28 Jun 1925 – 7 Jun 2012
Husband of Alva Jean Farnsworth
Life History of Gene Haws Rowley Sr.
This is an autobiography written / or begun 1981.
1925 June
My parents, Jesse Noah Rowley and Martha Haws Rowley, moved from Tucson, Arizona to Mesa, Maricopa, Arizona where I was born on June 28th 1925 (56 years ago today). I was born a farm boy in a small one room red brick house in a big field. The house was located on the southside of Broadway (then called Creamry Rd.) just West of Stapley Dr. (then called Powerhouse Rd.) At that time it was about half way between Mesa and Gilbert. It is now bounded on the West by Stapley Dr., on the East by Lazona, on the North by 6th Ave. and on the South by 8th Ave. The house which is now nearest the spot where I was born was built by Ralph Jones and is presently inhabited by Clyde Harmon Jr., at 1264 E 7th Ave., approximately one half block East of Stapley Dr.
I was the 13th child born to a family of 10 boys and 9 girls. Papa was married once before to Lucy Alvina Norton. From this union came 8 of the 19 children. After his first wife died, Papa married my mother, Martha Haws, and from their union came the other 11 children. My half brothers and sisters are:
Vernell, Edwin, Allen, Veda, Loretta, Cecil, Clarence and Laura
My full brothers and sisters are:
Heber, Var, Velma, Elda, Gene, Narvel, Lela, Ervin, Melvin, Eva (stillborn) and Robert
1927 April
When I was just short of being two years old, we had moved to a house on the
Southeast corner of Broadway and Stapley. It was here that Narvel was born on April 27th
1927, just two months before my second birthday.
My earliest recollections are some of the things that happened while we lived in a house West of the old Chandler Highway, (Now Country Club Dr.) about one and a half blocks on a nameless dirt road (now 1st Ave.)
1928 August
On the 17th of August 1928 I was playing in the front yard and I heard a baby cry. I started to go
into the house to see what was going on but they wouldn’t let me in for some strange reason. I was only three, I remember wondering how it had happened. After all, I had been playing in the front yard all morning and I hadn’t seen any storks flying around. About a year later Velma, Elda, Narvel, Lela and I were playing across the road from the house on Scharnick’s bridge. The ditch was full of water so Velma found a stick and struck it under the bridge from the east side. I went to the west side of the bridge and stuck my hand under to see if I could feel the stick. I got ahold of something and pulled it out. Lo and behold! It was my little sister Lela. Nobody knows how long she had been under there but needless to say that was the end of that game.
1929
One time, when I was about four years old, the family decided to go on a picnic in August. We drove about 3 miles past the end of Alma School Rd. across the desert, out to the Salt River bed. We found an old mesquite tree on the southside of the riverbed which offered a spot of shade. After we got tired of pushing each other out of the shade someone spotted a big cottonwood tree about a quarter of a mile away. Mother [Martha] grabbed Lela and Papa grabbed Narvel and headed out across the desert with Heber, Var,Velma and Elda hot on their trail, and I do mean hot! They left me there beside that mesquite tree jumping from one hot rock to another to keep from blistering my feet in the burning sand. I got scared being left behind so I took off running to try and catch up. I got
about a third of the way across when the sand got so hot up around my ankles that I started jumping up and down and screaming for help. Someone came and got me but I don’t remember who and I don’t remember the picnic under the cottonwood tree.
Another time when I was about four, we went to Tucson to visit my Aunt Laura Haws
Hardy (Mother’s sister.) While we were there I tried to pet their cow. It butted me on the
chin and I still carry a scar, 52 years later. On the way home we came through Apache
Junction which was at that time, a service station on the south side of the road and a saloon
in the north side of the road, with a zoo behind it. As we rounded the curve there, some guy
nearly ran us off the road. I used to wonder where they got all the monkeys, hyenas and
other wild animals for the zoo. Thinking back on it now they must have come from the
saloon.
1930
One day I was climbing an old Chinaberry Tree and I pulled myself up to the first
fork which was about 7 or 8 feet off the ground. There I had a good view of the world.
However, there, just inches from my nose, was a monstrous tarantula. It is a good thing I
was young and innocent and still had my angel winds ‘cause I sure flew out of that tree in a
hurry.
On April 27, 1930 I had my first of many arguments with my brother Narvel. It was
his third birthday and he thought he was really grown up. He really insulted me. Imagine the
nerve of that kid trying to boss me around and I was just two months away from the ripe
old age of five. We were playing in an old junk can in Tony Coury’s Junk Yard and Used Car
Lot, which was in the Southwest corner of Main and Robson. I decided to teach that upstart
a lesson he would never forget. I grabbed him by the hand and drug him before the
Supreme Court, which just happened to be my father’s blacksmith shop next door. My
father, being the Chief Justice! But I soon found out there ain’t no justice in this ol’ world.
Instead of giving Narvel the 30 lashes he deserved, Papa just laughed. After that I handed
out my own justice with my fists until when we were 15 and 17 years old I decided he had
been punished enough. Some folks say it was just ‘cause he had gotten bigger than me by
then, but I know better.
On the 17th of August 1930, two years to the day from when the stork sneaked Lela
into the house, he did it again. Only this time it was a baby boy. We named him Ervin. That
made 16. One thing about it, that stork wasn’t prejudice. Ervin’s birth gave us 8 boys and 8
girls.
About the time that great depression was just getting started. A lot of times
Mother [Martha] would put what little food there was, usually turnip stew, on the table for
us kids then she would go out into the yard and eat grapes. I guess I felt sorry for her
‘cause one day I was standing on a bench trying to help her with the laundry. She had to go
into the house for something, I don’t remember what, but it wasn’t the phone cause we
didn’t have phones back then. Anyway, while she was gone, I decided to run some clothes
through the ringer. Nobody had invented the automatic washing machine, but I think one of our neighbors must have started on it when they heard me scream. I got my hand caught up
to the wrist. They took me to a Doctor Brown who was an uncle of Bishop Phil Brown of Mesa
3rd Ward. The doctor poured hydrogen peroxide on the wound to disinfect it. It seemed like
the foam piled up a foot high but it sure didn’t kill the pain.
One Sunday afternoon Var, Heber, Velma, Elda, Narvel and I were playing “kick the
can.” Because we didn’t have any shoes, we used a baseball bat to hit the can instead of our
bare toes. It was Var’s turn to hit the can and it was my turn to chase it. I got over anxious
and ran right into Var’s bat. He must have hit me awful hard because when I woke up I was
laying under some trees at a friend’s house 3 miles away; just across the road from where I
was born. It’s a good thing he didn’t hit me any harder. He might have knocked me clean past
where I was born and back to where I came from.
1931
In September 1931, I started first grade at Alma School. We had to walk three
fourths of a mile to school. The distance wasn’t bad, but the half mile of sharp rocks along
the railroad tracks sure was rough on bare feet. Papa was working long hard hours in his
blacksmith shop, but because of the depression, people couldn’t pay him. He had a sign in his
shop which read:
“Since man to man has been unjust, I know not which man I can trust.
I have trusted many to my sorrow; So, pay today and trust tomorrow.”
