Arizona State Teachers College at Tempe

After returning home from 21 months in the United States Navy Reserve in July 1946 I was still only 19 years old. So many young men had returned from the war before me that no jobs were available. None of my family on either side had graduated from college except Uncle Orvel Johnston, who had become a CPA. I knew of the GI Bill that would pay a little to help us get a college education.

My parents offered us a part of their house to use as a small apartment to help us make it on the small amount the GI bill paid, we would not have to pay rent. So I hurried so I could attend Arizona State Teachers College of Tempe (ASTCT) that fall.

ASTCT had in the past had 500 or so students, only, but suddenly veterans came there on the GI Bill and the enrollment swelled and swelled. They moved old barracks onto the campus to use as temporary classrooms until new buildings could be built. The college wasn't ready for us so we had quite a time those first two years getting registered and deciding on majors and ect.

My mom's sister, Zelma Merkley, and her family had just moved to White Salmon, Washington where Uncle Arch Lamreaux worked in the timber industry. Uncle Alton Merkley was a mechanic so he worked on the saw mill equipment. The Merkley's owned a small home at 100 South Morris Street in Mesa. It was unoccupied so we arranged to live in her home while my dad did some remodeling on his home to add a kitchen for our small apartment.

Mom's brother, Raymond Lamreaux owned the Mesa Lumber Company so me and my brother Gene worked there off and on for extra money. We stacked lumber, unloaded railroad cars full of sacked dry cement. It was usually very hard work. During citrus harvest I went into the groves during free time and Saturdays to pick oranges, lemons and grape fruit, getting so much for each box I would pick.

Because I was always very smart in math, my mother encouraged me to major in engineering so that was my initial major. I had to take mechanical drawing and my high school had never offered any drawing courses. It was the first class I ever had a problem with in school. I hastily attempted to change to another major to use my math ability.

The veterans administration made me take aptitude tests to see what I should take. The tests showed I should be a farmer or a nurseryman. Accounting was third so I changed to be an accountant major.

I had purchased a Ford Coupe, a 1936, I think. I had mechanical brakes which didn't stop very good. I chose to hitch hike to and from school each day. I always had a school book in my hand

and stood at main street and country club drive and always got a quick ride, generally from fellow students or people working in Tempe or Phoenix. Many people picked me up day after day. coming home I would again have a school book in my hand and stand at Apache and Normal in Tempe and get a quick ride.

One of my classmates was from Thatcher, Murray Woods. Murray had a Ford like mine and one day a flat bed truck in front of us kinda stopped suddenly at Alma School and Main Street (Apache) but the mechanical brakes didn't stop us quick enough. Murray turned to the left quickly but the left rear corner of the truck bed hit the post in front of me on the passenger side. The two by four on the left side of the truck came free and went through the windshield hitting me squarely on my forehead, then stopped. It could have killed me had it came farther. I had a wound and was out a second but no lasting ill effect.

Wanda's cousin Viola Starmer came to live with us while we were in Aunt Zelma's house. She had graduated from high school in Long Beach, California and came there to spread her wings. After being in the family for awhile working at Mesa Woolworth Viola and my brother Gene started dating and soon got married. Gene was still in High School so they rented an apartment with VI's pay from Woolworth.

Shortly after we were married Wanda got a job for Bashas on the ground floor in the hotel just north of Main Street on MacDonald Street. Bashas were just beginning their chain of grocery stores in Mesa and Chandler. Our Bishop of the eighth ward was the accountant for Bashas.

Wanda had lived with Alice Kingsbury to tend her son in North Long Beach and Alice had sent

her to a Lutheran High School. Wanda had joined the Lutheran Church. She went to the eighth ward with me and with Bishop Charles Standige's help she soon became a Mormon. We were both very active in the eighth ward. I was assistant scoutmaster to Ralph Sloan. Ralph was a few years older than I was. When Bishop Charles Standige learned that I was an accountant major, he made me his financial assistant ward clerk even though I continued to work with the scouts.

Aunt Zelma moved back to Mesa that first winter so we moved into the small apartment with a bedroom, a very small kitchen and a very small bathroom.

The summer of 1947 we baby sat Hy Hancock's home and small farm a block east of Country Club Road on Southern. He had either 10 or20 acres with cows and horses. We stayed free for taking care of the place, feeding animals and irrigating. Hy took his family, his wife, and four kids on a long tour, I think to Alaska.

As soon as the spring semester was over I got a job for AT&T putting underground cable through downtown Mesa. We tore up the sidewalks which meant I ran a jackhammer again. We dug big holes for man holes on each intersection. We ran an air tamp to pack the dirt in before we patched the sidewalk.

Most of the crew were Gene's age so I was put in charge under the project manager, who was a full time telephone company employee. He was a nice man and he had me keep time books on the employees and kept inventory on supplies and equipment. We didn't install the lines, special people did that. This job lasted all summer and was a great boost to our finances.

