Story Time!

Story Time -- Mt Logan Survey

By Neil R

One responsibility, as an employee of the Soil Conservation Service, was to assist with the snow surveys during the winter months. At that time we had five sites that we were responsible for. This story only involves one, Mt Logan. On this day the task of doing the survey on Mt Logan fell to me and Jim Carly. Jim was one of our Soil Scientists. Our job, whether we wanted to take it or not, was to make the hike to the top of Mt Logan and do the snow survey at the top. Since this was a walk on snow shoes all the way up you had to leave before the sun came up and you knew that you were not going to be home until after dark in the evening. I had been on this survey a number of times before so I was well acquainted with the hike. Everything went quite normally that morning. Jim and I arrived at the trail head at the determined time and began our assault on the mountain. It was generally a nice day for this type of activity. We got to the summit at about noon. We had been able to cross the slide area with out any problem, ( In time past two of our people had been caught in a snow slide at this location) had eaten our lunch and completed the survey. As a rule, on our return trip, once we left the summit we very seldom followed the trail back down the mountain but rather would take a short cut down the slopes by sliding on the back of our snow shoes. This day as I came to the first slope I paused and surveyed the area below. It was in the spring of the year, about March or even April, and there had been a lot of snow melt take place. This would be the last survey made for this water year. So, there were a lot of rocks sticking out of the snow below. As I looked I had already made up my mind that the slope was to dangerous to slide on. The chance of hitting one of the rocks below was very good. I had decided not to take the short cut and go back down the trail when Jim sat down on the back of his snow shoes and down the slope he went. As I stood there and watched about half of the snow on the slope followed him down. As I watched, Jim missed all of the protruding rocks and after a while came to a stop. It looked like he had came through okay so I found a likely spot and sat on the back of my snow shoes and down the slope I went. What snow had not slid off with him followed me and it seemed no matter how I tried to avoid a big rock below I was destined to hit it. I was going pretty fast and had no control over the direction I was going and yes, I collided with that rock. And, yes, it hurt. As a matter of fact it hurt very badly. I was not too fast getting up and when I did Jim said, “You are bleeding”. Well, here I was up on a mountain, miles from any one, and the only way to go was down. So, down we went. Needless to say we did not slid on our snow shoes anymore that day. ( or ever for that matter) We just walked down those slopes with every step hurting. Jim had a bad knee and by the time we got to the truck we were both hurting. When I got home I had to lay on my stomach and let Ella examined the damage to my sit down. She cleaned it up and put a bandage on it.

The next day when I went to work and Jim and I related our story, Boswell, my supervisor sent me to our government Doctor. I remember when I went in to see him his nurse was there with him. He told me to show him the problem. I said not with her in here. (She was in our Ward) She left the room and I took down my pants. He had me lay on the table and proceeded to take off Ella’s bandage. I guess she had used a lot of tape to make it stick. The doctor wanted to know who fixed it, I told him my wife. Then he wanted to know what she had against me. Yet to face, were the days of sitting or trying to sit while the wound healed and to write the accident report and tell how I hurt my sit down. All this was very interesting indeed.

Letter from Neil R

Dear Family January 20, 2011

This would be a good time to thank everyone for the cards, letters, e-mails and gifts received from you. Thanks so very much. It is always fun to get those cards and letter that have pictures of your family. What beautiful families. I put them in an album and that way by turning the pages fast I can watch your family grow up in kind of motion picture sort of way. For those of you who would remember the “Big Little Books”, well like flipping the pages of the “Big Little Book” and watching the action figure in the corner of the page.

It seems like January is, in many ways, a slow month because, due to the cold we pretty much stay inside and work at keeping warm. I guess if we were wise like the birds we would go south. I would guess the one thing that would be of interest is the process we are in of selling the property in Myton. I must admit it has been and is a hurtful decision but after weighing all of our alternatives we felt it best to move in this direction. While we will not be getting top dollar for the property we can have some peace of mind knowing that it will be in the hands of a family that loved the Myton homestead almost as much as we do and we can be sure they will care for it as we would have done. After all they are the ones that have been taking care of it for the past fifteen years.

We did consider keeping the property and having the buildings taken down. This would have reduced our expenses but we would have still had the maintenance of the property to take care off and we would probably have still looked to the Dennis to do this work. The other thing we looked at was fixing the house up as near as possible to current codes and then listing it for top dollar and while waiting for it to sell rented the property. Since property in Myton is, at present, taking a lot of time to sell the renting thing would probably go on for some time. From experience I have learned that most renters take but give very little

So looking at all of our options we felt it best, to do like Mr. Cederquest used to say, cut our losses and move on.

