And I think he had been renting a piece of property
from Wilcox's, which is down there by where the road
went over to the
Wilmington Bay.
And so we'd go down there and pick up these in combine

- - - 00:00:20 - - -

and found up the wheat and the bundles and tied it.
and tied it, and we picked the bundles up
and stacked them in a big stack.
Then they could come by with a wagon
and load it on the wagon and take it over,
put it in a stack, and then the old threshers
would come and threshen it.

- - - 00:00:40 - - -

Yeah.
And I don't know how old I was,
but I remember Dad Norfson took me down,
We went down to the lakeshore and Uncle Horst had a team of horses and he had a tin slip

- - - 00:01:00 - - -

and he had hooked the horses to the tin slip and I'd ride along on the tin slip holding
a gunny sack and my dad and Uncle Horst would go around and wherever they could find salt
they'd get a grip of salt and put it in the sack.

- - - 00:01:20 - - -

And where was this salt location at?
It was all along the shore.
Of the Great Salt Lake?
Of the Great Salt Lake, all the way down into Centerville.
Wow, this is right in Farmington that you did that.
Yeah, we'd go all along.
And what would you do with the salt?
Well, we used the salt to make ice cream.
Hahahaha

- - - 00:01:40 - - -

So Uncle Orson used it on his hay.
Oh really?
Uncle Orson would put his hay up a little bit green and put salt on it.
and then it wouldn't catch fire.
And then it would salt the cows.
So I was in nursing.

- - - 00:02:00 - - -

And I remember, oh, what was I?
13, 14, maybe 14 years old.
14 or 15.
Grandpa said, come on Richard,
we were gonna go get a load of hay.

- - - 00:02:20 - - -

So he went on and he had his team,
he kept a team of horses.
Uncle Ed kept them for him.
And so he had them harnessed up and hooked up the wagon.
And we went down, and where the city shops are now,
over there in that area,

- - - 00:02:40 - - -

Uncle Orson had a big field of hay.
And he loaded up a big load of hay and put it up in the barn for the cow for the winter.
And I remember I had this big load of hay.
Grandpa was climbing up the front of the wagon and he put his hand up and he said,

- - - 00:03:00 - - -

put the pitchfork down up here so I could get a hold of it and climb up on the wagon. I said, hey.
So I put the pitchfork right through one of his fingers and he said, oh shawl.

- - - 00:03:20 - - -

Boy, if he could do that I don't need to swear. He said, oh shawl. Oh shawl.
What does that mean?
What do you think that means?

- - - 00:03:40 - - -

It's just a word.
It says so shall instead of sorry.
Very good.
So you talked about this other barn from Uncle Ed, where Uncle Ed lived.
Where was this located?
Just west of Uncle Ed's house.
Uncle Ed is who?
What's his full name?

- - - 00:04:00 - - -

Edward D. Clark.
Now he's the one that had the purple house just west of the Rock House.
This is Edward's first son with Wellthee.
Which is the Carroll home?
Oh yes.
There was a big driveway that went in.

- - - 00:04:20 - - -

So tell me where this barn was on his property.
just west of, well there was a big,
just west of the, on Bled's Place,
there was a big driver that went in
so they could go in and get into the place back of York,

- - - 00:04:40 - - -

the big place back of York Place, and the crels,
and the barn was just on the west of that.
And the crels went right over,
I think, about where the road is now.
Do you say the corrals?

- - - 00:05:00 - - -

Who are they?
Corrals.
Corrals.
Oh, the corrals.
Okay.
I see, I see.
So the location of the Clark Barn, was that the Clark Barn that everybody refers to as
the Clark Barn or was there another barn behind Ezra's place?

- - - 00:05:20 - - -

No.
Yeah, we want to know how many barns there were and where they were.
Well, there was a big, big, and I don't know if they call it a barn or what, but there

- - - 00:05:40 - - -

was a big shed right behind Uncle Ed's place and the driveway, that big driveway.
my dad and Uncle Orson put their cars in there.
And then on the east side,
the fence went right down to the shed.

