I was born at Overton, Nevada, February 10, 1895. I am the 25th child of Thomas Jefferson Jones and the 8th child of this third wife Johannah Christine Larson Jones. My father was born in Pittsfield, Illinois and came to Utah at the age of about 19, then returned to Illinois to settle his father's estate. He then married at 21 and returned to Utah. He lived first in Willard, Utah, then came south and lived in Washington, Parowan, and Cedar City, Utah and Panaca, Nevada, and finally moved to Overton. Mother was born in Sweden and migrated to this country with her parents at the age of 8 years. They spent several years in coming across the states to Utah, their final destination, because of the difficult transportation facilities. They, of course, had to travel by wagon and ox team. She married father in polygamy, becoming his third wife.
My early remembrances are of a large family of eight of mother's children and a great deal of the time of some of the other wives' children in a humble home of two or three rooms. Out front room was quite large and had two beds, a large table, and a big fireplace, around which the family would gather in the evenings. Then when bedtime came another bed was made on the floor in a corner for us younger ones. While our home was very humble and there was never enough money available, we never felt poor or were we without plenty of clothes and food. We always had plenty of vegetables from a nice garden and an abundance of melons, grapes, honey, molasses, and fruit in season. Grapes and peaches we always dried for winter use and were enjoyed by all the family. We always had cattle and pigs for meat and plenty of milk and butter.
I guess it was quite a job for Mother to raise a family of seven boys and one girl, as well as be mother to several of the children of one of the other wives who had died and left a small baby (Uncle Horace), whom she had to nurse as well.
During these years, father was the village postmaster with one room on one side of the house serving as the post office and bed room for two of the older boys. The mail came by team three times per week and arrived about 8 p.m. On these nights most of the town's young people would run early for the mail and we would choose up sides and play "Run, Sheep, Run," "Pomp, Pomp, Pullaway," "Crack the Whip" and may other popular games. This was all great fun. Then a little later we would drive in from the range herds of calves and wild burros and we would take turns being bucked off by them.
The first school I attended was in a tent. Then later a one room brick school house was built where I went until I was 14 or 15. I nearly finished the 8th grade but was taken out in the spring to help with the farm work. I was baptized on my 8th birthday, in the irrigation ditch, by my father who was Bishop at that time.
These years seemed happy and carefree. While we had our chores to do and work, weeding the garden, chopping wood, etc., we had our recreation of fishing in the creek, and swimming two or three times a week in summer and horses to ride. It was the older boys, Hyrum and Albert's, to do the milking and Frank's and mine to take the cows to the pasture on horseback, a mile or more away, in the morning and go after them in the evening. Once as I was returning and coming past the pose and mother was out in the yard, I decided I would put on a show for her. I got way back on the horse's hips and put my feet on his flanks and made him kick up. He three me off a few feet from Mother. She ran to me scared stiff, and said, "If you'd broken your neck, I'd have given you a whipping."
In the years 1905 and 1906 tragedy struck our family. At that time there was scarcely any way to make money. We were able to raise plenty to eat and manage to some way get some clothes. Mother used to knit stockings for nearly the whole family, as well as make our shirts and underwear.
The mining town of Bullfrog near what is now Beatty was booming and as all the equipment and food had to be freighted in by team and wagon, our folks decided to send an outfit there to freight. Jessie, age 19, the brother just older than Albert and younger than Andrew, was selected to take charge and go with the outfit. A team of four horses and a large wagon was sent. After a month or two on the road, where the dust in the roads was hub deep in places and the water obtainable was unsanitary, Jesse came home sick with typhoid fever. Not having any medical facilities or a doctor nearer than Las Vegas, he passed away, after several weeks of severe illness, on July 18th. This was indeed a heavy blow to the family, and especially to Mother. Then, the next year scarlet fever came to the valley. I was the first in our family to contract it, then Frank. We recovered satisfactorily, but Hyrum, aged 16, and just older than Frank, contracted it and as the disease developed he also took diphtheria and died from that on July 18th, just one year less one day from Jesse's death. This was also an added sorrow for all of us to bear. They were both fine boys of excellent character and free from bad habits of any kind.
About the time that I was 12 years old and before the railroad came into Moapa Valley, it became known that cantaloupes could be produced here. Father had reached an age that we was unable to do much of any kind of work and as the older boys had gone out for themselves, the farm work and management was left to Albert with Frank and me to help what we could. I might state here that when I was born Father was 57 years old. From my earliest remembrance he had long whiskers, was a large elderly man, weighing 240 pounds.
