Soon after getting married we bought a lot at 1472 Westminster Ave. for $265.00 and during 1925 we built a house. I had grand ideas of building and selling and building and selling and getting rich, but it took eight years to sell the first one, and then I nearly gave it away.
We lived at 56 Vissing Place a few months and then moved to a small shack at 1180 Zenith Ave. We then moved to a basement apartment and 836 South 8th East (C. N. Christensen's) where we lived while building the new house.
When it became apparent that we were not selling it we moved in it. Then my wife had been working about 2 1/2 years and she quit prior to the birth of our first child. Dorothy Jay was born May 8, 1927.
When I took her to the front in fast meeting for a name and blessing, the bishop announced "the daughter of Bro. and Sis. Clark" and would be blessed by "John Doe."
I spoke to the bishop and said "I thought it was the right of the father to bless his own baby."
He said, "It is if he wants to."
I said, "He wants to."
This embarrassed the bishop a little. For some time he would announce it was the father's privilege to bless his own baby.
My mother Ann Eliza Porter Clark died June 12, 1927. Kenneth and I returned from a fishing trip to Star Valley. I took him to his mother's home and let him out to return to my mother's house for a short visit. Ken's mother (Aunt Sadie) informed me of my mother's passing. It was not surprising because she had been periodically sickly and not too strong, having had pneumonia several times, plus other ailments. She was a most wonderful mother and had not spared herself in service for others. She was the mother of thirteen children and a loyal companion to my father.
We lived on Westminster Ave. until 1931. During this time Kenneth and I were contracting together. We generally worked on houses and small business building. In Oct. 1929 we went to Cedar City to build a couple of houses and two business buildings for American Savings and Loan Co. In 1929, despite a late start in the spring, I earned quite a bit more than I ever had before -- $2565.00. This year our second child, our first son, was born. Milton Arthur, born on June 1.
Work was very scarce from 1929 to well into 1935, about six years of the Great Depression.
We moved from our new house on Westminster (1472) Ave. and rented it for $42.50 per month for a year to a Mr. Schricker. We rented small and cheap houses for 10 to 20 dollars per month to try to make ends meet.
About 1920-1931 we did the masonry on the new court house and bank in Farmington for Dick Knowlton, our cousin and general contractor. While working on the court house one Saturday, my wife and I were riding around Farmington and stopped to look at the dry piece of ground, about 1 1/2 acres, just east of the
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