A freak snowstorm in January 1932, left 2 to 3 inches of snow on the ground. We
never missed a day of school and on about the second day of the snow on the ground, Mr
Orin Fuller, the principal, saw me running around barefoot in the snow. He took me to a
store downtown called The Toggery and tried to put some shoes on my feet. My feet were
bleeding and swollen so bad that I could not wear shoes. So Mr Fuller bought 12 pair of
heavy cotton socks for me. I wore 2 pair at a time until they were all worn out then I went
back and got the first pair of shoes I remember having. Because it was such a novelty to
kick a rock without breaking my toe, those shoes didn’t last as long as they should have.
1928-1932
At [Jesse Rowley] Papa’s blacksmith shop there was a table in the back with lots of
scrap lumber stacked on it. I used to like to climb up on that and pull myself onto the
rafters to get a birds eye view of the world. It seemed though that every time I jumped
down someone would put a board with a big nail in it under me to break my fall. But that was
still better than standing by the hot forge turning the blower to make it even hotter, then
holding a piece of red hot iron with a pair of tongs while Papa hammered it into shape. Papa
used to make most of his tools. He made hammers, chisels and tongs. One time he built a
wagon for an ice cream peddler, Tony Escalante. Tony had an old bay horse that pulled him
all over town and kids used to like to ride on the back of the cart and beg for ice cream.
Alva Jean used to watch Papa work in the shop. Little did she know that someday he would
be her father-in-law.
1934 & 1933 & 1936
I guess things were tough all over in 1934. Nobody had enough of anything. On the
9th of February that year the stork even brought us a dead baby sister. Papa had to borrow
a shoe box from the neighbor to send her back in. In 1933 my brother Heber got hit by a truck and it tore him up so bad, we had to send him back. Then in 1936, the stork brought
another boy. Seven months later we almost sent him back. I didn’t know if the stork decided we
didn’t want any more or just plain went on strike after 19 deliveries. Maybe he just couldn’t
find us anymore since we were moving around so much, but, I doubt that, ‘cause how could
you hide 19 noisy kids? [It was only 17 by that time.] Any way I never saw any sign of that
weird bird again.
1932/33
When I was about 7 years old we moved onto our new farm. Olive Drive was just two
wagon tracks through a forty acre cotton field. Papa had bough an old frame house from
Uncle Rob Beecroft. We lined it with cardboard to help keep out the cold. One day Mother
[Martha] put too much wood in the fire and while we were all out working in the field
working, the house caught fire. Mother got there just in time to drag a burning baby buggy
out with my 3 or 4 month old brother Melvin in it. He still has scars on his legs.
When I was in 3rd grade at old Irving School on North Center, we had a favorite
game we played. We would pair off and one partner would be the horse and the other the
rider. The idea was to try to knock the other riders off their horses. My best friend, a
little curly headed Mexican boy named, Glenn Ramirez, and I were nearly always the only
ones left standing at the end of the game. (That is where my son David Glenn got his middle
name.)
1934
Shortly after our house burned down we rented another fire trap from John Ray. I
was about 9, Narvel was 7, Lela, 6, and Ervin was 4 when at one time we were all sick and I
was left in charge while the rest of the family went to Sacrament Meeting. Sometime about
sundown, I had just lit the kerosene lamp and when I was trying to put the chimney back on,
I accidentally knocked the lamp on the floor. There we were, four little kids, in that
firetrap of a house with burning kerosene running through the cracks in the floor. My first
impulse was to get the kids outside but then I started thinking what Papa would do if he
came home and found a pile of ashes. He had already lost 4 homes, one to flood, [in Tucson]
two to fires and one to Poncho Villa in Mexico. So instead of running outside, I grabbed a
blanket off the bed and smothered the fire out.
While we were living in John Ray’s house we had five acres of land to farm. The
house was about 50 yards back from Marilyn Av. We had a big haystack out next to the
road where the paper boy used to leave the Arizona Republic. About that time the FBI had
a nationwide man hunt for a gangster named, John Dillenger. Every morning us kids would
run out to get the paper to see if they had caught Dillenger yet. Then we would let Ervin
take the paper and beat us back to the house. one morning we picked up the paper and the
headlines read, “John Dillenger shot by FBI 1934.” We ran as fast as we could back to the
house with the news and left Ervin out there having a tantrum because we wouldn’t let him
beat us to the house. Papa finally went out and convinced him, with a stick, to come in.
Papa raised chickens and we had to haul drinking water for them and for us nearly a
quarter of a mile from Fraley’s. We hauled it in 55 gallon drums on a horse drawn cart Papa
built. Between our family and all our hens we used nearly 2 or 3 hundred gallons of water a
day. We had about 2,000 laying hens but between disease, heat cats and chicken thieves,
Papa had to buy nearly that many again just to stay even every year. We were just about helpless against the heat and the chicken thieves until a friend of mine, Francis Millett,
gave us a little black puppy. We named him Ranger. We were living in an old lumber house
which sat up on blocks just high enough for cats and dogs to go under. And they did. The
cats used to attack Ranger when he was little. They would run under the house and fight and
all I could do to help the puppy was to run into the house and stomp up and down on the
wooden floor and scare the cats away. But one day I heard fighting under the house and
before I could do anything about it the cat came running out with Ranger in hot pursuit.
From then he was a member of our cat haters club. Whenever we found a cat in the chicken
coop we would holler, “Here, Ranger, Ranger, Ranger… Here, Ranger, Ranger, Ranger.” And
Ranger always knew what was happening He would head for the north side of the pen
because the cats always headed that way toward the Farley’s. But, they quickly changed
direction when they saw Ranger coming. He would head them for a big Mesquite tree which
forked about 4 feet from the ground. …One day we treed a great big cat, as big as the dog
or bigger. …it was a wild cat. It must have had rabies because about two weeks later Ranger
died foaming at the mouth. Narvel and I were lucky we didn’t get bit. We had a few more
pets after that but none of them ever replaced Ranger. Not too long after that, the chicken
thinness ran us out of business. But, before they did, Narvel and I carried thousands of
gallons of water to those chickens before we finally got city water piped to our place.
1934-35
While living there we had to catch the bus at the corner of Horne and Broadway. It
was really hard to get up at 5:00 o’clock in the morning in the winter time and wade bare
foot thru half frozen keen deep cow manure then clean up, eat breakfast and get to the bus
stop on time. We had to run over to Horne thru wet and frosty Johnson Grass, then a ¼ of a
mile from where 6th Ave is now to Broadway. Every time the bus driver had to wait for us,
he would chastise us for being late.
Horne St had sharp gravel on it. We had the choice of running on the sharp rocks or
in the stickers, in the gutter. It was hard choice but we usually chose the rocks over the
thorns. In running that far, I used to get a terrible pain in my side, but I couldn’t stop
running because if I did, the rocks cut into my feet that much worse.
If we missed the bus, we didn’t dare turn around and go home, so we ran two miles
to Irving School, ‘cause if we were late for school, we had to stay after school and we would
miss the bus again and have to walk home, then we would catch heck for not getting home in
time to do our chores on time and we would go to bed without supper. That didn’t happen
very often, tho. Once was enough. Later on, the bus driver’s sister lived next door to us and
he pastured his cow in her field. Every morning when he came to milk his cow at 5:30, Narvel
and I would have 3 or 4 cows milked already. From then on he never bawled us out anymore.
But, if anyone got on the bus right behind us he would growl at them and say, “These Rowley
boys have a good excuse for being late. What’s your excuse?”