We endeavored to make money to live on by raising cantaloupes. During the shipping season which was July, we would pick and pack cantaloupes all day. Then about sundown, either Frank or I would start out for Moapa, 16 miles away over what would not be called roads, and arrive about midnight, then unload after staying in line from one to two hours. Then we would unhitch the horses and tie them to the wagon and lay down on a quilt and sleep until daylight. We would then hitch up and return home, reaching there about noon. The other one would then get ready for the trip back that night. This would go on for about three weeks. I was thirteen the first year we did this. After a couple of years of this, Albert got married and purchased about half the farm, leaving Frank and me to manage the rest.
We worked the farm and took turns going out for other work to help pay expenses until I was 19. Father died on July 16, 1914, and about this time I began to realize that I should try to do something about obtaining an education. That fall after producing 1100 crates of cantaloupes alone, I went to Las Vegas at the age of 19 to enter first year of high school. I started when school opened in early September but before I had received returns from my cantaloupe crop which I had been shipping on consignment. After I had been in school about a month, I received word from home that the cantaloups had brought nothing after paying shipping charges, etc. I was forced to quit school.
I went to to Good Springs, Nevada, and obtained a job which would have made me enough to have made it possible for me to go to school, but after a couple of weeks I got homesick and went back to the farm. I tried cantaloupes again the next year and finally came out with about $200 with which I squeezed through the first year of high school in St. George, Utah, the winter of 1915-16. I went home after school and worked as inspector of cantaloupes at Logandale where we loaded about 85 railroad cars that season. By saving very closely I was able to go again the next winter to St. George. By carrying heavy courses both years, I had about 12 units and hoped to finish high school in one more year. The people of St. George were very friendly to me as were the members of the faculty. I had been out of school so long that I found it extremely hard to learn to study again. I was 20 years of age when I entered first year high school and being older than the rest of the class which contained 125 pupils, they chose me as class president. I had scarcely any idea what to do as president but I took my troubles to Principal Hugh M. Woodward and Joseph K. Nicholes who very graciously helped me out. Before the years was out I was considered to be a good president and was also elected president the next year.
I was planning on going on with my education, but World War I was declared on April 6, 1917, and I was drafted into the Army on September 16 and sent to Camp Lewis, Washington for training. I with about 15 others from Clark County left Las Vegas Sept 17, 1917, and the train picked up contingents of men from Caliente, Nevada, Lund, Milford, Salt Lake, and Ogden, Utah, making a whole train load. There were men from nearly all counties of Utah in the group. When we arrived in Camp Lewis, our Nevada group with most of the Utah group were assigned to B. Company, 346 Machine Gun Battalion. We went through routine training of machine gun and infantry training until about June 1st, 1918. At this time our company commander announced that applications were asked for candidates to the Officers Training School. Being restless for a change from the monotonous routine of training, I with a large group of other men sent in applications and took several tests to enter the school. I with one other were selected from our company and was sent to the school then being started in Camp Lewis. After one month a group, including myself, from this school who had had previous experience with machine guns were sent to the Central Machine Gun Officers Training School at Camp Hancock, Augusta, Georgia. We were a trainload all by ourselves. We had regular sleeping cars but the only food served for the five day trip was canned corned beef and hard tack three times per day. We lived and seemed no worse for the treatment.
Here we were supposed to try and absorb in three months enough of the officers training that had previously taken four years, so that we could lead men in combat. Needless to say we were poorly trained. It was during this period that I contracted a severe cold while out for several days maneuvers in trench warfare, out in the woods. It rained a good part of the time and we had to sleep in wet bedding. This cold left me with a bronchial condition that gave me much misery for many years. Finally after I quit farming I finally overcame it. Sometimes I really felt miserable for weeks on account of it.
