Musical? A little...

My Dad played the guitar and the musical harp. He could play them together by having a metal holder he put on his head and shoulders that held the harmonica. When he and Mom were in their early marriage they were limited where they could go and people in the area would ask them to play for dances at their homes. So Mom would play the old pump organ and Dad would play the guitar and harmonica while people danced. As a young boy I thought I should learn to play the guitar because my Dad could teach me. He did teach me a little and I can almost remember one little song. I had to practice many hours to be any good playing the guitar. I did play the harmonica but was not much interested in it. When I married Helen, I got the message that twanging on the guitar was not very respected, so I did not continue with that. During our marriage I did buy an accordion and got so I could play it but my talents were somewhat lacking and I did not take the time needed to get really good at it. As far as listening to music, Helen liked classical music so I was taught to like it also. I still like to listen to classical music and listen to it played on the piano. I love to sit and listen to my children play any instrument and sing. It has become a tradition to have my children and grandchildren play or sing to me whenever I go to their homes. Helen takes credit for the music in our family. She made sure all the children took piano lessons, at least the girls, and made sure all of them sang whenever they could. It has been a joy in our lives!

The Hitchhiker

It was just a regular run to town. Dad was 16 and Uncle Gene, his younger brother was 6. Dad was taking the kids to town and when they got to highway 4 they saw a hitchhiker trying to get a ride going the opposite direction. They got all their business done in town and on the way home they saw that hitchhiker again. Uncle Gene wanted Dad to stop and pick up the hitchhiker because a storm was coming. But Dad insisted they shouldn’t because it might be dangerous, so they drove on by him. A little while later they had a knock at the door. It was two policemen and that hitchhiker in handcuffs. They asked if they could stay in their home for the night because they couldn’t get through the storm to get the prisoner to Garden City. Granddad agreed they could stay. The policemen sat up in the living room all night long watching the prisoner. It was scary, Uncle Gene remembers, because the hitchhiker had shot and killed two people in Shallow Water earlier that day. Uncle Gene was grateful for his older brother Glen for not picking up the hitchhiker earlier that day. He could have killed them too and stolen their car.

Ran Away from Home

I was about 14 years old. Dad had bought a Farmall tractor and my brother John, who was 4 years older than I, was the one who had been operating the tractor. For some reason I was supposed to change places with John and I had not operated the tractor very much. Therefore, John and I were both at the operators seat, Dad was standing beside the tractor, the engine was running and we made the tractor jump, it scared Dad enough to make him throw a metal oil can which had a long stem on it. He threw it hard enough to hit the side of my head and it began to bleed. It shocked me and I was offended for he never threw things at us. The injury healed but I began to think that I was not important because John seemed to be better liked than I. It continued to bother me so I decided to run away---that would solve all things. Where would I run to? My sister Elma was going to school in Wichita to become a beauty salon operator so I decided to go to there. Some of mother's family lived there too. I didn't take any food or any clothes except the ones I had on. I got to town and the train came in the evening that would go to Wichita.

The train was pulled by a steam engine that burned coal and the back part of the engine had a big tank that held water and a compartment that held coal to burn to make the steam that ran the engine. It was a dirty place to ride because of the floating cinders. By the time I got to Wichita I was black as coal and I smelled awful. I found the home of my Uncle Lawrence West who accepted me and cleaned me up. I did get to see my sister Elma. She was living at the place she worked to help pay for her room and board. I slept on the porch of that place part of the time I was in Wichita. Uncle Lawrence called back home to tell them where I was but I stayed with my Uncle for about a week before he sent me home to my parents. He got me a ride on a truck to go more than half way home. Then again I had to catch a ride on a train that went through Scott City to get home. It was in an open topped rail car and I nearly froze all the way.

I began walking the 13 miles home but caught a ride from a farmer who got me within 3 miles of home. I began to walk again but by this time I was so tired and sleepy I decided to lay down behind a big weed along a field beside the road and went to sleep. In the morning I was awakened by the farmer of that field yelling at me. He was plowing the field I was sleeping in and he was afraid that he almost didn't see me hiding under that weed. I was so exhausted that I didn't hear the tractor. He could have killed me with his plow. So I got on the road again walking towards home. The first car that came along was Dad and John. They stopped for me and took me home. I was accepted by the family and was not punished for running away. I realize now how good I had it growing up with such dedicated and hard working parents. They may not have told me they loved me but I knew they did.