After Papa got out of the chicken business, we had to work for my brother Allen on
the hay bailers. Oh, man. I hated that! I always had hey fever. Besides that, we had to start
bailing as the sun was going down. We worked all night and half the morning, till it got so hot
the leaves were falling off the alfalfa. Then it was too hot to sleep, besides that, we had to
milk the cows. Some times, when we moved from one field to another, I would try to sleep
on the trailer, but that was like trying to sleep on a pogo stick while being chased by a
freight train.
One day when I was bucking bales and Narvel was driving the tractor, I had a bale
of hay, which weights as much as I did, up over my head, getting ready to put on top of the
stack, the tractor hit a bump and it threw me off the trailer with the bale of hay in my lap.
I couldn’t walk for two weeks. Some people will do anything to get out of work. Then one
day, Narvel and I were cleaning the corral. He was driving the tractor again, I was standing
on the corner of the trailer, unloading the fertilizer in the 10 acre field on Horne when the
tractor hit a bump and it threw me off. I landed on the back of my head on the draw bar of
the tractor. It knocked me out for a while. When I came to, Narvel helped me get home.
1936
A lot of times, when we were working in the field and we got thirsty, we would go lie
down on the ditch bank and drink out of the ditch, like the horses did. After we had been
doing that for a while, Pres, Franklin D Roosevelt got polio. People around the valley started
getting polio. The doctors said it was from swimming in the irrigation. That scared us a
little, but not enough to make us stop drinking the water. It wasn’t until something hit me on
the nose, while I was drinking one day, I raised up to see what it was. There was a Meadow
Muffin. I decided it was time to find a less polluted water hole. [A meadow muffin? Is that
like a cow pie?]
1935
One day while we were living in Ray’s house, Narvel and I were playing Tarzan in two
big tamarack trees when the “Grapes of Wrath” drove into our yard; A car load of Okies
with all their furniture hanging on their car. They wanted to know what we were doing in
their house. I don’t know what happened, but, evidently, John Ray had rented it to them
with out telling Papa. It wasn’t their fault but Narvel and I had a feud going with them until
they moved to California, 6 or 7 years later. To add insult to injury, they bought a piece of
land we were farming from Howard Standage.
1938
One day when Elda and I were about 14 and 1? Years old, we were picking cotton way
out in one of Papa’s fields, when Sister Farley, who lived nearby, started calling her
daughter, Alice Faye. In a high shrill voice, she called, “Alice Faaaaaye…” After several
times with no answer, Elda yelled from the fields and answered, “Whaaat?” To which Sister
Farley replied, “Come home…” And Elda replied “No!” They had quite a little argument going
and I often wondered what kind of trouble Alice Faye found when she got home.
When I was about 13 or 14, Allen had some hay bailers and one of them caught fire
out in the field. We brought it to our back yard to rebuild it. A month later when Papa
[Jesse], Var, and a hired Mexican fellow were pouring gas in the tank to get it ready to go
back to work, gas spilled on the hot engine and caught fire. The three of them had gas on
their cloths which ignited immediately. Var jumped off the bailer, ran about 10 steps and
jumped over a three foot high barbed wire fence and rolled around in the dirt and put the
fire out. Papa jumped off and ran toward a tub full of water. I thought he was going to put
his fire out so I didn’t worry about it. At the same time the Mexican fellow took off running
and screaming. He ran about 100 yards to the end of the road where there was a shoulder
high fence and came running back towards me.(I had been chasing him, telling him to roll
over like Var had done. But, he was either scared or couldn’t understand English.) Anyway, here he comes running toward me, looking like a human shish-ka-bob, coming right at me. I
had to step out of his way to keep him from running right over me and setting me on fire. I
tackled him as he went by and rolled him over and put out his fire. I got singed a little but
he never died. He was in the hospital a month.
After I put his fire out, I ran over to help Papa put the fire out on the bailer and
Papa was still on fire. I splashed some water on him while he was running towards the bailer
with buckets of water trying to save the bailer, not worrying about himself. He was so badly
burned, he was in the hospital about ten days. They just cleaned Var up and bandaged a few
burned spots and sent him home.
Later on a man by the name of Herschel Jewell, bought a piece of land next to
Williams. He had a son Jim, about my age. One hot summer evening, Papa was irrigating, he
told us if we didn’t want to help him, to go to bed. So I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep.
Papa was irrigating in the front yard so I sneaked out the back door and ran out behind the
hay stack, across a neighbor’s field, then across the road to Jim’s place. It was too hot to
stay in their house, also, so we sat out in the field and talked. I wish I had known how to
teach the gospel, but I didn’t. So, instead of doing something constructive, we started
throwing clods at the Williams’ house, which had a tin roof. We didn’t know the clods were
falling off the roof, into their beds, until Sis Williams went out in her front yard and
hollered at Papa for him to make his boys stop throwing rocks at her house. He said, “Aw,
shut up. My boys are in bed.” He was only mistaken for 45 seconds. I barely got undressed and
back in bed before he came to check on me.
Ervin and Heber
1938 & 1933 & 1936
One night, when Ervin was about eight years old, he woke up in the middle of the
night, vomiting and sick to his stomach. He was sick all day, and all the next night, and late
the next day Papa took him to Doctor Sharp (a good name for a surgeon.) The doctor told
Papa that Ervin’s appendix had been ruptured for 48 hours. His system was so full of poison,
he was so near dead, there was nothing he could do to save him.
Papa told him to go ahead and operate. The doctor said it would be a waste of his
time and Papa’s money. But, Papa insisted, and while the doctor was getting ready to
operate, he called in Bishop Clarence Dana and his councilors, who, I think were, Howard
Millet and Leslie A Peel. They administered to Ervin.
When the doctor cut him open, he took out his (Ervin’s appendix, not the doctor’s)
He covered him with a sheet, (the doctor covered Ervin) and waited for him to die. (Ervin,
not the doctor, though I have thought since, it should have been the other way around.) He
pushed Ervin out in the hall, didn’t even bother to sew him up. The next morning, on his
routine rounds the doctor, who was not LDS, pulled the sheet back, to pronounce him dead.
When he saw Ervin, still alive, he started trying to save him. He said, later, he should have
known better than to expected a Mormon Boy to die that easy. It was 2 months before
Ervin was back to normal.
Some time later, we were playing hide and seek one night and Ervin ran out into the
orchard to hide and stumbled over a hand cultivator. One of the les–? Just missed his
heart. That ended the game of hide and seek.
To get back to Ervin’s story, he was five years younger than me, and what a pest!, I
thought. Again, how things change. One day we were late for the bus again. Ervin, Narvel,
and I were running north on Olive Drive, (still car tracks, in the middle of a cotton field) as fast as we could. We had to cross 4th Ave. (Broadway) to get to the bus. I crossed first.
Narvel wasn’t far behind. He went ahead and got on the bus, I stopped to see where Ervin
was. Just as he started across the road, here came two high school kids, hot-roding in a car.
They passed between Ervin and me. Ervin screamed, I heard a thud and when the dust had
settled enough so I could see, there was Ervin, sprawled out in the middle of the road. I
thought, “Oh, No! Don’t let history repeat itself.”