- - - 00:06:00 - - -

On the east side was a shed,
was still part of the shed,
and that was Uncle Ed's.
And there was a big, I don't know,
there was a machine shed or what,
but there was no Model T fork in there

- - - 00:06:20 - - -

right behind the garage, where God and them had the garage.
And then behind that was a big granary.
And Uncle Ed had a big chicken coop over on his place.
Now,
when we lived in the place,

- - - 00:06:40 - - -

I think it was a chicken coop
that was out on the back corner.
but it had been on the northwest corner of the property.

- - - 00:07:00 - - -

His grandma had chickens and she would sell eggs and cream
and then she saved that money
and then that's when grandpa built the house
up behind the courthouse.
And then they moved up there.

- - - 00:07:20 - - -

Now tell me about the house that's right across the street from the tithing office.
Do you know anything about that home?
It's on the corner of First North and First and Main Street.
Do you know anything about that?

- - - 00:07:40 - - -

No.
Okay, maybe later you could draw us a little map of what you remember of the barn locations.
We've always been curious about that.
That would be interesting.
But the greenery was, would you say it was more behind the Ezra T. Clark home or was

- - - 00:08:00 - - -

it more behind the Joseph Smith Clark home?
No, no.
It wasn't behind anybody's home.
Oh, okay.
behind the garage that was on Edward T. and Grandpa Clark's place.

- - - 00:08:20 - - -

So how far behind the house was it?
Like 50 yards?
No.
The house was probably, I would say, maybe 30 or 40 yards.

- - - 00:08:40 - - -

30 feet or so.

- - - 00:09:00 - - -

And Uncle Ed had a big roast garden back there,
back to his house.
But there was a roadway just west of Uncle Ed's house
and then the fence that went from the front
all the way back to the shed.

- - - 00:09:20 - - -

A big shed.
How big would you say the shed was?
I'd say twelve feet or so.

- - - 00:09:40 - - -

So I'm curious if you recall the old home.
There were two sheds that we recall behind the home.
Well, three.
the cellar right behind the home.
And then to the right of that there were two wooden sheds.

- - - 00:10:00 - - -

What were those sheds when you were?
Yeah.
They were both coal sheds?
Yes.
Okay, what did they use in them before coal?
Or was it specifically for coal?
I remember seeing coal when I was little.
All I remember is that
that Pat Robinson would use that driveway

- - - 00:10:20 - - -

to get down to his barn.
And we would use that driveway.
Elmer Hessie would come with his big truck
loaded with coal and shovel it into the,

- - - 00:10:40 - - -

we had the center section of the place,
And we'd put the coal in there
and keep coal and wood in there.
And each of the apartments had the other sections.
Got it.
Interesting.
Each had a part of that shed.

- - - 00:11:00 - - -

Yeah.
So tell me about some of your siblings.
How many did you have?
What were their names?
I had two brothers and two sisters.
I'm the oldest.
My brother Steven was the next, and then LeGrand, and then Colleen and his name.

- - - 00:11:20 - - -

And my brother Steve, he got married right out of high school.
I worked with my dad as a carpenter and the youngest brother.

- - - 00:11:40 - - -

He graduated, got a doctor's degree,
taught up at Utah State.
My oldest sister, she married Steve Love.

- - - 00:12:00 - - -

They lived in Bama, Fort Hood.
They lived in Ogden for a while,
and then moved to Domino and then they're now down in the care center.
And their legacy.

- - - 00:12:20 - - -

My sister Elaine married Paul Beckstrand.
She went to Japan on a mission.
Paul Beckstrand of Kaysville?
Yeah.
I know Paul.
So, when they married him,
and of course, they moved all around until

- - - 00:12:40 - - -

they settled in Kaysville.
They're still there.
Yeah.
So, which sibling did you get along with the most?
It's hard to say.

- - - 00:13:00 - - -

I had a good relationship with both of them.
But both of my brothers, my brother was just younger than I.
I helped him do things.

- - - 00:13:20 - - -

In fact, after mom died, mom told him, she said,
She said, I want you to take some of the inheritance and build you a boat shed, and shed for your boats up to Beverly.
Because he had a big house up there.
And his first lawyer died while he was building his home up there.

- - - 00:13:40 - - -

And so I helped him build his goat house.
In fact, my son framed his house up with battery.