On Sept. 16, just one year from my induction I was commissioned a Second Lieutenant of Infantry, machine gun work being a part of the Infantry. Only about 40% of the entrants to the school passed. The graduates were set all over the country to the various training camps but I was assigned to the 6th Company of the 6th Group Central Machine Gun Training Center there in Camp Hancock, Georgia. In about a month our company commander Captain Barclay was promoted to major and I was assigned although still a 2nd Lieutenant as Company Commander with about 250 men in the company. We were doing intensive machine gun and infantry training. The men in our company came from southern Alabama, Louisiana, and a large percentage were unable to read or write. We had to have high school for them in order to teach them to sign the payroll. I remember a fine looking young man in my platoon looking up at me when I gave the command to set the sight on the gun at 600, he said, "I am sorry, Captain, I can't set the sight at 600, 'cause I can't read." We were struggling along with them when about Oct. 15, 1918, the first influenza epidemic struck us. We had about fifty men down at once and lost several. I also took it and was very sick for about two weeks but recovered without any ill effects.
Finally, Nov. 11, 1918 came and I was still in Camp Hancock, the armistice was signed and the war was over. I was held here helping to arrange the discharge of the men and shipping them home until December 13, 1918, when I was discharged and started home arriving in time for Christmas after an absence of about 15 months. While I was away, Uncle Frank had also been drafted and was still in the service when I reached home. It was wonderful to be home aging and I enjoyed spending the holidays with Mother.
Uncle Albert was having trouble with his leg at this time and I went with him both to Los Angeles and to Salt Lake by train for medical help.
Overton did not offer many opportunities for one as restless as I, so I decided to go to Pocatello, Idaho, where I registered for a night school course while I was working days at the freight house of the railroad. I didn't stay there long as one evening I met Mr. F.F. Gunn who was an old resident of Overton, having built the old store building that is now the El Notrevo Theater. He had the contract to furnish supplies all over the Union Pacific system. He at once offered me a job at $100.00 per month, which I accepted. On this job I had to travel each week: to Pendleton, Oregon, one week; to Butte, Montana, the next week; to Kemmerer, Wyoming, the next; and to Salt Lake the next week. I stayed with this job until about June 15th. I never felt satisfied working for someone else and kept looking around for something I could do with my meager education and training. In going to and from my room in Pocatello, I passed a tire vulcanizing shop every day. I stopped in one day and got acquainted with the owner and after several visits he volunteered to reach me the business. I quit my job and went into his shop and in two week had learned enough so I could start a shop of my own. I had written to my brother Calvin in Delta about the possibilities of opening a shop there as that was then a very promising community. He replied that he thought it would be very good.
I then went to Salt Lake City where I located some send hand vulcanizing equipment and made a deal for it and went on to Delta to make arrangements to set up shop. When I arrived there to my dismay the Greenwood Brothers from Richfield, Utah, had beat me to it and were setting up a shop and putting in equipment. I had a talk with them and finally they agreed to let me have Delta if I would buy their equipment. This I agreed to do for $500.00 cash. I had borrowed with my brother Will as cosigner for me $800.00 to start this venture. I felt that I was paying these men too much for their equipment but I knew both of us couldn't make it in Delta I had made up my mind that I wanted to stay there so I bought them out. I set up the equipment and was soon getting all the work I could handle and was doing pretty well.
September came and the school teachers came and among them was one Eliza Haight. We danced at the Bluebird Cabaret and got along pretty well.
When late October came and business dropped off I began to think of the long winter with nothing much to do. A fellow that worked across the street as fascinated with my business and offered to trade me a forty acre piece of land with a $1,000.00 mortgage on it for my business. Land prices were up and farmers were making good and as I felt I was primarily a farmer we made the trade. It being too cold to do anything on the land I came home to Overton for a visit. Then it was I took Uncle Albert to Los Angeles to the hospital. Lisa had given me Aunt Iva's address in L.A. so I called and made a date.
We went home for Christmas and shortly after January 1st, 1919, Uncle Frank and I went to Eureka to work in the mines for the Winter. We asked for work at several mines and I got a few days work at the Iron Blossom mine. This was the first mine I had ever entered and when we got onto the cage and they dropped it 2200 feet straight down, I felt like we were going to the bottomless pit. I was hot and miserable in there and I was glad when I was laid off after a few shifts. We both then got jobs in another mine at Mammoth, Utah, about eight miles away. We quite enjoyed the work there and stayed until spring came. In the meantime, my romance with Mother was developing and I made a trip or two to Delta to visit her.
In April I decided to go to Delta and try beet raising to make some quick money. I rented about 40 acres of land and planted it into beets but I soon found out I didn't want that so sold the crop just after the beets were up. By now Mother and I had decided to get married. This we did on June 20th, 1920, in Cedar City.