And life will go on with lots and lots of grand memories. And so goes the month of January 2011

Love,

Neil

From Anna and Wilmer Murray’s Journal January 2011

Wednesday, January 9,1980

Finished typing Anna’s history. It doesn’t look much better but will have to do. Picked up Fred to go to town. Dropped off Anna’s history to Shirley Mortensen then went over to renew our certificate at the bank. We added our savings to it making it $1,900.00 and put it on a 2 ½ year with 10.15% interest. There goes our rug or trip to Panama. Anyway Sister Talbot will be down to Panama until after March. Maybe we can go after the baby comes. Charlene called to tell us they have a sweet little boy. She sounded great. (Fred got a nose bleed while we were in Roosevelt)

Thursday, January 10, 1980

We don’t have much snow but we really had wind and it’s like summer. Today is John Tucker’s birthday. I intended on calling but waited too long so just went on working on the Mucukluk. Have John’s finished and will soon have LaVora’s done. Now I must get Charlene’s baby’s quilt done. I decided I better get the clover leaf on and send it to Boise so sister Talbot can take it to them, I will call her tonight. She wasn’t home so will try in the morning. And I forgot, Beverly Urisk called and said she would be at Afton Lewis’ getting her hair done at six.

From Anna and Wilmer Murray’s Journal December 2010

Monday 22, 1980
Still beautiful weather. I worked on the quilt binding today, got it cut, pressed and sewed on the machine. Darrell called this evening to tell us Mrs. Butcher passed away this morning. It really upset us as we thought she was better. They are having her funeral Wednesday at noon. Maybe we will go back with Neil when he comes tomorrow. We called LaVora, Neil and Dewey to tell them about it.
Tuesday 23, 1980
It is still beautiful weather. I did not get much done on the quilt today. Neil came about one thirty. Then Ross and Velma came. I called to see what Darrell and JoAnn thought about us coming out with Neil. Only Jodi was home. Shortly after, JoAnn called back, she said to stay home and take care of Dad. We felt that they were always here when we need them and when they need us we can’t go. So we have really been mixed up.
We had a good visit with Neil, Ella, Ross and Velma. Ross is a good comforter. Soon Neil and Ella were on their way home. Neil said they would go to the funeral tomorrow. Ross and Velma visited a while longer. We really enjoy them and hated to see them go,
Katherine Abegglen and her blazer boys came caroling and brought us a box of goodies. Ardis Davis brought a plate of goodies too. They visited a while with us and our company. We have good neighbors. John Urisk brought some shale for out yard. They tried to keep it a secret but Dean and Ramona came and Dad asked who was out in the yard. Then we went out. Wade was helping his dad.

The Butchers and Murrays


Santa

Family update--Adventure at Aspen Grove!

Dear Family December 31, 2010

Here it is the end of December and the end of the year and we are ready to start a New Year so Happy New Year everyone.

I would assume that everyone’s past month has been very similar to mine. We shoveled snow, shopped for Christmas, had Christmas Eve dinner and celebrated Christmas day etc. It is always good to be with family and it is epically nice this time of the year.

We made our usual trip to Aspen Grove. I think all of the family was there except for Van, Marc, Cami, Jordan and Joshua. It seems Marc needed to work and of course Joshua is on his mission. Things went pretty much the same as usual except that we added a slide presentation, Aspen Grove 1984 – 2010, which Reed and his family prepared and showed. Experiencing the presentation was a time when one needed to have tissues handy. Then we took an hour or so to let anyone, who wished, share a few thought with the group. Needless to say that this was another tender time as everyone remembered their grandmother and expressed their appreciation for the Aspen Grove experience.

