A few stories of Glen Ralph Killian
On the back of the picture: Glen & Elva Killian -- Feb 4, 1979 "Golden Anniversary Open House" at their home in S.L.C. . . . to Stephen & Barbara from Grandma & Grandpa Killian.
I was born Jan. 20th, 1911 in Salem Utah. My parents were Alex and Irene Pierce and I grew up on the farm at the head of Loafer Street, just below the Salem Canal. I had a brother Byron, who was 6 years older, an older sister, Zola, and three sisters -- Beatrice, Hazel, and Marjorie -- who were all younger than me.
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I have many pleasant memories of when we lived on
the farm. Putting the harness on the horses, plowing, mowing hay,
hauling hay, cultivating row crops . . . It was all done with
horse power. There were no tractors or trucks; no hay balers. The
hay was cut, raked into windrows, bunched into piles, hand loaded
with pitch forks onto hay racks, hauled to the barn, and stacked
for the winter use.
My mother baked bread every day -- 4 loaves. We had a big flour bin in the kitchen and every fall dad would take some of the wheat to Payson to have it ground to flour, and then he’d fill the bin. There were no refrigerators or freezers. The pork was put in salt brine barrels to cure. Before we could eat it it had to be boiled to get the salt out. All the milk was sent to the creamery each day. Mother would keep enough for our use and to make butter
We had a coal burning stove, so we had to make a fire every morning. It was Byron’s job to get up and start the fire in the Kitchen stove. After he started the fire he would cut two slices of home made bread, skim the cream off a pan of milk mother had set the night before, sprinkle a little sugar on it, and bring it back to bed -- one for him and one for me so I wouldn’t tell. Boy it tasted good! Before long it was my turn to get up and make the fire. Of course, I wouldn’t skim the cream off Mother’s milk (Ha Ha!).
At Christmas time I remember we’d always have a real tree. My dad would take us boys with him on horses and we’d go up Loafer and chop down our tree. Dad would nail it to the floor. He would never take the time to put it on a stand
In the summer we all worked in the fields. We grew lots of row crops -- tomatoes, lima beans, sugar beets, corn, peas, potatoes, hay, and grain. In the mornings and at night I had to tend and milk cows. We always had 6 to 8 cows, 3 work horses, 1 riding horse (in the summertime we would ride this horse to take cows to the pastures), calves, pigs, and chickens -- there were always chores to do every day of the year.
Byron -- six years my elder -- could take me down easily and sit on me. My mother would come to my aid. She would say she longed for the day when he could no longer do this to me, and that day finally came.
Zola and I got into a water fight one day. We each had a bucket and would dip water out of the ditch and throw it on one another. It ended up at the swill barrel. This barrel was kept to help feed the pigs. It had sour milk and all kinds of scraps from the house in it. I had gone in the granary to get some grain for the pigs and as I came out of the door, Zola let me have a bucket full of swill right in the face and all down the front of me. If you have ever smelled pig swill you know how I felt. I also tasted it! By the time I got my eyes wiped out and got my own bucket full of pig swill, Zola as long gone. I looked all over the barn, haystacks, chicken coops, barnyard, and even in the house. We had a big orchard out back with all kinds of fruit trees -- apple, peach, plum, pears, and cherry trees. The next day Zola told me she had gone out in the orchard and climbed a cherry tree. She had just outsmarted me. Oh well . . . there will be another day ;-)
I went to the Salem Elementary School, about 1 and
1/2 miles away. I had to get up early and help with the chores
before school.
I think of the days in the Salem Elementary School. There were only four boys in our class when we got to the 9th grade. All the rest had dropped out -- Glen Christensen, Clarence Hill, Cecil VanAusdale, and myself. A big bunch of girls -- Ruth Hanks, Pearl Carlson, Denis Sheen, Flora Beddoes, Inez Christensen, Nadine McQuivey, Edith Taylor, Bula Sheen, Barbara Koyle, Evelyn Snow, Ruby Warren, and Muerol Sheen.
My grandma -- Lucreatia Bingham Killian -- was a widow who lived alone in the house next to us. We would stop in to see her on the way home from school. She would give us grape jam sandwiches. She was really lonely and liked to talk to us. If we had anything new she would ask us where we got it and how much it cost. Zola used to sleep over at her house overnight quite a lot.
In 1927 I started attending Spanish Fork High School. We rode the Intermountain Electric Train to school. We would board it at the train station in Salem and it would go right past the High School and down main street 2 blocks to the station. Then we would have to walk back to school. Lots of times I would come out of our front door and see the train coming down Payson hill. I would run all the way to the station -- one mile -- to catch it. This kept me in good shape.
It was about this time I started to notice a girl. She had long hair in ringlets. Her name was Elva Cloward. It wasn’t long before I asked her for a date. She said yes. So we started going together. Some of the time when we got off the train coming from school I would walk her home. This made me late getting home and Dad would get mad at me.
I had great times in school and learned many important things. I took a seminary class each day. I loved my teachers and made many new friends. I played basketball, football, and went out for track. One day when we were playing Basketball they passed the ball to me. I turned all the way around with it and Earl Ainge was hanging onto it. When he let go after being air-borne he fell to the floor and broke his leg. Earl was a small guy and the coach got on me for being rough on the small guys.
One day when we were at the track, I threw the javelin way down the field. There was a kid standing down there with a pair of bib overalls on. When the javelin came down it landed in the bib of his overalls, and then hung down. From where I was it looked like it had gone right through him! Luckily it did not hurt him at all.