- - - 00:14:00 - - -

So, but we all, he was quite the character.
He was doing a job out at Tennacock.
I'd been on a, while I was on my mission, one of the fortunate things was the mission

- - - 00:14:20 - - -

president sent me and my companion out to a scout camp for a day or so.
And that's when I took, made a few friends with this one, a scouter.

- - - 00:14:40 - - -

He was quite the guy and he says,
nighttime in the evening, he says,
you wanna go for a canoe ride?
And I said, sure.
So he paddles, we went out to the lake
for a little while before we come back in.
I said, that's great.
Well, when I came home from my mission,

- - - 00:15:00 - - -

I told my brother, I said,
I'm gonna make me a canoe and get me a canoe.
Well, he was working out at Kennicott doing some work
and they needed some fiberglass containers and stuff.
So they had, there was a place in Murray

- - - 00:15:20 - - -

that they had make them for.
And so he went out there to check on these containers.
He looked around the yard.
They had some old pieces of canoes
that somebody had started to make.
You wanna sell those?
Yeah, I'll sell them.

- - - 00:15:40 - - -

So he's telling me I gotta buy them.
We put them together, make the canoe out of it.
And for primary reunions, we'd go up to Bear Lake
and I'd take the canoe and the kids would have a ball.
To move.
Oh yeah.

- - - 00:16:00 - - -

And I'd had that for a couple of years then.
one of his neighbors was in the scouting business
and he went to my brother and he said,
he goes, of course my brother was making a few boats
and stuff, and he says,
he did a lot of fiber blasting and everything,

- - - 00:16:20 - - -

he says, make the scout some canoes
so we can have a little fundraiser
sell a few and have some canoes for the scouts.
And he says, well, what kind of canoes do you want?

- - - 00:16:40 - - -

And so, hey, got a few canoes and I took one down.
Oh, we like this one.
Okay.
So we make a mold.
We made, I sold my canoe and I made two.

- - - 00:17:00 - - -

My brother made one and the scouts, I think,
we made about 10 for the scouts.
Well, we had quite a time.
So I had a lot of good times with him.

- - - 00:17:20 - - -

He helped me with my house.
I helped him with his back and forth.
In fact, the last few years ago, we both were in the bee business,
working together.
That's how I know you.
I'm in the bee business, too.

- - - 00:17:40 - - -

You're the one that has the pollinators?
The native bees.
OK.
Yeah, I think I came to one of your meetings and presented.
Yeah, you came to one of the meetings, yeah.
With Albert Chewback.
He taught a little bit, too.
Yeah. And then of course,
when I got off my mission,

- - - 00:18:00 - - -

my youngest brother was going to school at Utah State.
He was rooming with about three other guys.
He said I could room with them.

- - - 00:18:20 - - -

So I wrote him and I said, register me for college,
I'm gonna be a week late.
So he did, he got me registered into college.
And I had been in the service,
I was in the service for 18 months
before I went on my mission.

- - - 00:18:40 - - -

So it's been a long time since I've been to school.
But I tried it out anyway.
So I really looked at him for a year, and I just missed man at his wedding.
That's great.
So what difficulties did you overcome as a child?

- - - 00:19:00 - - -

Oh, I had bad tonsils when I was in the first grade.
And those were the days.

- - - 00:19:20 - - -

And anyway,
Dr. Buchanan said they should actually have my tonsils out.
And so my folks said, okay.
They put the kitchen, made the kitchen table

- - - 00:19:40 - - -

and put it by the window,
made it into put a little quickening on it.
Doc Robinson gave the ether,
Doc Buchanan took the tonsils out.
And I think there was me and my two brothers,

- - - 00:20:00 - - -

and I think Merrill Clark,
they all had our tonsils out on the kitchen table.
And that was all in the Clark home and Robert home?
Yeah.
from there. That's great. Yeah. Okay. Right there on that windowsill in the kitchen?
Oh, we moved the kitchen table over by the window. Oh, okay.

