11 Mar 1929 – 18 May 1980
Husband of Mary Jane Merril
Donald Truman ANGELL History
By his mother: Sadie Fern Haslam Angell, typed by her daughter-in-law, Phyllis Angell
First baby of Truman Alma Angell (32 yrs old) and Sadie Fern Haslam Angell (20 yrs old).
Born: March 11, 1929, at 10:00 am. Weighed: 6 lbs. ll oz. He was born at 161 East 6th South, Salt Lake City, Utah, with a doctor and nurse in attendance. It was an easy delivery.
He was born in a two-story house. Truman and I and (Truman’s brother) Sanford and Hazel Angell lived in the upper story and my mother, Sarah Jane Ayers Woodall, lived downstairs. Also my brothers Paul, Clifford, Albert, Grant, and sister, Genevieve.
Donald was a beautiful baby with long black hair and oh how we loved him. I named him Donald Truman as I had always loved that name. Hazel said that is cute and we can call him Don (dawn) on Sunday but he was always Don to us all.
Hazel gave birth to a son Jack Sanford Angell, March 16, 1929. They lived with us for two months then moved to Levan, Utah.
We moved to 464 Post Street and Don had a rash. I took him to the doctor and he said it was a heat rash and to take his clothes off.
In September Sanford, Hazel and Jack came to live with us. The boys sure did enjoy each other. They would talk to each other and seemed to understand each other but it sounded like Greek to us.
In the spring, Truman, I and Don went to Idaho. Truman had a crew selling for the Grand Union Tea Company. While in Rexburg, Don got ill and I took him to the doctor. He said Don had chicken pox so we left the hotel and got an apartment where we stayed with Don for a week until he got out of quarantine. We then went back to Salt Lake and moved to Levan, Utah, where our son, Rex Haslam Angell, was born, March 12, 1931. Just one day after Don’s second birthday.
Once Rex was crying and Don wanted to know what was the matter and I said, “I guess he is hungry.” Don went to the kitchen and got a large boiled potato and was going to feed his baby brother.
We moved to the Old Mill on Levan Main Highway. Truman ran the garage and I ran the lunch stand. Don was very mischievous and I couldn’t watch him so I got a little red wagon and had him haul in coal for the store to keep him busy. He, Rex and Jack got along very well. Hazel would bring Jack down to visit us often.
After about six months we moved back to Salt Lake. We got a large two-story house on Girard Avenue. We lived on one side and my mother, brothers, Albert and Grand and sister Jenny lived on the other side. It had a high wall about 3 ft. and Don fell on the pavement below and hit his forehead. We thought he had a concussion as he had such a headache but Truman was looking at his head and said he had something in his nose. He got a crochet hook and pulled out 4 cherry pits. Then Don got better. Jenny was taking care of Don and Rex as Truman and I were cleaning, wall papering and painting houses to be sold.
We all moved to 424 South 2nd West and from there to Lucy Avenue. We then moved to Goshen Street and 3rd South. At this time Clifford Alan Angell was born in the old Salt Lake County Hospital. 15 December 1934.
We then moved to 13th South and 4th East. While here Don woke up crying and the side of his neck was all swollen. We thought he had mumps but we saw two black marks on his throat and decided he had been bitten. We examined his bed and found a black widow spider so we took him to the doctor and he gave him a shot but he was ill for about a week. He also had chicken pox here. (He had already had them in Idaho.)
Don started kindergarten here and went to school for about one year when we moved to 424 South 9th East, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Truman was in and out of the Veteran’s Hospital and I was real ill and Don would cook cereal for himself and his brothers and toast and tea for me.
Truman dug a root cellar under our house and Don and Rex would pull the dirt out in their little red wagon and dump it. Don was a good little helper for me. He helped me a lot with the other two boys and we would have nice long talks. He was always very protective of me.
We moved to 130 South Jeremy Street. There was a bully in our neighborhood and he enjoyed picking on Don as Don was much smaller and couldn’t fight back. In turn, Don would pick on Rex and they weren’t the good friends they had been before.
Don learned to tap-dance and his teacher told me to give him lessons so Don wouldn’t dance any more and he started to play the piano. A girl he was playing with told her mother and the mother offered to give Don lessons so that was the end of that. Don and his girl friend used to sing at the school and they were real good but Don gave that up too. Don did continue to teach himself to play the piano and did very well.
Don would make up games and all the cousins, especially Tommy Monthey, Jack Angell and Wayne McBride liked to come to our place to play.