I had remembered in my travels in Idaho the beautiful town of Burley, so we decided to go there and go into the tire vulcanizing business again. Business was booming when we arrived there shortly after July 4th. I happened to find a place for sale so I made a deal and went into a partnership with a young man that was already in the shop, named Vern Carter. We worked together very happily and Mother and I mixed into the Church work and before long she was president of the Young Ladies Mutual and I was Sunday School Superintendent. We were very happy and on Sct. 5, 1921, marjorie was born. Boy! Was I a scared Daddy. We were both very green about babies but she was beautiful and good natured and a great joy.
During that summer the bottom started dropping out of everything. The banks all closed and business failures were happening all around us. It got us, too. I had sold the forty acres of land in Delta and was to get $600.00 to pay the shop in Burley. It dindn't come because the man that bought it died adn I couldn't pay to support us both. I sent Mother home to her folks and I tried to find work in Burley, Pocatello, Ogden, and Salt lake. None was obtainable, so I came back to Cedar City and found a few days work until after Christmas. I then went to the hospital in Salt Lake and had my tonsils removed, as my bronchial trouble was causing me a lot of misery.
After spending a few days there I came to Overton. I was broke and still looking for work. After spending a couple of weeks loafing, I obtained a job at the White Star Plaster Mill near Glendale. That was really back-breaking work but I was glad to get it as Mother and Marjorie were having to stay with her folks because I couldn't support them. After a couple of months that job ran out and I came back to Overton and Mr. Livingnston was looking for someone to operate the Weber Ranch. Uncle Frank and I made a detal to rent it and planted 10 acres of cantaloupes and had about 30 acres of hay. We worked all summer and dind't make a thing out of the cantaloupes as the market was no good. We came out of that year with less than we started with and that was nothing.
That fall mother got a job teaching in Overton but had to stop on account of Bonna. About that time Bp. David A. Smith of the Presiding Bishopric came to Overton to conference and was looking for someone to look after the church's interests in lands at Kaolin. He interviewed me and accepted me at $75.00 per month. I was to go to Kaolin to live and buy a place and farm as much of their lands as I wanted to and try and sell the rest. This sounded pretty good as things were really tight. We moved into a two room house and later added tow more rooms from another shack we tore down. We thought we were quite comfortable but was unable to get ahead so after three years there, we got disgusted and moved to Las Vegas. We took three cows and about 400 chickens and rented a place from Jerry Barolo, over on Westside. I looked around and found after several short jobs, a job with Standard Oil Co. at $5.00 per day. This looked pretty good as it had the promise of steady work and maybe advancement. It was now Sept. 1926 and I had a wife and Marge, Bonna, and Gerald to support. I started sellign a few quarts of milk per day and the eggs from the chickens to supplement our income. Marge started in Kindergarten there on Westside. I drove truck and worked in the office for Standard Oil about two years. During our stay on a place next to Barola''s, Mother's father died and we took the family in an old Chv. touring car (open except the top) and went to Cedar City for the funeral. I remember we were rolling along toward Cedar City near Dry Lake and all at once I saw a tire rolling alongside the car. It had come off our car completely and the momentum rolled it alongside.
After about a year in Westside we moved to 612 So. 4th St. where Ivan was born. We paid $40.00 per month rent, which seemed a lot, so Mother on top of being President of Relief Society and having four kids to look after rented one room and boarded two school teachers to help pay the rent.
We were still no getting ahead so I took a trip, soon after Ivan's birth, to Mesa, Arizona, to see if we could make a move there to better our circumstances. Not being able to find anything in the way of a farm that I could handle I came back to Las Vegas and worked at various jobs until March 1930; when it appeared after the passing of the bill to bild Boulder Dam that we could sell our Kaolin property that I had partly kept payments up on, to the government. We moved back there.
I worked for the Farmers Association in the vegetables and cantaloupes for six months, then left the family at home in Kaolin and I went back to Las Vegas and worked in a service station during most of the next winter. My mother died in October of 1930 after a lingering illness. We had sent her to my sister Ella's in Blackfoot, Idaho, for the summer as the heat in Overton was too severe for her. We had no air conditioning or power to operate it at the time.