- - - 00:20:20 - - -

We had the old kitchen stove, cold stove in the kitchen. Okay, yeah.
Yeah. What school did you attend? Yeah. Hilltop. Okay.
Hill, old school up there. Tell us about that school.
So when I turned six years old,

- - - 00:20:40 - - -

my mother was busy with the two brothers.
And so she asked Ruth Bentley, or Ruth Clark Bentley,
she says, take Richard to school.
And so she took me up to school,

- - - 00:21:00 - - -

got me settled in the school the first day.
But we worked as a group.
We were all, us cousins, we all pretty much stayed together
and went up there.
Back in those days we could play ball on the street.

- - - 00:21:20 - - -

But then we were up the hilltop
and they'd go around the building,
ringing the bell, and there was time for recess to end.
and some very big monstrous rocks

- - - 00:21:40 - - -

with some oak trees growing up in them
that we'd go out there and eat our lunch on.
When I was in the sixth grade,
well, when I was in the fifth grade,

- - - 00:22:00 - - -

They moved the sixth grade to Bountiful, junior high,
and they converted the upstairs classrooms
and made a basketball court and stuff upstairs
so we could play basketball in the winter.

- - - 00:22:20 - - -

When I was almost in the sixth grade.
So you traveled all that distance just to go to junior high, sixth grade.
Was it junior high or middle school?
Junior high.
Well we had to walk all the way from the hilltop to school.

- - - 00:22:40 - - -

You said Bountiful.
But we'd go to Bountiful to junior high.
But you'd walk from Farmington to Bountiful?
No, no, no, no.
No, when we went to junior high,
the bus would come and pick us up,
and then they'd go down to Centerville

- - - 00:23:00 - - -

and pick the kids up in Centerville.
They'd pick up some grade school in junior high,
they'd take the grade school kids
and draw them off at the grade school,
and we would go to the junior high,
and then the bus would go out
and pick up high school students,
and take them up to high school.

- - - 00:23:20 - - -

And we'd have to sit and wait at the junior high
until they brought the high school kids home
and then they'd bring us home.
Wow.
So that high school was bound to fly?
No, it was the junior high right there.
Oh, they attended high school there.

- - - 00:23:40 - - -

Okay, okay.
So they had all of it,
they had high school and junior high together.
No, no, no.
which was junior high.
We had, there was only one high school in Davis County.
So they were, so.
Davis High.
Oh my goodness. So they went from Caseville
to Bountiful with that bus.
Yeah. Wow.

- - - 00:24:00 - - -

Why didn't you take the train?
The Bamberger?
Well that's a good question.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I know that people from,
used to ride the Bamberger Davis High School
years and years before me, but I don't know.

- - - 00:24:20 - - -

I guess that's when buses came in.
All the buses came in in the 50s,
late, middle 50s.
So did you ever think about God as a child?

- - - 00:24:40 - - -

Oh yeah, yeah.
We had to go to Bournemouthville
that old building in the middle of Bountiful to be baptized.
The tabernacle?
Yeah, the tabernacle.
Oh, I remember Davis County was all one stake

- - - 00:25:00 - - -

when I was so big.
We'd go to somewhere out north to conference.
And then they called it Davis Steak, and then there was just, I think it was, I don't know,

- - - 00:25:20 - - -

North Salt Lake, Bountiful, Cape Center Room, Farmington.
I don't remember whether Caseville went there or not.
and later, made a day mistake

- - - 00:25:40 - - -

when there was a center in El Farmington in Caysville.
And the Ill Rock Church was the stake center in 1949.

- - - 00:26:00 - - -

I remember correctly, yeah, in 49.
And it was in 1950, June of 1950, that they made two wards in Farmington.
That was while I was on my mission.

- - - 00:26:20 - - -

First and second?
First and second.
Hmm.
So what was the ward called in Farmington?
Farmington First Ward.
Farmington First Ward.
Before the two wards?
Farmington Ward.
There was Farmington and North Farmington.
They had the one up in North Farmington which now got monstrous hormones.
But everything from Burke Lane, the Compton bench people and everything north of Burke
Lane was in North Farmington, and everything from there to the Centerville line, to the

- - - 00:26:40 - - -

They had the one up in North Arlington,
which now got monstrous hormones on it.
But everything from Burke Lane,
we've gone to the Banch people,
and everything north of Burke Lane was in North Arlington,

- - - 00:27:00 - - -

and everything from there to the Centerville line
was Farmington.
So you had quite a bit of people coming to church.
Oh, yeah, but there were only too many people.
It was a small town.
What became of the North Farmington church?