1933
Just 3 or 4 years earlier my brother, Heber, who was just 5 years older than me,
got killed by a truck passing a school bus, 2 blocks away, at the corner of 4th Ave and Mesa
Drive. He was the first person ever killed, in the town of Mesa, by a motor vehicle. That is
why it is against the law to pass a school buss while it is stopped to pick up or discharge
children. The truck had a crank in the front bumper and it tore Heber’s stomach. Heber was
13. My brother, Var, who was only 12, had to flag down a car and pick Heber up and put him
in it and get the people to take Heber to the hospital, while Var ran a half mile to tell
Mother and Papa. The man that hit Heber had already picked up Mother and Papa. They
stopped and picked Var up and got to the hospital just in time to watch Heber die.
1922
Heber had been run over by a car when he was about 2 years old. It left his face
twisted and dented in one ear. That’s why he couldn’t hear the truck coming. He was a very
intelligent boy and had a lot of friends. The day he was killed, he was to have been passed
from the 7th to the 8th grade in the middle of the year. I only know one other person that
happened to.
1938
Ervin was lucky that time tho, he just got hit hard enough to knock him down and
stun him for a while. They took him to the hospital, then released him. He was badly bruised,
but no cuts or broken bones. That evening, at supper time, Ervin was laying on a blanket on
the floor, as I remember it, Ervin wanted someone to bring him a drink of water. Papa, in his
wisdom, not wanting to spoil Ervin, told him to get it himself. Ervin got up and started
limping on his left leg. Being a con artist, myself, I started thinking out, “Hey, Ervin, you
were running north. The car was coming from the east. It hit you on the right leg, how come
you’re limping on your left leg.” He stopped and thought a second, then started limping on his
right leg. It was a miracle how fast he recovered after that. I mean, it was a real miracle he
didn’t get hurt any worse than that after being hit by a speeding car.
1936
Going back a few years, when Ervin was about 6 years old, Narvel was 9, I was about
11, the three of us were working way back in the west end of the chicken pen, nearly 200
yards from the house, when a real strong wind started blowing all of a sudden. We almost
had to get down on our hands and knees and crawl back to the house. All the while the wind
was pelting us in the face with chicken dung. When Narvel and I got back to the back door
of the house, I held the door open for Narvel and Ervin. I felt Narvel go by. My eyes were
so full of chicken dung( besides my mouth and nose being full of it) I couldn’t open them for
a few seconds. When I finally opened my eyes to see where Ervin was, much to my surprise and fright, he wasn’t there. Narvel and I ran back to find him. The wind had blown him back
against the fence and nearly buried him in chicken dung. (I guess that is why Ervin grew to
be way over 6 feet tall. He was well fertilized.) It was all Narvel and I could do to drag
Ervin to the house.
One evening, when I was about 11 years old, Narvel and I were way after dark
getting home from Primary. Papa had to gather the eggs, and milk the cows. Papa made us go
to bed with out supper. After a while, I got up and told Papa I was sorry for what I had
done. Narvel wasn’t about to apologize. After I had gone back to bed Papa came in and asked
me if I wanted a bowl of bread and milk, which I certainly did.
One Saturday, about that time, just the day before Easter, some of my cousins
were visiting from Tucson. We went out in the Desert for a picnic. On the way back, there
was Papa driving, with me in the middle of the front seat, then Mother holding Robert, who
was three months old. Then there was Var, Velma, Elda, Narvel, Lela, Ervin, and Melvin, plus
Barbara, Laura and Zelda Hardy, in the back seat. As we were going thru the intersection of
Broadway and Stapley, going west on Broadway, a car going north on Stapley, ran a stop sign
and hit us broadside and knocked our car over on it’s side in the ditch. Mother was in the
water, up to her neck, holding Robert over her head. I was the only one in the family that
got scratched, but one of my cousins got some broken ribs.
When we got out of the car, we found out that my oldest sister’s oldest boy, George
Chlarson, had stolen my brother, Allen’s, car, and was trying to make his escape.
1937
To digress from Ervin a little, we had rows and rows of 1 cubic foot nests stacked on
top of each other. We had to keep straw in the nests to keep the eggs from breaking,. I
sure hated it when I would reach way up over my head and grab a hand full of broken eggs
and chicken manure, but I nearly fell off the ladder when I reached in one nest and took
hold of a snake. We were supposed to gather the eggs twice a day. One day someone, for
some reason, didn’t gather all the eggs at noon. It just happened that I hurt my ankle
playing football at school so I tried to use that as an excuse for not doing my chores. But it
didn’t work. I guess that’s the reason I exposed Ervin when he tried to pull the same trick,
although he had a much more legitimate excuse. Anyway, my ankle was hurting and I was
felling sorry for myself, And when I filled two five gallon buckets full of eggs, instead of
taking them to the egg house, like an egg head, I started stacking eggs on top of the
bucket. So what if a dozen or so rolled off and broke, no one would ever know the
difference. Besides, I was gathering the eggs, like I had been told. As near as I could count,
I had about 600 eggs, I started, I say, started to go to the house with the two five gallon
buckets heaping full of eggs, severely exaggerating the pain in my mind, I was feeling so
sorry for myself I wasn’t watching what I was going. I tripped over a piece of bailing wire
sticking out of the ground. Those two buckets of eggs flew out in front of me. (That was
the first and the last time I saw eggs fly before they were hatched.) I fell on my face right
in the middle of 600 broken eggs. I almost drowned in egg yolk. I found out that the horse
whip applied to the back side a few times will cure a sprained ankle, real quick. I think it
would have even mended a broken leg…
I mentioned the snake a while ago, which reminded me of something that happened
when I was about 16. My brother, Clarence, had a Chevrolet Semi-truck. He hauled 15 tons
of hay at a time. He would take me along for company. That is where I learned that a trucking company has to work, to be a success and stay on the road. Clarence had a ranch in
Skull Valley.
One day we hauled a load of hay to the Hassayampa Dairy in Prescott. Then we drove
to the ranch and got his little Ford V8 coupe and went looking for something to haul back to
Phoenix. There was a Mr Williams, I can’t remember his first name, he was a millionaire
cartoonist. He created, “Out Wickenburg way.” I found out why millionaires were so hard to
find, back in the 30’s, they were all hiding out in the woods. We drove for two hours, it
seemed, over a windy, dippy, mountain road we followed a slow semi for miles before we
thought it was safe to pass. When we finally made our move, we got along side of the back
end of the trailer and a car popped up out of a dip right in front of us. The truck was doing
about 25 MPH we had sped up to about 40 MPH, and the car coming at us was doing about
60. We had three alternatives to a head-on collision and no time to make a decision. We
could either plaster ourselves all over that cliff, or climb a pine tree doing 40 MPH or crawl
under the trailer. There is a law against littering the Highways, which we surely would have
done if we had taken either the first or the second choice., so Clarence decided to crawl
under the trailer. He hit the breaks, and luckily the car didn’t have good shock absorbers,
and the front end went way down and we literally… slid under the trailer. We were under so
far, we scratched our windshield on the back of that trailer… We finally found the ranch,
and we drove up to a beautiful ranch house. There was a seedy old ranch hand out in the
yard. Clarence walked up to him and said, “Where can we find the millionaire, old man
Williams?” The old cowpoke said, “You’re looking at him, mister. What can I do for you?” We
were almost wishing we could crawl back under the trailer.
