on long afternoons can chitter and chat,
gurgling and chortling out the downspout,
its sing-song tune boring a brat
with nothing to do.
That was the winter rain made us slip
and slop through mud, and noses drip,
till April drizzle made way for the sun.
The roadside rocks were slickered with light
and cherry trees rose out of the dark
chemised in white.
That year heaven made constant noise –
ice that sizzled in the pale beech leaves,
blackberry hail that rattled the roof,
the high fall wind (it made trees bow
till they licked the ground) with a whirring voice
repent, rejoice;
and boys in the street going two by two
wearing snow-white blooms Good morning said
to Sister Rain in the leaf-choked gutters,
Good morning, brother, to Mr. Brown
at the window pane who reversed his frown
and said, How do.
(BYU Studies Quarterly, 2020)
No one likes a frowning face, Mr. Brown.
Posted 16 February 2024, updated 8 April 2024. Second draft posted 8 May 2024. Send comments, questions, and corrections to [email protected].
*****
My depiction of the missionaries in Marion is a bit fanciful, full of the joy of nature and of the Gospel, but we do encounter Brother Brown, the agreeable interlocutor featured in the missionary discussions published a few years later, A Uniform System for Teaching Investigators.
The Rain on Alan Avenue
How the Missionaries Came to Marion, Virginia, 1955
In that far year when I was a child
(you were not yet), I saw how rain
on long afternoons can chitter and chat,
gurgling and chortling out the downspout,
its sing-song tune boring a brat
with nothing to do.
That was the winter rain made us slip
and slop through mud, and noses drip,
till April drizzle made way for the sun.
The roadside rocks were slickered with light
and cherry trees rose out of the dark
chemised in white.
That year heaven made constant noise –
ice that sizzled in the pale beech leaves,
blackberry hail that rattled the roof,
the high fall wind (it made trees bow
till they licked the ground) with a whirring voice
repent, rejoice;
and boys in the street going two by two
wearing snow-white blooms Good morning said
to Sister Rain in the leaf-choked gutters,
Good morning, brother, to Mr. Brown
at the window pane who reversed his frown
and said, How do.
(BYU Studies Quarterly, 2020)
No one likes a frowning face, Mr. Brown.
Posted 16 February 2024, updated 8 April 2024. Second draft posted 8 May 2024. Send comments, questions, and corrections to [email protected].
