Finding an Occupation

After completing the summer session of 1949 at Arizona State College, I was ready to graduate. The graduation wouldn’t take place until the spring of 1950. At this time, I needed to find a permanent job. So I attempted to find work in the business field because my degree from college was in marketing and advertising. I tried several salesman type jobs locally, but none of them showed any real future. I finally went to work at the O.S. Stapley Hardware Store in Mesa, Arizona. My thinking was that this would have given me many opportunities to grow with the company and we were experiencing a population boom in the area. I worked as a warehouseman, a delivery man, stocker and an occasionally as a floor salesman. One of the greatest blessings in this job was that I worked closely with my uncle Bert Stapley, the husband of my father’s oldest sister Nina, whom I always loved very much. I also worked with Lester Carpenter, an old timer from the Eden area whom I respected very much. One of the assistant delivery men was an African-American by the name of Gene Johnson. Gene and I learned to get along fabulously. During the year of 1949, Gene helped me to become more aware of the plight of African-Americans. After working there for about a year, I realized the Stapley family had many young men my age who were planning to grow with the company.

My family and I purchased our first home at 252 W. 9^th Pl. N. in Mesa, Arizona. It was a small 3 bedroom, 1 bath tract home which accommodated our young family comfortably. It was around this time that I went to work at Williams A.F.B. in warehouse number one as a warehouseman, the same job I had performed before I joined the U.S. Navy in 1944. I was working with an entirely different crew, however, at warehouse number one. After working there for one year, my family and I took a vacation and traveled to Salida, Colorado, where my wife Wanda was born and we visited her sister Velma and her family.

I had been very closely associated with my Bishop, Charlie Standage, who was a C.P.A. who worked at the County Assessors’ Office. He had called me to be an assistant Ward clerk in our Mormon Church, being in charge of finances. He was very pleased with my work, so when the Maricopa County Sheriff, Cal Boies asked him for assistance in finding a young man to work as a deputy sheriff in the Mesa area, Bishop Standage recommended me after asking if I would be interested. I was very excited about what experiences and opportunities this would offer.

Particularly meaningful to me was the fact my grandfather Ray Lamoreaux had been a Graham County Deputy at one time and my uncle, Dallas Johnston, had been a Mesa City Police Officer. But before I could become a deputy sheriff in the Mesa area, I had to travel to Phoenix for a few months to complete training before I could work alone as a deputy sheriff without a partner. Sheriff Boies swore me in as a deputy sheriff, issued me a badge, instructed me to purchase a gun, a cowboy hat, boots and then issued me uniform shirts.