Ivan 1937 - 1950     page 9


There was more to moving up to the Canyon after Loudermilk acquired the houses and the shop place. It was some time before Bill Switzer and I asked if we could move in. After we got the lights and water in, it was all right to move in. We lived there quite awhile.


There were a couple of lady missionaries found us up at the place we had at Ranchitos. One of them was Ailesando and the other one was ________. Well, my wife welcomed them with open arms. It was through them that we discovered the branch there. It was a Spanish Branch. We could participate. Bill Switzer and his wife also attended. (I even blessed the sacrament in Spanish a few times.) We had a class in English. It was a very small branch. There was a family there that owns a garage. He was a very good man, and his wife and kids were O.K. His name was ______

We moved back to St.Johns. I went to work for Bowen & McLaugulin out north of St. Johns. They were going to pave the whole thing. I lived at home, drove to work. I then went to work for Hugh Richey, a road job into McNary where I worked till May 1949. We had a misunderstanding about the Union. (This was the first job he had working Union rules and I was running a dozer; when the power unit needed adjusting he insisted that I do it. I didn't have the tools so I got fired.) This was just before David was born.


Dr. Ellsworth examined Daisy and decided that she needed a hysterectomy. She suffered through it. It was a long time before she recovered, even partially.

I then went to work for Wallace & Wallace out north on another section of the road there. I first heard of George Willitt. He was the superintendent for Wallace & Wallace.

One time there was a small stretch of the road that had the "A-B" piled on it and it needed laying. Well, a dozer wasn't the machine to lay it, but I was there, it was there, I didn't have anything else to do. So I laid it. When George came back it was laid. He looked at it and said, "Well, good enough."

George didn't like truck drivers. He had a truck serviced out in the "boonies" one day, and told the driver it was ready to go. They told the driver it was ready. And the driver took off with the bed still up and there was a lot of bumpy grass growing, and the truck was weaving back and forth. George couldn't run fast enough to catch the guy and tell him to put the bed down. (You see what I mean.) I had a good reputation with them and worked till the job was finished.

Packard was the next job. This job was at Sanders at the north end, where it came into Hwy. 66. The railroad tracks, across the tracks to the north was Sanders. We were getting our fill dirt north of the railroad, transporting it across the railroad tracks up on to the fill. This was built quite high, as it was part of the roadway. It must have been at least 20 ft. high at the north part, then tapered down south 4 or 5 ft. at the other side. I was running a Tornapull part of the time.

I had run the slope side of the fill (on my right side and had made my right turn off the fill and my right side didn't recover and I ran into the side of the fill where I stopped. Well, the right side had worn the cotter key out, and it had dropped the pin out of the hole and left my right side without steering. We got that fixed, checked the other side, put in a new pin and back to work.