When Dad Quit Smoking

In Glen's own words:

My Dad used tobacco by smoking a pipe or a cigar and sometimes chewing tobacco but he was also able to quit it and leave it alone for a few months. Therefore, as I grew up I would try to use Dad's pipe and smoked a little, but it made me sick, so when I started to smoke as a kid about 13 I rolled some cigarettes and smoked some. Dad was surprised and indicated to me that he would prefer that I didn't smoke but not much was said about it.

I had quit the smoking habit when I dated my love, Helen and did not smoke any the first years of our marriage when we lived in California.

However, when we went back to Kansas to live, it seemed our lives were sometimes stressful so I began to smoke and use tobacco, even chewing some but we were not religious at the time.

That all changed when we began to learn about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Helen's sister Ethyl and family had joined the church and helped us to understand about how wonderful it was. But they never stopped smoking but they sure helped us to repent and be baptized. Many of the first years of Helen and I on the farm the country was in World War II and we were some what limited on things we could do.

However, when the war ended, the church sent the missionaries to our small town of about 1500 and they stayed there for a long time. I have always felt that they were waiting for us to belong to the church so they could leave someone in charge of the church in Scott City. I believe, Helen was converted first and we were baptized on the same day. So we went to work for the church and to make life better and Helen was really good to see that things worked. I quit working on Sundays and we cleaned the old building we rented and continued to have meetings. The missionaries were allowed to stay until they turned the operation to me.

One day prior to our baptism date I was driving the tractor that did not have a cab or any protection from the wind or dirt. It was in the evening. I began to realize I had to change my ways. Thus as I rode along I was smoking a cigarette, I took it out of my mouth and threw it on the ground. Since I carried a pack of cigarettes in my shirt pocket I also threw them away to be covered up by the tool I was pulling. So I never smoked again. We also had to give up on coffee and tea to never use them again.

Then we were also taught to never drink alcoholic beverages---so no beer or anything like it. Thus we needed to change and I did so. Sometimes, I would dream about me smoking but that only lasted about a year. So that taught me an important lesson. I never smoked, chewed, or drank again.

(Mostly in Dad's own handwriting)

Pauline and the Cactus

When I was a boy about 8 years old, my younger sister Pauline and I would play together. The only thing we had to play with was the horse. We didn’t have toys back then, no one did. We just played with what we had to play with and that was our horse Daisy, I called her Daze for short. One day we decided to take Daze out to the pasture to ride for a little while. We only rode bareback. The only saddle we had was in such bad shape that we would rather ride bareback then put it on. I forgot how we caught her or put the bridal on her, maybe some one else did it. We were too short to get on Daze by ourselves so we would move her over to the fence on the corral and jump over to her. I got on first and Pauline jumped on behind me with her dress on. Girls always wore dresses. Our little legs would stick right out because Daze, being a full size horse, was too wide for little kids. But we loved her. She was so obedient and gentle, even to us kids. We decided we were going to ride out to the pasture. I can't remember now where we were headed, but all of a sudden Pauline slipped off! I don’t know how or why. Maybe it was because of her bare legs, slipping on the smooth hair of Daze, or maybe she let go of me, for that was the only way she could hang on. But she went down. And I mean down, right into a prickly pear cactus. You know the ones with the beautiful white soft petalled flowers and the sharp thorns. On the top of each thorn were the clasping thorns that would grab onto anything that walked by. She screamed with pain! It sounded and looked so fearsome that it made me cry. I could see that she was full of stickers on her bottom. I tried to pull them out but she wouldn’t let me. She wanted our mama. She couldn’t get back on Daze, so she began to walk the quarter of a mile back to the house bawling all the way and me bawling right behind her. It looked like it hurt so bad that I couldn’t help but cry too. Good ol' Daze just followed. When we finally got back to the house mom quickly began the miserable chore of diligently pulling all those awful cactus thorns out of her bottom. Even now, more than 80 years later, I can still feel the tears start to flow remembering how badly it hurt her.