the road was to be. (In those days the counties were required to obtain the right-of-way.) I told them that if they wanted the ground to buy it. If not, "go back up to your meeting and let me build my house." They said they didn't want to buy it now because they had heard that starting with the next year the state was going to buy the rights-of-way, and if they bought it now they would just be out the money. But they would make an oral gentlemen's agreement with me next Feb. 1 for $500.00 for the right-of-way over the ground. They would pay me 6% interest on the $500 until paid and if the state didn't buy it then they would. I said, "If my banker calls you will you verify this?" They said they would. So I told Grant Clark, the banker, to call them and he did and they verified it. That gave me much credit at the bank and saved my neck.

In the first part of 1933 there occurred a severe earthquake in the Los Angeles area. As a great part of the damage would be to masonry, and we were bricklayers, and there was no work around here, Ken and I went to L.A. It seemed that most of the bricklayers in the whole nation were there. We went to Long Beach and secured a job that would be ready in a few days, then went to Compton on a small job.  We worked there a few days, then to our job in Long Beach. We worked for this contractor about six weeks when, on arriving at our digs one evening, there was a telegram telling me to come home: an accident. I figured it was probably our little boy Milton. We called him "Spud" because, I guess, he loved potatoes.

We had Ken's car in California, so he took me to the station and I got a train in the evening for Salt Lake. When we arrived at Milford, Ut. next morning I bought a copy of the Salt Lake Tribune and there was a picture of my little boy and an account of his death under the wheels of a milk truck as it was backing in front of our place. He died on April 13, 1933 and was buried on Easter Sunday. It was all a very sad experience you never get over. After 44 years you can still cry.

We were living at 2631 So. 6th East in a house owned by Torlief Knaphus. He was making a monument for the Church to be placed on the Hill Cumorah. I paid most of my rent by posing as the Angel Moroni and doing other odd jobs for him.

After the funeral we stored what belongings we had in a garage at Daisy's folks'. We left Dorothy with Daisy's sister Ivy and I took my wife with me back to California. Work was awfully hard to get. I did get some, though, and after we went north to San Francisco and visited my sister Avery and then left for home, bringing my sister Edna with us.

Sylvia was born Jun 12, 1933, soon after we arrived in Salt Lake. We then moved into Gambel's apartment at 1746 South 4th East.

Soon the buyer from the state highway came along and I met him in the engineers office and worked out a deal for the right-of-way across my two pieces of ground in Farmington. I received $1616.00.

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