1940 – their horse, Molly
Back in 1935, Papa bought 10 acres on the east side of Horn Street from a fellow by
the name of Frank Anderson. In the morning, we would drive the cows and horses to the
pasture. We had 8 Holstein cows and three work horses. One bay mare named Molly, sure
was a good cow pony. I would get on her bare back without a bridle and grab a hand full of mane
and hold on tight, and she would round up the cows by herself. If one cow tried to lag
behind, Molly would run over and bite them on the behind. In the evening, after school, I
would jump on her, and she would round up the cows, drive them to the gate. The cattle
would all run across the road and jump in the irrigation water and get a drink. While they
were drinking, I would close the gate and go jump on Molly’s back while she was still in the
ditch. When they all got thru drinking, Molly would get them all out of the ditch, and head
them for home. Then I would turn around backwards on her and lay my head on her hips and
go to sleep. When I woke up, they would all be standing at the coral gate. Every once in a
while, one of the cows would get away, and I would have to ride Molly all over the county
looking for the cow. One evening I was riding east on the south side of Broadway, in the
gutter, or bar ditch, as the Oakies called it, About where Mesa Jr Hi Seminary is now.
Molly stepped in a gopher hole and turned a somersault and landed up side down on top of
me. We were lucky we didn’t both get killed or at least a broken leg. When she rolled over to
get up, luckily again, she rolled toward my feet instead of my head. She would have killed me
for sure. After she got up she stood there and waited for me to get enough strength to get
up. At first I thought I had broken my ankle, but it was just bruised. But, it hurt so bad I
couldn’t jump back on her. The Lord was sure looking out for me because about that time, here came Ray Williams, delivering papers. He helped me back on the horse, and I rode off
into the sunset.
1940
One evening when I was about 15, I was taking the cows home. I stopped at Gerald
Standages place to read the “funnies” in the Tribune. (“Mesa Journal Tribune” it was called
then.)What happened after that wasn’t very funny. Those cows must have gone home and
told Papa I was reading the funny papers. How else would he know I was in Standages house?
Anyway, I heard a knock on the door. I looked, and there was Papa with a big switch. I
bolted out the door, past him, fast as I could go, he hit me twice as I ran by, then he hit me
again about every other step I took. He sure could run fast for a 65 year old man. Needless
to say, I never stopped to read the funnies any more.
1944??
[What year was this? Probably 1944 – It says 1934 but he says he was 29.
1925+29=1954???]
Shortly after we moved onto the farm, Papa and Ervin dug a well 40 feet deep.
After a year or so, the well went dry and they had to dig another, 20 feet deep. One day
when Ervin was digging in the well, Clarence came over and told Ervin the battery Clarence
had borrowed from Ervin was dead. That made Ervin so mad he came up out of the well and
lit into Clarence right on the edge of the well. Papa was trying to break up the fight and I
thought they were all going to fall in the well. When Ervin got thru with Clarence, Clarence’s
wife, Adelle, and Allen had to carry Clarence home and put him to bed.
We celebrated the fourth of July that year by setting off a few sticks of dynamite
in the bottom of the well. What a firecracker! Later on, when the well went dry again, we
piped water from the Farley place, then we moved our out house over the well and started
to fill it back up. One day Papa dropped his billfold in the toilet. It had $20 in it, that was a
month of groceries, so we had to lower Narvel down in a bucket to retrieve it, so Papa could
buy groceries. Of course it all wound up back down in the well, anyway.
1941
In 1941 I bought a Schwin bicycle and got a job delivering the Arizona Republic in
the morning, and the Phoenix Gazette in the evening. I had to pick up my papers at the
corner of Main and Stapley at 4:00 AM. From there I went west to Horne, south to
Broadway, east to Solomon, south to where 5th Ave is now, then back to Broadway, over to
Horne, south to Southern, east to Stapley, south to Baseline, east to Gilbert, a ¼ of a mile
south on Gilbert, then north to Southern, west to Stapley, ½ mile north on Stapley, then
back to Southern, then back to Horne, north to Marilyn, then west to home… a total of
about 11 miles. Then, I had to milk 4 cows, eat breakfast, and get to school by 8:00 AM.
Then I had to do it all over again in the evening. It was all dirt road, except Main, Baseline,
and Gilbert Road.
That winter, it is the first time it had rained enough to fill Roosevelt Lake. Horne
and Southern were so muddy, the mud would pack under the fenders till the wheels wouldn’t
turn. Several times I had to pick up my bike, with 20 newspapers in the bags and carry it ¾
of a mile. All that for about 75¢ a day. Some times Papa let me ride Molly, but that was a long way for her, and then pull a plow all day. Some times when it was raining real hard, Var
would take me in his car.
Allen had a little café on Main St. He used to let us paper boys have all the pie and
ice cream we wanted, as long as we paid at the end of every month. I thought that was great
until I didn’t have enough money to pay Allen. He told me I had better pay him, or he would
tell Papa. I tried to borrow some money from Clarence, but he wouldn’t loan it to me. I just
had to stop eating pie and ice cream. I had terrible withdrawal pains.
One day I was eating an ice cream cone while I was delivering papers. A little rock
got caught in the bicycle chain. It threw me off the bike. I landed on my hands and knees
and got a rock about the size of the end of your little finger imbedded in my knee. I had to
go to Doctor Horace Kent and have him dig it out.
I used to ride home from Mesa High at lunch time for a bowl of Bread and milk and
honey. Then on the way back, I’d grab the back of a hay truck and let it pull me from Mesa
Drive to Center.
For other entertainment, Joe Barney, Leroy Web, my brother, Narvel, and myself,
used to ride our bikes to the northeast corner of town, (between Main and 4th Street and
Center and Mesa Drive) about 9:00 PM, where they had a lot of dogs. Two of us would ride
ahead and get a dog to chase us. The other two would come up from behind and surround the
dog and scare the poor thing half to death. We would do that until the people would start
lighting their kerosene lamps. (We didn’t have electricity.) Then we would go into the next
block and start over. We really thought that was fun. If anybody did that to me now, I
would call the police. My how times have changed.
1933
Going back a few years, I started milking cows when I was 8 years old. One day I
was driving the cows to pasture, and one of them decided she wanted to go home. I couldn’t
stop her, she almost ran over me. Papa was coming behind me. When she tried to run past
Papa, he kicked her on the nose and turned her around, then got after me for letting her
get by me. I never let another cow get by me again, after Papa showed me how stop them.
A few years later [1936?] when I was 11, Ervin came out in the coral, while I was
milking. He got too close to a newborn calf, and the mother lowered her head and came
charging at Ervin. She would have killed Ervin if I hadn’t jumped between them and known
how to turn her to one side. That little jersey cow was crazy Papa had to put a leather band
around her calf’s nose with horse shoe nails on it to keep her from sucking her mother.
That crazy cow would stand there and bleed.
One day I was trying to feed another calf, that Jersey calf kept trying to suck on
my pants leg, sticking those nails in me. I kept pushing her away and she kept coming back.
Finally, I swung around with my right hand to slap her in the ribs. She jumped back and I
slapped her on the nose, running one of those nails clear thru my hand. I still have the mark
in the palm of my hand.