When we went up the canyon on the 27^th the roads were bare and clear. On the 28^th we had a warm day with the sun shining, which made for an enjoyable day. The morning of the 29^th, however, everything changed as a storm moved in. For a while we were snowed in. This is the first time, on our last day at Aspen Grove that it has been storming like this as were leaving, so this was something new. What an opportunity, just think of the stories we can tell and they, depending on ones imagination, can only get better with age. It was not until in the afternoon, when we were getting down to our last steak and everything that they decided to dig us out. Then we had an interesting trip down the canyon. First I got to close to a snow bank on my right and got stuck. A kind couple, who Reed and Kerry had asked to watch for us stopped and helped. They and my grandsons soon got me going again. Then by cell phones we learned that they wanted us to turn in at Sun Dance so the emergency vehicles following us could pass. This we did and while we were turning around in there my grandsons decided to drive my car out of the canyon. We, however had not gone far until we found our selves behind a long line of cars. Here we leaned that a big tree had fallen across the road and as it went down it took the power lines with it. We were told that it was going to be a couple of hours before they could get the tree moved. So there we set in the snow storm talking to everyone up and down the road as well as our families at home. (Interesting invention, these cell phones.) I’m sure it did not take that long for soon they had the road open and we were able to continue down the canyon. Now, just think, couldn’t one with a little imagination really come up with a good story like: (You know how we were going down the canyon in our covered wagons and the sleet falling was as big as a baseball and the weight of snow on the pine trees was causing them to fall all around us causing our animals to go crazy and then alas one fell across the road in front of us stopping our progress. So now here we are, with our singe blade axes, chopping away at the tree in an effort to move it. I’m afraid we will be here for the night ---“) .Anyhow, a few of us, Brad, Brytni, Bridger, Lincoln, Kevin, Rebecca, Doug and my self, finished of the day with a meal at Chuck A Rama. It was a wonderful day and wonderful adventure and best of all I was with the very best people.

I hope this long note finds everyone well and in good spirit..

Love. Neil

Abby, Marie, Neil, Karly, and Mariel

Story Time -- Things are not always what they seem By Neil R

In the November story time item I mentioned that during the years I was in elementary school at Myton, as second and sometimes the only source of income, the folks took in borders. At first it was construction workers and then later school teachers. Over time these arrangements led up to some interesting and choice experiences. It seems, at times, we had three or four teachers staying at our house and two or three others that stayed at Zirker’s and had their meals at our house. Over time we became quite attached to most of these people. As a matter of fact they became like family. It seems that the time I’m thinking of there were three teachers staying at our house, two women and one man. It seems, when there was free time, the borders, including mother and dad, would sit around the dining table and play games. One game that was popular was Chinese checkers. Anyway to get on with the story there was this one night, after mother and dad and the rest of the family had gone to bed that the teachers, I think Helen, Thelma, Hazel and Purcell, were still at the table playing games, talking or just being young adults. Fast forward to the next morning when mother and dad got up there in the middle of the table was the water pitcher with a note in the top with the word written on it “contaminated”. Well mother took this personally. She thought they, and Helen in particular, was saying that mother was not adequately cleaning her dishes etc. This thought that mother did not keep a clean house built up in mother’s mind until she was, well very angry and she was seriously planning on asking Helen to move out. Mother must have mentioned her feelings to one of the other teachers because she, and I think it was Hazel, told mother “Oh Anna, Purcell drank out of that pitcher and that is why Helen put the note in the pitcher with the word Contaminated”. Ooops

Update

Thanks to everyone who fasted for Lyle and his family.  Just to update everyone, he has been working at a temp job, so hopefully this will be able to help out and until bigger and better things occur!  Thanks for keeping him in your prayers!

Grandma and Grandpa

Groom's Name: Wilmer Murray




Groom's Birth Date: 18 Aug 1902



Groom's Birthplace: Vernal, Utah



Groom's Age:



Bride's Name: Anna M. Winkler



Bride's Birth Date: 30 Aug 1906



Bride's Birthplace: Ferron, Utah



Bride's Age:



Marriage Date: 08 Dec 1923



Marriage Place: Uintah, Utah



Groom's Father's Name: James B. Murray



Groom's Mother's Name: Atta Ashby



Bride's Father's Name: Herman J. Winkler



Bride's Mother's Name: M. Verona Gardner



Groom's Race: White



Groom's Marital Status: Single



Groom's Previous Wife's Name:



Bride's Race: White



Bride's Marital Status: Single



Bride's Previous Husband's Name:



Indexing Project (Batch) Number: M74682-5



System Origin: Utah-EASy



Source Film Number: 481105



Reference Number: 1162



Collection: Utah Marriages, 1887-1966

Jerry Murray Family

Jerry Murray Family


While in Utah we took two trips to Myton to do a little work on the house. On one trip we noted there was an oil rig on the old farm. So we drove over to it. There it was as big as life. It was sitting on the 20 acre field where I have cut a lot hay. We were back out in Myton about ten days later so I thought we should go check it out again, and to our surprise, it was gone. It looked like it had been moved up on the north Myton bench. Our thought of getting rich quickly vanished.

We have been home for nearly two months and have been working at the house and spending some time helping at the Mission Office. They have us doing apartment inspections - Not the funnest task as we find that some missionaries are better housekeepers than others. Marylyn is the sergeant of arms and the master inspector. I just make sure she gets to the apartments on time.