Wanda's father was killed in a freak accident out in Long Beach. We went out to attend services and settle his affairs. We brought her bedroom set with us when we returned to Mesa. Wanda had a brother Fred Cross in Centralia, Washington. Her other sibling was a sister much older than her. Velma and Melton Meyers lived in Las Angeles area during the war but later moved back to Salida, Colorado their hometown. Wanda was born in Salida, too.

My brother, Gene, had worked at times at a bicycle shop for Alma Millett at Soloman and Broadway in South East Mesa. I became a part time employee of Alma Millett. He sold Schwinn bicycles and repaired them. He also sold Cushman Motor Scooters and serviced them. Shortly after I went to work for Alma as bookkeeper, salesman, mechanic and delivery boy, Alma made

a big tall mast with a directional antenna for television attached to his building. He became an agent for television sets. He did well until the Big company's finally started handling television sets and all accessories. We got one of the small 7 inch TV sets thru Alma Millet.

Cars

When I went to patrol the Highway 89 I was assigned a car that had been used. All of us rookies got older cars.

Orville Judd was the man that kept the Highway maintenance equipment running so I could always depend on him to keep my car working.


Late in the summer of 1955 while I was patrolling in the House Rock Valley a calf jumped out in front of me and knocked my radiator into my fan.

The entire House Rock Valley area from Marble Canyon to where we started climbing the Kaibab Mountain was open range, no fences along either side of the highway. The summer rains caused lots of grass to grow alongside the highway so the cows would graze along the roadside.

I was brought another older car to drive while mine was being repaired in Flagstaff.

Later that same summer I was clocking a tourist on the north rim highway but he spotted me and slowed down real slow. I went on around him and was going about 50 mph when I came around a gentle curve and a young deer jumped right in front of me.

I hit my brakes and the right front wheel locked completely up pulling me up onto the shoulder from where the car toppled onto its top in the middle of the road. I got out with difficulty and went to check the deer out. The young deer jumped up and ran off.

The tourist had arrived in time to see the deer get up and run off. I got his name and address in California then he took me to VT Park Lodge about 10 miles down the road. I called for help on their phone as I still had no radio contacts.

My Sargent didn't believe what had happened til he contacted the witness. Then I told him to drive the car even though its roof was caved in. He went a little ways and hit the brakes and it locked up on him too.

My first car wasn't repaired yet so I got a third old clunker. These were old worn out Fords.
I had the third car for a couple of months before they called me and told me to come get my first car as it was fixed.


I drove to Flagstaff the next day. It was a very stormy day.

By the time I was ready to head for Fredonia; it had snowed 3 or4 inches and was snowing hard. As I was driving on Hwy 66 in East Flagstaff I witnessed a new car heading west drive under the rear of a Highway Dept. Snow Plow. I turned around and parked behind the accident with my flashing lights on.

I radioed the dispatcher about the accident and he told me to go ahead and investigate it because the surprise early snow storm had all the local police busy already.

The victims were not hurt but could have been decapitated if they had been going faster. They had flown from their home in California to Detroit, Michigan. They had bought the car at the factory at a big saving and were driving it home. The top of the car was ruined by the snowplow.

I got the accident victims in my car which was clearly on the road shoulder. as I was filling out the report all at once a pickup driven by a Navajo ran into the rear of my car!!! We all had whiplash and my car had to go back to the shop. Another patrolman had to come and investigate my accident.

(The Navajo that hit my #1 car and caved the trunk in was driving drunk and had locked up his brakes and slid into my car. He spent time in fail for drunk and reckless driving.)

It was getting late in the day when I left Flagstaff in car #3 again. The Sargent though I needed to be in the Kaibab area with the snow. It was the day before hunting season opened and mobs of people had come north to hunt deer on the Kaibab Mountain

Many times while driving from the north rim to Jacob Lake I would see 500 to 700 deer in the park area. One evening while I was in the checking station a lady came in from the south and asked if I would sign a statement stating that they had seen 560 deer form the north rim to Jacob Lake. I signed it for her. She said, "I am going to be telling people about seeing that many deer and they won't believe me. We counted all we could."

Model T and the Tunnel

A young man named Gus Suedecum had came from Tennessee in a Model T Ford and had parked in a friends yard over in Pima. Gus was 3 or 4 years older than me so he was old enough to go into the service when World War II broke out.

Jerry Hancock and I had been trying to buy an old car so we took Gus's Model T out to try it one Sunday. We drove it down to Red Knoll, a group of red clay hills sticking up in some farm land west of the Cork store between Pima and Fort Thomas.

We found three Fort Thomas girls there in a pickup. We knew the girls from high school events and dances vaguely. They were Rayge Hammond, Pauline Cornet and Maxine Herbert. Rayge was a very large girl. Pauline was kinda cute so I wanted to impress her.