Papa had bought a team of horses and a Holstein cow from a man by the name of
Christiansen. We named the horses, Molly and Brownie, and the cow we named Butte. Butte’s
first calf… The next calf was a beautiful heifer we named Pet. …Pet’s first calf was even
prettier than her mother. In fact she was one of the prettiest heifers I have ever seen. I
named her Becky after my favorite niece. …Becky jumped the fence when she was 20 months old. I took us a week to find her. That’s what I was doing when Molly stepped in that
gopher hole (looking for Becky.) …
Milk was one of our main sources of food and money, next to eggs. We really had to
work hard to get the hay to the cows so they could produce milk. Consequently spilling milk
was a no-no. They say it doesn’t do any good to cry over spilled milk but we sure did a lot of
when we were growing up, at least I did. …
Narvel was almost 2 years younger than me. From the time he was 13 to 16 he was
wearing the same size clothes I was wearing. He was always more physical than I was. I
guess something happened to me when I was a baby that stunted my growth.
When Narvel was 15, he wanted to go to work on Allen’s hay baler. That didn’t
bother me much, cause I didn’t like hay balers, anyway, but I never could quite figure out
why I had to go no milking cows and running a paper route when I was 17 and Ervin was 12
and hadn’t even learned how to milk cows yet. Var tried to get me on with the Santa Fe
Railroad, but Papa wouldn’t sign a minor’s release. It was just a matter of a few months till
Uncle Sam was going to take that matter out of his hands anyway. I had to trick Ervin into
learning how to milk. I told him I would pay him a dime for every cow he milked. I think it
was about the time I tried to borrow some money from Clarence that I couldn’t pay Ervin
what I owed him, so he was going to quit. I told him and Papa, I had been milking cows for 9
years and hadn’t been paid a dime. Besides, he was four years older than I was when I had
to start milking, and I didn’t think it was a bit fair, for me to pay him when he was drinking
just as much as I was. So Ervin had to help me milk. Then when I got a chance to go to work
at Williams Air Force Base, just before I had to register for the draft, Papa didn’t see how
Ervin could milk all those cows by himself. I had to remind him that Melvin was 2 years older
than I was when I started milking. I know Narvel was deliberately drying up his cows when
he wanted to bale hay. I think that is one reason Papa let him go. When I thought he wasn’t
going to let me go to work where I could earn some money, I tried to do the same thing, but
my conscience wouldn’t let me. I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had
gone to work on the railroad for &75.00 a week, instead of going in the Army for $35
dollars a month. Maybe I was lucky. I have seen some of my brothers and a sister drift away
from the Church when they got to making a lot of money.
Another thing I used to hate was combing the desert for wood. Papa and I would
take 3-10 gallon cans full of water, 2 – 4 pound packages of raisins and two loaves of home
made bread to last us all day. We put 20 gallons of water in the radiator and drank the
other 10. Papa ate a loaf and a half of bread and a ½ sack of raisins. I ate a sack and a half
of raisins and a half a loaf of bread. We would comb the desert from Lehi to Florence
Junction. It took all day to find a load of wood. I sure hated it when we found an ironwood
tree. It was like chopping iron… [My dad, Var, said they would take loaves of bread and a
bunch of bananas for their lunch. I didn’t know they had bananas in Mesa in the ‘20s]
One day, I was trying to put a harness on Molly and she stepped on my bare foot. I
was hitting her with a trace chain, trying to get her off. Papa [Jesse] got after me for
being mean to her. I wasn’t trying to be mean; but a thousand pounds of horse on my bare
foot didn’t exactly tickle…
When I was about 15, my cousin, Martha Hardy, got married in Tucson. Everybody in
the family, except Narvel and I, went to the wedding. We had to stay home and take care of
the chickens and the cows. One evening, we were staying out on the hay stack, feeling sorry
for ourselves, we started prophesying about some day we were going to travel and leave everybody else home. Years later, under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s leadership,
we got into war with Japan and Germany, ei WW II. I got drafted and went to Europe. A
year or so later, Narvel joined the Navy and went to China, and everyone else stayed home.
Going back a few years, to just before 8th grade graduation, when we were
rehearsing, there was a girl by the name of Alva Jean Farnsworth singing a solo. She had a
real beautiful soprano voice. I remember all the kids were ooohing and ahhhing. Every time
she hit those high notes, it would just send tingles through you.
…In 9th grade …There was an empty desk in the middle of the class, right in front of
that beautiful soprano soloist. …One day my older sister started going with a return
missionary by the name of Pershing Lamar Farnsworth. …Several times I started to tell her
I was Velma’s brother. …One day Mr Mason said, “Gene Rowley, come get your test papers.”
…as soon as I sat down, she asked if I was Velma’s brother. I said “Yes.” She said she was
Lamar’s sister. I said, trying to act surprised, “Well, how ‘bout that!!” We talked for a while,
then I asked if I could take her home on my bicycle. She said, “I guess so.” Man, I thought
school never would let out that day.
We used to go to every Abbot and Costello show that came to town…
One evening just after sundown, I was coming down the lane and Alva Jean, Rhoda
and Buena were sitting on the bridge, singing, “Sweet Lei Lani.” As usual Alva was taking the
soprano part. They made up one of the most beautiful trios I have ever heard sing
anywhere, anytime. Mesa was a quiet, peaceful town back then. We had a three man police
force, Joe Maier, Joe Leavitt and Buck Hassel, a very popular motorcycle cop. And a three
man, 1 truck fire department.
Var and Buena got married on the second of June, 1940. Then one year later, Velma
and Lamar got married on June 2, 1941. 26 days later I turned 16. June 28, 1941. Germany
had invaded Poland in 1939, after Britain’s Prime Minister, Chamberlain, came back from
meeting with Adolph Hitler, proclaiming, “Peace in our time.” France and England had told
Hitler, if he invaded Poland, they would declare war on him. He did, and they did. Germany
ran over France in no time. Britain threw Chamberlain out of office, and put Churchill in his
place. …
On Dec 7, 1941, Narvel and I were out in the coral, milking cows, when all of a
sudden it sounded like all heck broke loose down town. Sirens started screaming all over
town. The police were saying over their PA systems that the Japs had bombed Pearl
Harbor, in Hawaii. …I wasn’t too worried at the time, cause the draft age was 21. I was only
16. I knew without a doubt the war would be over before I turned 21, which it was. What I
didn’t know was that when I turned 17 ½ they lowered the draft age to 18. I registered for
the draft on my 18th birthday, June 28, 1943.
In the spring of 1942, I got scarlet fever and flunked the second semester. In the
summer of 1942, Alva’s family moved to California to work in the ship yards. Then my whole
world collapsed around me. My sweetheart had gone to another world, and I was facing the
draft… While the Farnsworth’s were helping the war effort in California, [Jesse] and
Clarence got a contract with Apache Powder Co. in Benson to supply them with powdered
straw, for gun powder. We bought up, then grounded up, all the straw in the valley, then
Clarence hauled it to Benson, Arizona.