- - - 00:27:20 - - -

They tore it down. Somebody bought it and tore it down.
And they built big homes up, condos on it.
Do you know why they discontinued its use?
It wasn't that good of a building. The way they built it, it wasn't... it was odd shape and kind of out of a...

- - - 00:27:40 - - -

And that was the brick building right next to Main Street?
Oh, for just about...
Just about for 89.
Yeah, okay.
And why here did they build that? Do you have any idea?

- - - 00:28:00 - - -

I don't have any idea.
But they're as long as I can remember.
So what was your first job?
My first job?
Working for Half Robinson,
weeding carrots and sugar beets.

- - - 00:28:20 - - -

How much did you get paid?
Not very much.
Calling hay.
What other jobs did you have?
Oh, well I worked, I worked for part of the summer for the experimental farm, North Farm, I tell you, when they had a big archer.

- - - 00:28:40 - - -

Who ran that?
Utah State University.
Where was that located?
It's right up on the road 89 and all those converge.

- - - 00:29:00 - - -

It's right in that corner and then it's over in the Somerset, over in the Somerset.

- - - 00:29:20 - - -

I know exactly. The old botanical gardens.
Yeah.
Okay, got it.
Yeah.
Alright.
And then I worked, I worked for the Miller Floral after I graduated from high school.
I was working at the Miller Floral, uh, after all the team of horses, hauling the dirt in

- - - 00:29:40 - - -

and out to the greenhouses. And then they put me doing some odd jobs after we finished
that. And I was working with a fellow that had been discharged from the Air Force.
And he said, oh, you ought to go in the service. It's a great life. And he told me all the good things about it.

- - - 00:30:00 - - -

And I went home for lunch, and when I got home for lunch, my mother said, oh, the Navy recruiter
I said, I'm going to do away with the two year enlistment, buy it shortly.

- - - 00:30:20 - - -

Well, I said, no.
Paid the attention.
So I went back to work and they put me in a greenhouse, staking up roses in June, July.

- - - 00:30:40 - - -

I first got it in July, and it was hot and muggy in there.
And I thought, oh man, you know.
I said, this isn't my life.
So I went home, I told my mother,
I said, I'm gonna go join the Navy.
No, no, you don't wanna join the Navy.
I said, I'm gonna join the Navy.

- - - 00:31:00 - - -

Well, she says, you better talk to Uncle Rulam.
Now, Uncle Rulam was a juvenile court judge in Salt Lake,
and he owned the house where he lived.
And he had a garden out there.
And I said, well, we can reach down to his garden.
I said, well, we can just get down there and talk to him.

- - - 00:31:20 - - -

So we went down and talked to him,
and he says, oh sure, let him go, it'll be good.
He says, meet me at 10 o'clock at the federal building.
So we went in there at 10 o'clock,
and he took us in, introduced us to the commander,
And I sat down and we talked and he says,

- - - 00:31:40 - - -

son, I think you better go downstairs.
I went downstairs and just got downstairs and I says,
line up, raise your right hand, repeat after me.
OK, you're now in the Navy.

- - - 00:32:00 - - -

Such and such a day, you'd be at the Union Pacific Railroad
Station, you'll meet the train.
and head for San Diego.
Wow.
So that was the way I went.
So Rulon, tell me a little bit about Rulon, your uncle Rulon.

- - - 00:32:20 - - -

Well, Uncle Rulon married Claire Blea.
And he had Rulon Jr., Fern, David, and Calvin.

- - - 00:32:40 - - -

And we all associated with each other.
We'd go there and stay with them all sometimes.
They'd come out and stay with us at times.

- - - 00:33:00 - - -

Oh, and I remember when we were kids,
Grandpa would put straw on the wagon
and get the team of horses and Uncle Roland
and they would come out and we'd go down the fields
and Clark Lane went all the way down to the lake.