After some dely on the government's part they finally came in and purchased our holdings in Kaolin and we were confronted with trying to decided where to go then. We had received about $5,000.00 net on our land and home and I was afraid if I invested it foolishlly I never would get another start. We decided to try farming so purchased 80 acres farm in Capalapa. In my eagerness to get a large enough piece of land to make a farm I bought land that was partly alkali and hard to reclaim. I should have taken a smaller tract of better land. I decided than that I would work it hard for not more than ten years and then try and sell and find something that was not so hard on a man. I think Mother has covered our struggle to build a home, and you older kids remember how you all helped. I remember the girls nailing on the lath and helping in every way possible. We finally fixed it up so it was fairly comfortable and we were quite proud of it.
It was still a terrific struggle until we purchase the first cows from Uncle Orson, then shortly after I succeeded in breaking into the tomato plant business and I purchased combine and did custom harvesting in the valley and at Cedar City. Life then started to get a little easier and we were happy to be able to send Marjory to Reno to college and later she and Bonna to Logan. Marge helped by working for her board and room at Reno, the first year.
As soon as I thought we had the farm producing so that someone elese could take it and pay out on it, I began to look around for someone to sell it to. Even though at the time I had no plans as to exactly what I would do, only that I intended to keep enough of the land to stay in the plant business for a while. We made a deal with Tommy Cooper for him and his brother Tick to take the farm, taking in trade his small home in Overton and his mother's farm of 14 acres also in Overton. This proved to be a good deal as this land was excellant for producing tomato plants. We also purchased the old Swapp home (White House) in Overton.
About this time people started coming in for fishing on Lake Mead and we rented a room or two in the White House to them. This gave us the idea of a need for a motel in Overton, so one day while in Las Vegas, I said to Mother, "Let's buy a lot from Harold Stocker for a motel." So before leaving for home that day we paid him $1800 for it. Building materials were extremely tight then on account of the war so we bid on and purchased a dormitory from the government at Henderson and dismantled it and started the Motel. By the time the war was over in 1945 we were in business. About two years later we built the north wing and in '49 we built the rear part and completed it and had 25 rooms to rent to fishermen. We had enjoyed meeting many interesting people and have made many good friends since.
We are no back alone, only we have Ivan and his family near. Life has been quite a struggle. Through it all we have been quite lucky. Outside of Gerald's accidents, Bonna's and Ivan's illness and Mother's operations we haven't had any real sorrows for which we are truly thankful. We have received most joy and happiness from our children and grandchildren. It seems now that perhaps because of the stress of the cirsumstances we did not take time to really be pals with our children but if that is so it was a mistake of the flesh and not of the heart.
I am proud of all our children. Marjorie was so sweet as a baby and grew up to be such a lovely daughter and is making such a fine mother to her family. Bonna was also sweet as a child and ws dearly loved. She too has met our fondest expectations in all her accomplishments in school and college and as a mother, housewife, and homemaker. Gerald was a real joy as a baby and a little boy. True, he was active and could come nearer to killing himself and not really doing it than anyone I know. Aunt Lois once told me after seeing him doing one of his stunts that we would be lucky if we succeeded in raising him. However, with all his energy he never did anything wilfully wrong or ever gave us cause to worry about doing anything he shouldn't. I am proud of his success both scholastically and in his Church work. Ivan has always been a good boy. We all loved him as a baby and enjoyed him as he grew up. He is highly respected by all who know him for his honesty, fair dealing and good nature.
We now look forward to a lot more fun and happiness both with our children and grandchildren.
Epilogue
This story was written by Wallace Jones in the 1950's. He lived for nearly forty more years. In 1955, Bonna Jones Hoffman died from cancer. Wallace and Eliza spent many months in Lodi, California with their grandchildren. In 1960, they moved to Salt Lake City, thus fulfilling a dream of Eliza's. They lived in a comfortable condo in the Greystone in Sugarhouse.Wallace was restless in Salt Lake and the winters were too harsh for them, though, and they spent several winter months per year in Overton. By 1970, they decided to compromise on the travel and moved to St. George, Utah, buying a home one block from the temple. They enjoyed the temple work and were close to their grandchildren in Overton and Las Vegas. Marjories and Teak retired from Detroit and moved to St. George, taking the house next door to Wallace and Eliza. Eliza died in 1975 and Wallace remarried the next year. He married Marjorie Harmon, who became known as Marguerite in the family. She had not been married before, and had retired in St. George after a career in the Los Angeles area. They lived together until Wallace died on January 31, 1992, two weeks shy of his 97th birthday.