One day while I was sewing sacks on the grinder, I stepped back away from the
machine to get a breath of fresh air. I put my hands on my hips to relax a second. When I
did, I felt like I’d stuck a hot needle in the joint in the joint of my right thumb. I looked and didn’t see anything, so I went back to work. After a while, my thumb started swelling, and I
started getting dizzy and sick to my stomach. I told Papa [Jesse] I thought something
stung me. He told me to go to the house. I went over where Mother [Martha] was washing
clothes. I was telling her what had happened, and how I felt. All of a sudden, I felt the
same thing 2 more times on the back of my right upper arm. I started taking off my shirt,
which was a long sleeved tan shirt. I pulled my right arm out and turned the sleeve wrong
wide out: but I didn’t see any thing, so I started to pull my left arm out, and I felt the same
thing, 2 more times on my left arm. I turned that sleeve wrong side out and there was one
of those long, slender, deadly type scorpions. He had stung me 5 times, unfair, like
everything else seemed to be, I could only kill him once. For the next couple of hours, while
I had my right hand and arm packed in ice, and was thinking about that Boyle kid, the same
age I was that died 2 weeks earlier from a scorpion, I died a hundred times. I took those
clothes off and never wore them again for a month. Then one night, Mother [Martha] was
going to take us to our annual show. Those were the only clean clothes I had, so when I put
the pants back on, a scorpion stung me on the knee. That time I killed the scorpion, got a
couple of ice cubes, tied them on my knee with a rag, and went to the show with melted ice
running down my leg.
In September of 1942, when school started, there was no money to buy books or
clothes with. Papa [Jesse] told me if I wanted to go to school, he would have some money in
two weeks. I was already going to have to take second semester over, so I just didn’t see
any sense in going back and getting further behind. That is when I reared-up and demanded
that Papa let me go to work at Williams Air Force Base, so I could earn money to buy books
and clothes for next year. But as I said, I registered for the draft on my 18th birthday, I
knew it wouldn’t be long.
Sometime during that year, Lyman and Rhoda Haws were living in the old George
Haws house, Alva came back to help Rhoda, when Joy was born. …
Papa [Jesse] said he could get me deferred to help him on the farm, but I had had
enough slave labor. I got my orders on the 28 of September, to report to the Phoenix draft
office on the 28th of October, and I was sworn in. When I boarded the train at the Mesa
Railroad Depot at midnight, October 30, 1943, I was technically in charge of three guys,
Cecil Baker, a white guy, and 2 Indians, Jonah Ray from the Salt River Indian Reservation
and Chester Antone, from the Gila Reservation.
We arrived at Los Angeles Grand Central Station at noon, November 1, 1943. That
place looked like it was as big as the whole city of Mesa. I didn’t know there were that many
people in the whole world. I thought I was going to drown in people. We got to Fort Mac
Arthur just in time for supper, my first army chow. Every one in the chow hall was making
fun of the funny clothes we were wearing. We still had on our civvies. …I weighed 135 lbs.
[I think he was by far the smallest of the Rowley boys. Ervin, the tallest was 6’ 4”. My dad
Var was 6’ 2”] … They said if I weighed 5 pounds less they would have to put me in the girl
scouts. …My shirt was 14 neck, 35 sleeve. I got those long arms from reaching across the
table for something to eat. My mother said I ate so much it made me skinny to carry it
around. My first GI shoes were 7½ B. Six months later, I weighed 165, 31-30 pants, 15½ –
35 shirt and 8½ C shoe. When I went over seas, 5 months later I weighed 175, wore 34-30
pants, 16-35 shirt, 9½ shoes.
My first few nights at Fort Mac Arthur, I was afraid to go out side at night for
fear I would drown in the fog, of walk off into the ocean. After I had been there a week, I
got so home sick, I cried all night. …
Note to Darlynn, It seems, …your mother and I… were promised to each other…In
reading your great grandfather, William Wallace Haws’ diary I found that he and your
great grandfather, Albert Stephen Farnsworth, worked together laying out Colonia Pacheco,
where your grandpa Farnsworth lived next door to your grandmother Rowley [Martha Haws
Rowley] when she was born. Then your grandpa Farnsworth knew your grandpa Rowley in
Tucson, after Poncho Villa ran them out of Mexico, and your uncle Edwin worked and
boarded with your grandpa Farnsworth. Two of your Grandpa [Jesse] Rowley’s mission
companions were your grandpa Farnsworth and your grandma Farnsworth’s uncle.
Then your mother and I crossed paths several times in school …I was sick a lot in
third grade and had to take it over. …
W W II – 1943-44
Now back to the army. We had a lot of fun on the b each…Before we shipped out,
though, Congress passed a law that no more 18 year olds could be shipped over seas. There
were 4 or 5 of us in that category…
About the middle of the month of March 1944, …we started hearing rumors that we
were going to Fort Custer near Battle Creek, Michigan. …We boarded a troop train in
Riverside. From there we went to Reno, Nevada, then to Salt Lake City, Utah, where I saw
my first real heavy snow storm. From there we went to Denver, Colorado. It was snowing all
the way. Going around a sharp curve in the Royal Gorge, just out of Denver, a big 10 gallon
aluminum kettle fell off a shelf down over my heard and shoulders. When I came too, a
few minutes later… Frank Dutton …was laughing so hard he couldn’t even help me up.
From there we went to Lawrence, Kansas, … From there we went to St Louis,
Missouri. Then we hit Chicago, Ill. About midnight, March 29, 1944. For some reason we had
to get off the train and walk a mile or so to another depot, carrying 150 pounds of gear.
That is when I found out why they call Chicago, “The Windy City.” I think that is where they
learned how to freeze-dry food…
From there we went to Gary, Indiana. Then arrived at Fort Custer just after dark
on March 30, 1944 and it was snowing. It snowed most of the next day.
There were about 30 men from the western states who had been in the army 5
months by that time. After 6 months you were supposed to get a 15 day furlough plus
traveling time, we tried to get our furlough from California, but they waited till we got to
Michigan and gave us just 10 days. It took 6 of them traveling. We had 4 days at home.
When I left Ft Custer, there was still snow in the ground. I had on all the clothes I
could get on, and still thought I was going to freeze… When I got here, to the valley of the
Sun, …I wondered what had possessed me to bring an overcoat to Arizona.
It was a miserable 4 days. I was terrible restless, with Alva in California and nothing
to look forward to except going back to army life. I did go visit my sisters Laura, Loretta,
and Veda in Prescott. While I was there, Laura gave me an old hand cranked portable
phonograph, which I carried with me until the war ended. All of my buddies enjoyed it so
much, that every time we moved, the Supply Sgt. would pack it with Company equipment.
That is the only way it survived. I had to leave it behind when I transferred out of the
785th M P Battalion. I did take most of my records. (When I was in my early teens, Laura gave the family a real nice phonograph, which we played almost constantly, until the spring
broke, and the family abandoned it. I took it apart and fixed it. It lasted a while longer,
then the spring broke again. I fixed it again, it broke again, every time it broke, the spring
got shorter… played it till the spring couldn’t be fixed any more. Then I turned it by hand
until I lost all the phonograph needles. Then I used most of mother’s sewing machine
needles and straight pins, till she realized what I was doing, then she put an end to my
career as a disc jockey, at least temporarily. We had a lot of old vaudeville records which I
almost memorized.)
A lot of GI’s liked to go to Chicago for the weekend. As long as you were in uniform,
you couldn’t spend a dime. You could go to any theater any time, & take the bus anywhere
you wanted to go in the city limits. Everything was free, including rooms and meals, as long
as you were in a military uniform.
Detroit was a fairly good place for GI’s to visit a lot. I got a free ticket to go to a
concert…
On September 12, 1944, we left Fort Custer and went to Detroit, then into Windsor,
then across Canada to Niagara Falls then we crossed the Niagara River just above The
Falls, into New York. Then we went to Buffalo, NY. Then to Boston Harbor. Then on Sept 14,
about noon, we boarded the SS Wakefield, a troop ship which had previously been a Luxury
Liner called the SS Manhattan, the fastest ship afloat at that time. We had several antiaircraft
guns and anti-submarine depth charges. We were supposed to leave Boston Harbor
at midnight, but a hurricane was coming up the coast, we had to wait in the harbor for it to
blow over. So we didn’t leave until noon on the 15th of Sept., Dewey Melton’s 19th birthday.
