Orson Clark-12/14/81 - Pg 14

people in here, that branch would have been dissolved." So I thought maybe we had done something.

Interviewer: It certainly sounds like it.

Orson Clark: Your Bishop is really in charge, you see. Then he puts in a Branch President. Instead of putting me in as one of the Counselors, they put this young fellow that had only been a member about six months in. Instead of putting me in where I could help them and show them what they had to do.

Interviewer: Yes, with all your experience.

Ruth Knowlton: I'm surprised they didn't.

Orson Clark: But they didn't, you see. You can see that I didn't want to go stepping in and telling them this is the proper way to do and this and that and the like. Finally this young man, he was put in the Branch Presidency and when we got ready to leave he didn't know where his people lived. So we put him in back of our car and took him around and showed him where each one of the members were located. That's the way we left it. But you say, "Did you like it?" I didn't like that kind of weather that we had. Living in a house like that. I told the President when I was to leave, "I'll never ask a couple to go and live in a place like we did." In fact, they told us in Salt Lake, "Find a good place to live." But this was just a barn. The people before us had lived in it, but it was cold and damp.

Interviewer: They may have been there in the summer and you got there with cold weather coming.

Ruth Knowlton: Yes, they lived there in the summer and you lived there in the winter and it's two different things then.

Orson Clark: But the owner of the house owned quite a lot in there. He was down on the end of the block. This man's wife's mother lived with them. So they build a little home between where we lived and where they lived, a new little home with electric heat. I have forgotten, about three or four rooms. It was small but it was convenient and the like. So when we got ready to go, we talked with the people and they said, "Now the mother is going to go up to her original home." That was up in Georgia or someplace up there. "Maybe she would rent that." So I jumped right on to them, "Let's rent that place." I was in pretty good standing with this fellow who was owner. We had been there several months, you know. We had never had any ins or outs at all, it was all good feelings. So I told them we had this couple coming and if they would rent it to us we would put that couple in and then when the mother decides she wants to come back then they will move. So we took that over. But it nettled me to go into such a little, cold, sloppy place. it did please me to put them into this new little