- - - 00:33:20 - - -

And Grandpa had 14 acres of strip right along the road.
the road there and we'd go down there, have Easter, celebrate Easter down there and all of us,

- - - 00:33:40 - - -

all of the Clark families go down there. So we had good relationships.
Great. What did you do to celebrate Easter? What kind of activities? Well we had boiled eggs and
and we'd play, go down there and play softball,

- - - 00:34:00 - - -

and just goof around.
Did you play in the water?
Is that why you went down toward the lake?
No, we never had, there was just a little stream
around through the middle of the property.
But we never played in the water.

- - - 00:34:20 - - -

We just went down there, relaxed, celebrated.
Were there trees? What was unique about the property down there?
No, it was just nothing but salt grass.
I think that

- - - 00:34:40 - - -

that grade school was built on the bottom end of that property. And I think my granddaughter and
her husband owned a house that faces grade school and I think they're on the upper part of it.

- - - 00:35:00 - - -

But Wheeler Machinery came in and at the time my mother was going to inherit, had inherited
half of that lot and Uncle Orson and the other half.

- - - 00:35:20 - - -

And Wheeler Machinery came in and said,
I bought up all the properties around it.
And he says, you know,
sell me your property for this much or else.
You don't get any water or nothing.
Because he said, I'm gonna level the whole place out.
And he did.

- - - 00:35:40 - - -

He piped the water through, leveled it out,
He had a big hay farm in there.
There was raised cattle and stuff.
And then he went broke
and sold that property.
And then that's when they started developing it into housing.

- - - 00:36:00 - - -

So this is your, so you did, your mother did sell the land to him, to Wheeler?
I think, I don't know, she inherited it.
I think she, at that time, had inherited it.
so I think she did.
Did Orson sell his property to Wheeler too?
Yeah, he didn't have any choice.
Why was that?

- - - 00:36:20 - - -

Well, it was either he sell it to Wheeler
or you don't get nothing.
There's no water or anything.
So who obtained the rights over the water?
I thought the Clarks had the rights over the water.
Well, not there.
Not there, huh?
That was a little tiny stream
that was running way down,
come down out of Shepherd Lane.
Oh, okay, this was a different water source.

- - - 00:36:40 - - -

It wasn't Big Creek.
No, no, Orson had the Big Creek water rights.
I see.
So that was further north then.
I was assuming that this particular property you're talking about was on Clark Lane.
It was.
It was on Clark Lane, way down west.

- - - 00:37:00 - - -

Yeah, way out west.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
I see.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
So did you ever date?
Did you ever go on dates as a teenager?
You never did, huh?
Did you ever have a girlfriend as a teenager or a kid?
No.
No?

- - - 00:37:20 - - -

Wait, why didn't you date?
I don't know.
I just didn't get interested in them.
Yeah?
So tell us about your Navy experience.
Well, that was an experience.
I mean, this old army train, something else, it would think it was going to fall apart.

- - - 00:37:40 - - -

But my poor mother, when she saw me get on that train, she about died.
You can hardly find that.

- - - 00:38:00 - - -

But we went down the road of training to San Diego.
Go off of San Diego, did our basic training in San Diego.
And just as we finished our basic training,
then the Japanese surrendered.

- - - 00:38:20 - - -

So I was classified as World War II veteran,
because I was in before.
So anyway, when I went in the Navy, they...
What year was that, if you don't mind me asking?
1946.

- - - 00:38:40 - - -

Okay.
Well, I might tell you that before that,
because I had tonsillectomy,
They took my pencils out the end of the school year
and I never went back to school
the end of the school year to get my graduation.

- - - 00:39:00 - - -

So the teacher says, I'm not gonna let you graduate here.
So you gotta be first grade again.
So that worked out to my advantage.
So when I turned 18, I get a letter from the draft board
And they say, report to Fort Douglas on such and such a day,

- - - 00:39:20 - - -

such and such a time, for pre-induction into the Army.
Well, so I went down there and passed that,
but I was still in high school.
So my draft didn't bother me.
So then I enlisted in the Navy,

- - - 00:39:40 - - -

got through the training,
They said, can you type?
Yeah, I can type.
Can you type so many words a minute?
No, yeah.
Well, if you can type as many words as you want,
take a test and it'll send you to school.

- - - 00:40:00 - - -

There's no other part of school.
And I had worked during my school years at night
with a mechanic, he was part-time job, Dave.
I think...

- - - 00:40:20 - - -

I think it was last name.