We had Allison here for Thanksgiving for a short visit and then she was off to Morgan Hill to stay a few days with Lisa and Bob. We only had a small group for Thanksgiving for a change as Susannah, Kevin , Allison, Jennifer and her dog represented the family. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we had the grandchildren and their parents. We ate too much and spent too many days eating. I guess that is what Thanksgiving is all about.

The Bishop asked me to be in charge of the ward Christmas party. It was a lot of work in a short amount of time. However, the ham was great and there was a lot of food. The only problem was that the High Priests provided pumpkin pies but no whipped cream. A rather dry dessert.

As soon as the party was over we headed down to Morgan Hill to help Lisa and Bob get unpacked in their new home. It is a new home but they have found there are a few problems with the house as it foreclosed before it was finished. They purchased it as is and so are responsible for fixing all the little items the contractor did not finish because they were not paid - like the gas outlet for the dryer did not have shut off valve ( a dad project). No code for the gate opener - still researching. One of the five bath room showers only has hot water - a major plumbing problem and a major leak in the sprinkler system. We were able to stop the leak but it will have to be fixed in the spring. A few other problems like trying to determine what all the light switches control. Other than that, it is a great house. We were there for five days and all tuckered out. It was good to be home in our small house where we did not have to walk so far to get from one end of the house to the other.

We will be picking Allison up tonight from the airport to spend Christmas with us and then she will head down to Lisa's to spend another few days. She just returned from an exciting trip to Prague and a side trip to Austria. She has become our world traveler. Jenn is off to Hawaii for Christmas. Lyle and family will join us here on Christmas morning to open presents. Susannah and Kevin are spending Christmas with Kevin's family this year. We will go to Lisa's after Christmas to work on their house some more.

Merry Christmas to all of you! We love remembering our time in Nauvoo with lots of the Murray family. Thank you again to the Tucker Family for making it all happen.

Just a side note regarding Neil's lunchroom story about me…Mom had been asked to work in the lunchroom and I was only 5 years old and she had no babysitter for me. She worked out an agreement with the principal that I would go to first grade at age 5, and that is the reason I was eating at the school lunchroom. Neil was right…Mom made sure that I cleaned up my plate because none of us would eat the "stuff" Neil brought home to the pig disposal!!!

Letter from Neil R

Dear Family November 24, 2010

Once again we come to the end a month and it is time that I wrote a note for the blog. It is always a challenge to know just what to write about, mainly I guess, because at this time of the year there does not seem to be that much going on in my life. Let’s see, I could tell you about my back ache or the leaves coming off my mulberry tree or Brandon taking his scouts for an outing at our house in Myton or the fact that winter is now here or ---.
Yes, last night, ahead of the storm which did not happen at our house, the cold front, which did happen at our house, caused the leaves to decide to detach them selves from the mulberry tree. As they did so the wind distributed a lot of them up and down the street to my neighbors. I’m sure they appreciated my contribution. Anyhow when morning came there was still a pile of them in the middle of the street so I took my blower and rake out and went to work. Soon, with the help of the neighbor we had them corralled and in the bag.
Brandon took the scouts from his Ward, which is in our Stake, out to the Myton homestead for a service project. You know when he was asking me if he could do this I did not realize that these kids all live in apartments and seldom if ever have and opportunity to experience such a large area with out bounds. I guess they raked leaves and could not help but jump and play in them before bagging them. I guess from all reports that they had a ball.
Also included with this note is a story time item that I hope Jerry does not mind me telling. As I was writing it I realized that it was all from my point of view and stories Jerry has told me so if you have a different point of view please let me know and we can make the appropriate change in the future.
In the mean time I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Love You, Neil R