They were parked where a tunnel came out of the clay wall, we understood a farmer had cut the tunnel to move runoff to a field east of the knolls. It was about 3-4 feet high and 4-5 feet wide. We decided we would go threw the tunnel even though we had no light. I led the way with the girls behind me and Jerry bringing up the rear. I am very claustrophobic but didn't consciously realize yet. As I led into the pitch black tunnel, I became very uncomfortable and we were in about 30 or 40 feet. I was very nervous when a rattlesnake started rattling right in front of me.

I will never know how I got past Rayge but I was the first one out of that tunnel, basically too small for passing in. I have always remembered this as being one of my most frightening experiences. Now at 85 years old I still recall this wierd experience every time I am in a claustrophobic situation such as being unable to breath at night because of sinus congestion.

We gathered our cool and left Red Knolls, the girls went to Fort Thomas and we crossed the river at Cork and went to Eden. We thought the car was running hot so we pulled into Heber Kemptons yard and raised the hood and the moor was red from heat, this really scared us but we put water in it and we drove it on up to Bryce. The motor had turned back to black and still ran right. We decided not to buy the Model T, anyway.

Spencer W Kimball

In the fall of 1959 we had a couple of good snow storms and the roads on the Kaibab become difficult for traffic. One Friday early in December I was checking the traffic on the snow packed road and was helping a California driver when a north bound car advised me we had a bad wreck a few miles South. I proceeded to that location and found a big semi truck on the left side of the road where the he had been in the process of chaining up his tires.

Some of the Highway maintenance vehicles (snow-plows) were parked behind the truck. A car was in the canyon off the right side of the road it had sailed out into the canyon and struck a large pine tree about 2 feet in diameter right at its base, the driver door of the car was bent around the tree. It was a Packard, a big car of that time.

I asked Swede Bynum, the Highway Maintenance foreman where the body of the driver was, knowing from the look of things that the driver was surely killed on impact. Swede said "That little guy standing over there with the funny fur cap is the driver."

He had pointed out the driver so I approached him and asked for his drivers license and found out he was Spencer W. Kimball of Salt Lake City. He said he wasn't hurt and didn't even show any sign of shock. He said, "my wife is in great pain and needs to go to the hospital."
I said "If we can get her into the back of my patrol car, I will take her to the Kanab hospital."

I also asked if she needed a blessing and he said, "The Swapp brothers gave he one."
Cliff Swapp was a counselor to the bishop in Fredonia and his brother was in the Elder's Quorum presidency.

They helped get Camille Eyring Kimball into my car and I drove to Kanab with Spencer W. Kimball comforting his wife in the back seat. She had turned sideways when they hit the bottom of the canyon and broken some ribs where they hit the bash board. She was suffering a lot.

I helped them get her settled into a room and she felt comfortable. I returned Spencer W. Kimball to the scene of the wreck. On the way we were able to visit. He had known my grandparents, Ray Lamoreaux and Mabel Assay before they were married and continued to know and love them through his association in the LDS church. At this time Spencer W. Kimball was one of the twelve apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Brother Kimball had been my fathers boss for years in a sense he was the executive secretary for the Graham Canal Company that provided irrigation water to Graham, Hubbard, Bryce and Lizard bump. My dad , Leslie Johnston was the water boss for the Graham Canal for 12 years from 1931-1943.

I remember my mother saying many times some of her happiest times were when she went to Spencer Kimball's office to get dad's check because no matter how busy he was he took time to make her feel good about life.

When we got back to the accident site the maintenance crew had moved the damaged Packard down the old logging road in the bottom of the canyon to where it met the highway. Spencer W. Kimball insisted that he could drive it on to his destination which was my home stake, the St Joseph Stake in Thatcher, Arizona for their fall conference. This was also the area where he grew up and served the church so faithfully before becoming an apostle. His wife, Camille Eyring was from Pima.

We saw him heading south and he had to sit in the middle of the front sear and reach to the left to drive. In spite of the Packard being such a well built car both left tires were out of line so much the tread was gone when Spencer W. Kimball got to Flagstaff. He left the car at a garage and caught a bus to Thatcher.

I was told by friends and relatives that attended the conference that he spoke of the accident in detail and told how helpful Arizona Highway patrolman, Lavar Johnston had been to him at the accident.

The hospital informed me that they had moved Camille to Salt Lake City in a station wagon with a bed in it a couple of days after the accident.

I asked Edward Kimball, who coauthored the Spencer W. Kimball book how they could have miss-written the Kaibab accident so badly. He said,"Dad was never one for details in his journal so we just make up the story."

I felt badly when I first read the account in the book.

One of Edward Kimball's daughters (Jennie married my cousin, Rick Lamoreaux so I visited with Edward Kimball about the story.

The only part of the story in book that was correct was how the accident had happened.