Don was so inventive he got into trouble sometimes. Like when he fixed up an electric chair that would shock but not hurt anyone. The neighbors complained and the police came down and told him to do away with it. About this time Don was also a great builder of model airplanes to which he added his own inventions making it possible to drop miniature bombs. He, with his brothers Rex and Clifford, built little balsam wood houses and bomb them with the planes.
When Don was about twelve years old the boys had a tree house and in the winter it would get snow in it. Don got his dad’s gas torch and went up the tree to melt the snow. Some of the gas spilled onto his trousers and it caught fire. Don skimmed down the rope and pulled off his trousers. We took him to the hospital but he was burned very bad through the crotch and down his legs. He was ill for a long time. While he was convalescing he made airplanes. They were beautiful and we had them strung all over the house. He even made some so they would carry paper bombs and he could make them drop the bombs when he wanted them to. World War II was on at this time and it gave Don ideas.
Lynn Byas Angell was born (July 28, 1942) and Don loved him very much and real good to him.
Don went to West High School and was in the ROTC. He liked it very much. He was headed for officership when we bought another home and moved to 12 West 3900 South where we had a cow and some pigs and chickens.
Don was supposed to take care of the cow but he didn’t do a good job. He would rather stay in the house and clean up and got a lot of our meals as I worked with Rex taking care of the animals.
Don went to Granite High School and they didn’t have ROTC so they insisted Don take gym. He didn’t want to as he had to wear gym trunks and it would show his burn scars. I went to school and explained this but they said he would have to get over that but instead, he sluffed gym and got into quite a bit of trouble.
Dad bought Don an old 1929 Chevy. It wouldn’t run and the body was terrible but Don worked on it until he got it running and built a plywood body for it. People came from all over to look at it and the Deseret Newspaper sent a camera man and reporter to take pictures of it.
Don did off jobs here and there. He worked at a junk yard for awhile and with a carpet layer for awhile.
He was a stage hand at school and palled around with Sevan LeSieur. Sevan was a real nice boy.
Don went to work as an usher at the Center Theater in Salt Lake where he met Norma Jean Fowler whom le later married when he was 19 years old. They lived in what was our first T.V. Shop on the corner of Main and 39th South.
On December 25, 1948, they had a beautiful Christmas present, a lovely baby girl.
Don went to work for an automobile tire company and was transferred to Idaho. They didn’t do too good there and moved back to Salt Lake City where he went to work for Souvall Brothers, Mfg. Company and built show cases and displayed their wares in the stores. He and Jean separated and got a divorce. He let Jean have the baby, Karen, as he said she was a good mother.
He was drafted into the Army and went to Radar School in Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey. From there he went to Germany. While there, he traveled all over and sent many lovely souvenirs home and nice presents to his little girl, Karen. He never forgot her.
When in London he met and fell for a girl and would have married her but he had to have his officer’s permission. While in London he got food poisoning and went back to his post where he was ill for some time.
Some of his pals had been to London and brought back some pictures of prostitutes and Don’s girl was one of them so he broke off the engagement.
Don came home from the service and went to work designing and fixing up the TV Shop and working with his dad there. He added another garage on the side of our double garage and did a lot of fixing things up. He was very good to help fix things up in the home too.
He met and married Mary Jane Merrill, February 6, 1954. They bought a shell house and made a real nice 4-room home out of it. They fenced the back yard with a high board fence and fixed it up real nice. They had a lovely boy and named him Cardon Truman after both grandfathers.
Don was always working on cars and was repairing one when the jack slipped and the car fell on him.
Don and Mary Jane had another lovely baby son, November 11, 1957, and named him Cory Donald Angell.
Don built another car (Station Wagon):
Pontiac 2-door. The body work by the owner consists of a chopped ’55 Ford station wagon top and windshield, ’55 Plymouth rear fenders and grille, and a ’52 Plymouth tailgate. The car has been channeled 6” and has roll bars. Dual carbs and a split manifold added to the Pontiac engine. Don also did the interior work.
Don started taking classes at the University of Utah.
One Labor Day Don, Cardon, Don’s cousin Tommy Monthy and Tommy’s son were in an automobile accident. Don and the boys came out alright but Tommy didn’t do so good but he did recover.
He was put in as president of the Utah Association of Radio and Television Repairman .
While we lived on 12 West 39th South in Salt Lake City, Don did a lot of remodeling for me. He put a beautiful picture window in my dining room, took the French doors out of the sun porch and put a beautiful door with glass shelves in and new windows all around the room and built a beautiful flower box and cedar chest for me.
Don was sure liked by the people that he repaired TV sets for and many times he wouldn’t take any pay. He never talked about these things, he just did them.