We were supposed to escort an oil tanker the last half of the way across the Atlantic. We
were 12 hours behind schedule, and when we got to where we were supposed to meet the
tanker, rumor had it that a German sub had beat us there and all that was left was a big
fire on the water.
If it had not been for that hurricane, we might very well have gone to the bottom of
Davy Jones Locker with the tanker. Again, the Lord moves in mysterious ways his wonders
to perform.
Jack Dempsey was a Lieutenant Commander on that ship… …we had to back track to
Liverpool, England. From there we took about a 20 hour train ride to South Hampton. Again,
rumor had it that the Germans buzz bombed South Hampton, 12 hours before we got there.
Again, had it not been for that hurricane, we might have been right in the middle of an air
raid. Parts of South Hampton were a real mess. I guess it was from the bombing. We stood
around the docks for a while. Then boarded an old English cattle boat. They had just hauled
a load of horses across the English Channel, and nobody had cleaned it out. In the 9 days
crossing the Atlantic, I had a couple of waves of nausea come over me. They just lasted a
few seconds. That first night out on the Channel, a big storm hit. I had to pull guard duty at
2:00 AM. I was already sick. While I was on deck, a big wave came over the ship and hit me.
…By morning I was too sick to die.
…we waited for the storm to blow over. It was horrible, I don’t remember much
about what went on, but I do know we sure were relieved on the 5th day when they decided
to risk disembarking us. The waves were only one story high instead of two. When we
disembarked, we had a full field pack on our backs, a steel helmet on our head, a full duffel
bag on one shoulder & a full barracks bag on the other.…. We were about a mile from shore.
We had been sitting there for 4 days with the coast of France barely visible thru the fog. We were excited about setting foot on dry land again. The barge dodged in and out
between sunken ships and all kinds of snares. They took us in as far as they could, and then
we had to jump into the armpit deep icy water and wade 75 yards or so to shore, then we
had to walk about 50 yards to the foot of a sand dune. Then climb 30 or 40 feet to the
crest of the hill, only to be greeted by the stench of dead bodies. Then we had to march,
single file several miles through a field that had signs on both sides of the path which read,
“CAUTION LAND MINES BEYOND THIS POINT.”…
I don’t recall exactly when they issued us our weapons, but our first overseas
assignment was to escort 5,000 German prisoners of war from St Lo, to Cherbourg, about
90 miles. … I asked a German 1st soldier what he thought about being captured. He said he
was glad it was over. He had been waiting for two weeks. He was really when he found out
we were sending him back to the United States. …
[There are lots of good war stories here.]
One day I decided to go for a little hike around the country side. I filled my
canteen full of water, and put 2 halizone pills in it, got my rifle and a few boxed of ammo,
just in case. I had to wait ½ an hour for those pills to purify the water before I could drink
it. When it was safe to drink, I took my canteen off my belt and drank nearly a quart
without stopping. There happened to be a farmer close by. He started laughing and said I
would get drunk, drinking like that.
I said, “No, it isn’t wine.”
He said, “Oh, what is it, coffee?”
I said, “No. It’s water.”
He said, “WATER!! THAT STUFF WILL KILL YOU.”
Plain water without halizone would kill you, over there.
A couple of weeks later, that seemed like an eternity, The storm broke. One
morning, I heard a roar, way off in the distance. I looked up and there was a big black cloud
coming toward us from the Channel. I thought, “Oh no! Not another storm, already.”
It turned out to be a thousand B-17 bombers, each towing two gliders. What a sight
that was! The planes were loaded with bombs, and the gliders were loaded with men and
supplies. Needless to say, that broke the back of the German offensive, and the Battle of
the Bulge was over. The Germans were retreating, so we had to turn the pipe line over to
the French army? …
One day they told us to pack up…they told us they were waiting for the company
commander to move some people out of their house. I remember when we finally moved in.
We looked around at the fabulous furnature and decided it must have belonged to some bigshot
Nazi, so we weren’t too concerned about how we treated it.
We moved in the first part of March and moved out the last part of April. Along the
last part of March, some guy came in and tried to get us to move out. I tried to talk to him
but I couldn’t understand much German, then. He said something about Utah and Chicago…
You can imaging the shock that hit me when, 35 years later, I bought a book … called, “Mormonism in Germany.” …I turned the page and there was a picture of that house, and the caption under the picture read, “European Mission Church Administration Offices in Frankfurt, Germany.” And on page 120, I read:
“Although the Germans in the Soviet area of occupation received greater
mistreatment, seemingly because of the extreme losses and suffering the Russians had
received at the hands of the Germans, US troops were also guilty of causing Germans great distress. In West Germany, Pres Huck said, “The American confiscation of the Mission
Home in Frankfurt was done in a ruthless manner. All the linen and silverware was taken by
the US Soldiers.
“Before the formal surrender, Pres Huck went to the Americans in Frankfurt on
March 27, 1945, in an attempt to get the return of the West German Missionary Offices. I
showed him Pres. Heber J Grant’s business card, which I had received from him during his
1937 visits. I also showed him cards of American Brethren who were Officers in the Army.
After 4 weeks, the troops left, and the mission officers were able to return to the home.” …
“I was on Patrol in front of the [mission] house on the 12th of April 1945, when a
German civilian came by almost in tears and said the Pres Roosevelt had died. A short time
later, our company commander confirmed the information…
Christmas 1945…[the day after? This would have been my first Christmas. I would
have been 6 weeks old. akrc] That afternoon, we left ole Böblingen for Merry ole England.
My sister, Veda, had given me the name and address of one Marion Rowley Bevin, a distant
relative. Her father was a past minister in Sternford on Soar. His name was Arthur Rowley.
IT only took 3 hours to cross form Le Harve, France, to North Hampton, England instead of
5 days. There was a drizzling rain when we disembarked and the Red Cross met us there. A
lot of times in the army they served up “pigs in a blanket” but that time it was a “pig in a
raincoat.” The blanket was baked so hard, the rain couldn’t penetrate it. …
Marion was quite a heroine. She had personally shot down a German bomber over
London. They were real good to me. But they must have thought I was rather strange, with
my American ways. It was quite shocking to see a whole family of Rowleys smoking and
drinking tea. …
One day, Marion and I decided to go to see a movie. The bus stop wa a half block
from her house. We were standing on the corner waiting for the bus. All of a sudden, Marion
said, “Ear cumsa boose.”
I said, “What?”
She said, “I said, Ear cumsa boose.”
I said, “What did you say?”
She said, “I said, Ear cums tha boose. See.”
I looked where she was pointing, and sure enough, there was one of those two story
booses, I mean buses, coming. We got on the bus and sat down and after a while, a girl came
down the aisle collecting the fare.
I asked her how much it was. She said, “Three pence un apney.”
I said, “What?”
She said, “Oh, three pence un apney.”
I dumped a hand full of change in Marion’s hand and said, “Here you pay her.”
Marion laughed and gave her three pence and a half penny.
nd a half penny.