Winter in Buckeye 1957

Winter in Hyrum about 1965

Story Time--Garbage

Story Time -- Garbage
By Neil R

It seems that the talk shows on radio spend a lot of time discussing School lunch programs and the unhealthy eating habits of our school children. While Jerry was here we also took the opportunity to discuss, from days gone by, our school lunch experiences. Now, myself I never did eat school lunch at the elementary nor do I remember what we did for lunch while we attended school at Las Vegas. We however, must have had a lunch period because I can remember the activities we had after lunch. Jerry, however, had lunch room experiences at Myton. As I recall after we returned form Las Vegas Dad worked out here on the front for about three years while the family continued to live in Myton. It seems that Mother either had the opportunity or took the opportunity to work in the lunch room and teach school. When mother taught it must have been the first grade because she got permission to take Jerry to school with her. Jerry was but five or less at the time. So, for how many years I don’t know, Jerry was under the watchful eye of his mother both when she was working in the lunch room and teaching in the school room. Now I know just a little bit about Jerry’s plight due to this situation because when I was in school at Myton Elementary my teachers were living at our house. This put me in an interesting situation where there was not a thing I could do without Mother knowing about it. This is the term my Mother always used on me “Neil, that does not become you”. Well back to Jerry, and we will just talk about the lunch room here and save the school room for another time. It seems in that day, even though they had wonderful food they still had the challenge of getting the children to eat their food. I guess it is because as children we let our eyes do the tasting. As a result a lot of the food ended up in the garbage can. Well it seems that mother would monitor what her son did or did not eat. According to Jerry, mother was continually sending him back to clean up his plate. Well, like I found in life, people, and in this case the children, soon came up with an innovative way to solve Jerry’s problem. One of Jerry’s friends, I guess it was a friend, said to Jerry “Put the food you do not want to eat on my plate”. This is what they did. The friend would discard the food in the garbage and walk out and Jerry with a clean tray would also be allowed to leave and I’m sure mother was really pleased with her son who no longer wasted any of his food.
Now just a little side note, in those days the food disposal unit, as we know it, had not as yet been invented and I’m not sure it’s invention was a good thing, but we did have a disposal available to us. It was called a pig. When mother was working at the lunch room, to help her, in the morning before school I would go to the lunch room and start the fires in the cook stoves and in the evening I would go to the lunch room and get the garbage can which was always full and bring it to our house. What would I do with it? I would feed it to our disposal unit. I must say that pig never did turn up its nose at this offering and he or her was a very healthy pig.


Dinner Time at the Murray’s


Our Disposal Unit

From Anna and Wilmer Murray’s Journal November 2010

Thursday 1, 1979

We went up to the landfill to dump our cans. Visited with Ralph Ive and told him we would call George Merrett about his cat not starting. We went out to Clyde’s, then rushed back to get ready to go the funeral of Allen and June Roper who were killed when their Jeep rolled of the mountain. We forgot to call George,

The funeral was big and a nice one. We saw Garn and Barbara Gilbert and Grant and Syble Peel. He sang, “I need thee Every Hour”. We saw Bernard Winkle, Velma and Ross, Verona, Bud and Doug Holgate, sat by Lola Jones, Mary Dump and Merion Monson.

Don Brokaw called to say they were going to the Temple in Bobbie Kynenston’s place. They will pick us up at 9:30 tomorrow. So I pressed Dad’s robe and packed out clothes to go to the Neil’s or the Darrell’s. Called Ella, she is down with the flu but said
she is better. Then called Darrell’s. Dad said he didn’t want to stay out there but we decided we would. We went to bed early.

Friday 2, 1979

We were ready when Don and Dorelda came and we were soon on our way. We had a good trip out, no storms. We ate our sandwiches as we were going down Daniels Canyon. They ate theirs in Provo Canyon. We went to the 12:20 session and the 2:00 session. They were enjoyable. Then we went to eat and then to the sealing. Superintendent Law was our officiator. He was Superintendent when the Myton School was built. We sealed 160 children to parents. There were two couples besides us. We had just started good when Hallis Hullinger came in with a young couple who had a sealing to perform. So we witensed the sealing of the Spanish boy’s great grandparents. He and his wife were proxies and his step father and Wilmer were the witnesses. During the sealing I had a great felling in my breast, I’m sure it was being accepted. This was while I was proxy for a child. When we were through Brother Law said these dead people could have been right in the room.

We had to wait for our lockers. I got dressed first so went to call Neil. He wasn’t home but Ella said to wait there for him. When I talked to Dad he said lets go home. So we called Ella back, she seemed disappointed. Don would have taken us to Neil’s but Dad is getting like Grandma Winkler, he wants to be home. We arrived about 9:45. Lester called to see if we wanted to kill the lambs tomorrow. I talked to Raija, she and Perry are there. Called Darrell’s, Darrell says they will come next week to get their lamb.

Mother and Dad - Myton

LaVora, Dad and Mother - Orem

My first post!!

Well it's taken me way too long to post on this blog...but since the weather has been getting colder recently, I've finally broken out my winter apparel.

I love my warm winter socks! Aunt Charlene custom made these socks to fit my feet. They are comfortable and warm, but most of all they remind me of a fantastic aunt who loves me a lot--so much that she made me awesome socks.

I love you, Aunt Charlene!

And I love the whole Murray family!