Don’s schooling and work began to bother him and he and Mary Jane were having marital troubles. Don started to drink. Dad and I thought things would be better for them if we left and let Don take over the shop. We bought a travel trailer and left. While we were gone Don sold his house and moved into a mobil home we had on our property that Lynn had been living in. Mary Jane didn’t like it so she moved out with the two boys and rented an apartment. When we came back, Don went to live with Mary Jane and the boys.
Don had to repossess his house and so he made it into a Television and Radio Repair Shop and a studio for Mary Jane to give piano lessons in.
One day he was ill and went to the drug store for some medicine and blacked out and hit a light pole. He nearly lost his life.
While riding one day, he and Mary Jane saw some property with a little old run-down three-room house on Creek Road. They bought it and moved in and proceeded to build a beautiful home. They were still having marital troubles and Don drank quite heavy.
Finally Don left with nothing but his truck. He had sold the shop and put it all into the house and had to make mortgage payments on it.
Once he came to Arizona with the two boys and stayed awhile then took the boys back to Mary Jane. He came down to Camp Verde, Arizona, where dad and I had purchased an old house. It had a good outside, ceiling and roof. Don camped in it with an electric blanket to keep him warm and wired it all throughout, fixed the plumbing, put in a bath tub, tore out the walls, put in insulation, plasterboard and panels and a new ceiling. He installed windows, kitchen cupboards and petitions. It was just like a brand new home and dad and I just loved it. So did everyone who saw it.
While doing this remodeling for us, Don quit his drinking. When it was done he went back to see if he could save his marriage but it didn’t pan out so he came back to Arizona and went to work for a Camper Builder Company. He wanted to better himself and use his knowledge of television so he went to work for a television parts firm in Salt Lake City (Kimball’s Electronic Co.). Later he went to work for another company as a buyer.
Don met and married Elaine Vatsend Prescott who had five boys. Don sure did love them and tried to take them places and work with them but it just didn’t work out.
He quit his job and went to work as an electronic salesman for J.S. Sales. He was on the road most of the time. Again he was out of a house and family and without anything. He said it was just like he had two fires that took all he had. . . his homes and families and he had always loved both.
Don moved into an apartment (in Murray, Utah,)in which his son, Cardon, was living. Later Cardon moved to Nevada and Don’s daughter, Karen, by his first marriage, later moved to Salt Lake with her son Johnny. Don really enjoyed them and was so glad to have them nearby. He was so happy that Christmas to have his daughter, grandson, Cory plus Cardon and his girl friend all together for dinner.
Don came to see me in January and I was so glad to have him but I was feeling ill during the time and he was there but we did have a good visit.
Don lost his job and came down again and we went to visit Clifford, Marla and family in New Mexico. Don really seemed to enjoy this visit.
Don went back to Salt Lake and found himself a very good, responsible job but on many occasions expressed how very lonely he felt and had deep depressions. Finally, on the spur of the moment, he took his own life.
We had a lovely funeral for him and ever so many friends and relatives came. The place was really filled up as Don was always well liked by everyone who knew him. There were many expressions of the great love various friends and loved ones felt for Don. Don was paid many wonderful tributes.
Don was always so good to me. . . ready to do anything I wanted. He always sent me lovely cards at all times of the year and would take me anywhere I wanted to go whenever he was near where I was. I love him very much and sure do miss him and I always will.
Don’s mom,
Fern Haslam Angell
(Typed by Don’s Sister-in-law, Rex’s wife, Phyllis A. Angell) from Fern’s own handwritten copy.
Donald T. Angell
MURRAY – Donald Truman Angell, 51, died May 18, 1980, at home.
Born March 11, 1929, Salt Lake City, to Truman Alma and Fern Haslam Angell. Married Norma Jean Fowler, Feb 14, 1948; later divorced. Married Mary Jane Merrill; later divorced. Married Elain Prescott, Feb 16, 1972; later divorced. Purchasing agent for Kaman Sciences. Former owner-operator, Angell’s TV Repair. Veteran, Korean conflict.
Survivors: sons, daughter, Cardon T., Palm Springs, Calif.; Karen Lane, Salt Lake City; Cory D., Murray; one grandson; mother, Mesa, Ariz/; brothers Rex H., St. George; Clifford A., Silver City, N.M.; Capt. Lynn B., London, England.
Funeral services Thursday, 12 noon, Jenkins-Soffe Mortuary, 4760 S. State, where friends may call Wednesday, 6-8 p/m., and Thursday one hour prior to services.
Murray City Cemetery, Murray, Salt Lake County, Utah, Plot: 018 133A7