What we did to entertain ourselves:
My father, along with Roy Taylor and Ross Hanks, bought the old Salem Show House from Andrew Peterson around 1924 - 1925. These were the days of no sound. They showed the pictures and you would have to read what they were saying. They had shows on Wednesday and Saturday nights. It was a big deal to go to the show twice a week. They had an old player piano that was pumped by foot. Someone would play this before the show started.
The Salem Pond is where I learned to swim. It was
about 1/2 mile through the fields to the head of the pond (or
Salem Lake as some call it). It is fed by natural springs that
bubble up. The water was very clear and pure, but today it is
contaminated like most natural water is. After hauling hay, or
working in the hot field all day, Byron, myself, Bliss &
Claude Beddoes, Frank Beddoes, Oliver Floyd, and Neldon Nash
would all meet at the head of the pond. It was here we all
learned to swim. It was our old swimming hole and we all had a
good time.
By this time I had advanced through the Priesthood -- first deacon, teacher, then priest. During this time I was in the Scouting Program. We took many fun trips. We would go up Provo Canyon to Aspen Grove, camp there, then hike up to the top of Timpanogos and slide down the glacier. What fun we had.
During all this time there was no television so we had to create our own fun and entertainment. We went to many dances, both indoors and out. They had outdoor dances at Arrowhead in Benjamin, and at Edgewater in Salem. We also went to many two and three act plays put on by the local people of our church. This gave the people a chance to use their talents.
When
I was 16 years old I could go deer hunting with my dad and carry
a gun. This was a big deal and I had been looking forward to it.
My dad, Byron, old Frank Davis, Worthy Davis, Agustus Carson,
Frank Beddoes, and Chancy & Mark Christensen, all went to
Strawberry hunting deer. They would take a team & wagon, 3 or
4 saddle horses, and stay 3 or 4 days until they all got their
deer. Now -- finally! -- I was old enough to go with them. I
stayed along with Dad so I wouldn’t get lost. We were
hunting 5th water. Dad saw one lying down at the edge of some
timber, but the deer got up and walked into the trees. Dad said
he would hide down below him, and run him out in the clearing to
me. He had just been gone for a few minutes, and here came a big
four-point on the run trying to get away.
I shot one shot and down he went!
My dad came dashing out of the timber on his horse and said ‘Where is he?" "Right here," I replied. "Did you get excited!" he asked. "Oh, it was about like shooting a jack rabbit," I said trying not to look too excited.
We went back there for several years until Dad was gone. Then I quit going there -- too many roads had been built all over the land and too many people could get to it.
When I was 14 or 15 years old my parents and all the family, except myself and Beatrice, had gone early to the show. This was in the days of wood and coal burning stoves. Mother was baking bread and Beatrice was to watch it and, when it was done, take it out of the oven. I was to do the chores and milk the cows. Then we were to go to the show. I was in the barn milking cows when Mrs. Howard Davis, our neighbor, came running over and yelled, "Glen! Your house is on fire!" We ran from the barn to the house. When we got there it was so bad we couldn’t get in the kitchen -- it was all in flames. I ran to the front door and all I could see was the piano by the door. So I began pulling it out with Mrs. Davis' and Bea’s help. We got it outside. We were unable to get back in the house. It was full of smoke and flames.
All the clothes we had were on our backs. Someone went to tell my parents and they rushed home to find everything had been lost. We all went to Aunt Martha Christensen to stay that night (Mother’s half sister). Uncle Chris Christensen , Aunt Martha’s husband, had a farm just above the canal with a 4 room house on it. This was right next to where we lived. My dad rented it and this is where we lived.
My parents had to start all over again. There were six children and we never had a change of clothes. We lived there four or five years, then my dad bought Teddy Beddoes' house downtown. This was where my parents lived until they died -- Dad in 1952, Mother in 1954.
Dad didn’t continue his story in this journal, but we know he spent most of his life working hard in road construction. You couldn’t travel many major highways in Utah that he hadn’t built or improved and if things were'nt done right he’d call it ‘road destruction’.
Dad’s health was always good but two recent surgeries took their toll. These he endured with quiet dignity and without complaint.
Because he worked hard all his life, his favorite place was his home. He loved his home, and he loved his family --- and we loved him.
My favorite part of Dad’s journal was about his high school days when he wrote: "It was about this time I started to notice a girl. She had long hair in ringlets. Her name was Elva Cloward. It wasn’t long before I asked her for a date. She said yes. So we started going together. Some of the time when we got off the train coming from school I would walk her home. This made me late getting home and Dad would get mad at me."
That was about all that was written in Dad’s journal about the girl with long ringlets. But we know the last chapter. He married the girl and they just celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.
I was privileged to dedicated both Grandma and Grandpa's gravesites after their respective funerals.
At Grandpa Killian's graveside service: "Our Father in Heaven. By the authority of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood, which I hold, I dedicate and consecrate this gravesite as the resting place for the body of Glenn Ralph Killian, whom we loved. And we ask thee to hallow and protect this spot, to keep it safe and filled with peace, until the time of his resurrection and the reunion of this body with his sprit. We ask thee to comfort and console our family, and his many dear friends, in his loss and ask that Thou will fill us with Thy spirit. Let us feel the assurance and comfort of the Gospel, with the certainty and vision that we will see him, whom we have loved and honored, standing again, strong and young, at the head of his family, in that glorious world to come. Though he may now seem far from us, encircled safely in Thy arms, we look forward to that bright day when we may once again fill our embrace with him. And we do and ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
At Grandma Killian's graveside service: "Our Father in Heaven. By the authority of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood, which I hold, I dedicate and consecrate this plot as the resting place of Elva Killian. I pray that this plot may be protected, as her body lies beside those of her husband and daughter, and that a spirit of peace and faith may descend upon our family knowing that they are united again, and will be there to meet us in that future, bright, morn. And I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."