George Wallace Young History

Written by Rose A. Young with additions by DeEsta Young

Note: Additional comments by Keith Young and Clarice Young Whitesides are in [ ].

Wallace was born in Perry, Utah. At the time it was called Three Mile Creek. Wallace was the son of Thomas Young and Harriet Campkin. [George Wallace was born in a log house that belonged to James Young that was about a half mile north of Martha's house. James lived in Ogden for a time while he worked on the railroad. Thomas and Harriet built a new house for their family east of Martha's and moved into it just before Sarah's birth in 1885.]

Wallace, the only boy, was the apple of his mother's eye. His parents owned a large place with springs surrounded by land that grew wild hay. This helped them to cater to ox trains that hauled ore and goods. The drivers would turn their oxen to pasture and meals were provided for the men. They raised a big garden, sold vegetables, fruits, kept several cows, and churned the cream to butter. The butter would be carried to Corinne by the family to sell often walking the seven miles each way. They also dried apples and sold them to freighters in the early stores. [Corinne was the terminus of the railroad and freight was hauled from there to all the Northwest.]

As a youth, Wallace always loved school and completed the eighth grade. There was no high school then. During his school years and many years later, the community would hold spelling bees as part of many programs. Wallace's face always lit up at the conclusion of each spelling bee as he always captured first place honors. Wallace could spell almost any word in the dictionary. He was a walking dictionary to his wife and his children. He excelled in math and could figure most [arithmetic] problems in his head.

He was baptized when eight years of age in Porter Spring by his father and confirmed 14 May 1887 by Israel Barlow. Wallace loved to read and spent much of his time [especially after retirement] reading. The Brigham City Librarian took delight in finding books that Wallace had not read. He read all kinds even on subjects like history, physiology, and a set of encyclopedia. Yet, church books were what he read most often.

Young men in the town and Wallace used to love to race their horses. Their race track was east of the old Perry Ward Church House. Wallace bought a stop watch to clock the races.

While hiking the local mountains one Easter, a community tradition, Wallace brought home a small cedar tree in his lunch bucket. The tree was planted in the front of their home. The tree grew to provide shade for four generations of Youngs. [It was a nice tree to climb with just the right branch spacings. It was often decorated with christmas lights for the holiday season.] The tree is still growing proud and stately as a monument to Wallace's love of beauty. [A long needle pine was planted after the family trip to Yellowstone and is also now a large tree.]

Wallace and Bert hunted ducks west of Perry. The abundant food in the springs was on the duck's migratory dinner list. Bert and Wallace could shoot so many that it burdened the horses to carry them back in gunnysacks. Pillows and feather ticks were made from the soft feathers. Later a neighbor, V. F. Davis, made a feather renovator that helped make the job easier.

[Chinese pheasants were later introduced. They liked the food and rushes to hide in near the springs especially in winter because the springs never froze. The pheasants could be seen in their beautiful plumage trailing the fence lines near the house up to higher fields in the morning. Hunters came from all over during the hunting season to shoot them. Wallace enjoyed hunting them also.]

Albert was invited to Clarkston for the wedding of his missionary companion, Charles Atkinson. Wallace went with him to attend the wedding. Charles youngest sister Rose was only 14 but mature for her age. Rose's sister, Clara, said to be the beauty of the family, and Bert were attracted to each other. Soon everyone knew that Bert was sweet on Clara. Clarkston was a long way from Perry by horse buggy. A boy from nearby Newton, Johnny Larsen, courted and married Clara. Clara sent Bert an invitation to her wedding but he didn't go. Instead, his brother Wallace and sister Ida made the trip. Bert no longer had a reason for going to Clarkston but Wallace had his eye on Rose. Rose often said how nice it would have been if Clara had married Bert.

Wallace never forgot Rose and corresponded with her during his mission. Years later Rose had completed two years of college in Logan and taught school for four years. His courtship required him to drive 45 miles with his horse and buggy over to Clarkston, stay two or three days, and take another day to drive home. Wallace and his bride took the train to be married in the Salt Lake Temple 23 December 1909.

Wallace's older half brother, Bert, who lived with them until his death often caused a problem or two, but Wallace was a peace maker and could maintain some amount of peaceful balance. Rose, instead of complaining, took up hobbies, especially of gardening. Every kind of flower and vegetable could be found in her gardens. She found that she could release the tensions of the day by working with flowers in the evening. They were always so beautiful and would never talk back. A second bachelor half brother, T. Harvey was a frequent visitor but lived mostly in Salt Lake City.

In early years of married life, they were a typical pioneer family. The only water was in the well west of the old log house. Water had to be pulled from its depths. It was also used to keep milk and butter cool by lowering it down in buckets to the water level. Later Wallace added a bathroom to the new house. [He ran water from the pipeline along the main highway to the house. This involved much trenching to several feet deep so the pipes would not freeze. It was accomplished by the help of streams down the trench to loosen the hard ground. Horse drawn scrapers helped to bury the pipe.]

[There were always many visitors and relatives who came to the farm. In those days everyone came for supper, stayed the night, and left after a big breakfast of ham, browned-fried potatoes, toast, and eggs. The home smoked ham was always a treat.]

Wallace bought his mother's farm. All his sisters were paid for their share of the inheritance. Bert bought his mother's part of the farm. He prepared a will deeding the farm to Dale and assigned his insurance money to Clarice. He lived 20 years with Wallace as a part of the family. Uncle Bert died as a result of an accident while putting up wild hay on a stack. After Bert's accidental death, his sisters took the will to court to obtain a share of his inheritance but the court upheld the deed. Wallace bought the Stokes Lot and paid the others for Bert's share of the farm machinery. His sisters were given at their request Bert's writing desk, small tools, and clothing. Clarice now has Bert's picture in her home. [Bert's part of the farm was farmed with Wallace's until the boys grew up.]

Wallace was a hard worker and loved to sow his fields, tend his fruit orchard, and watch the young calves in the field as they played around in the springtime. He was one of the first to raise peaches and cherries. He would take carloads of peaches to Idaho and sell them. [Later he helped organize a cooperative fruit firm in Brigham and used this to ship fruit back east.]

Melons and squash were buried in the wheat bins to keep them from freezing. Choice pigs and steers were butchered by Wallace and Bert during the winter. They were hung on the screen porch where it was cold enough to keep the meat frozen during the winter months. [Head cheese was prepared to use fleshy parts of the head and other meat so very little was ever wasted.]

[A major argument in Perry over water involved diverting the canyon water up high so people with higher ground could use it. This was voted down. This left all the families along the north main highway and the family peach orchard high and dry. To solve this, Wallace and his neighbor, V. F. Davis, used water from a separate spring between the Walker and Porter ponds near the road to the Western fields as their source. They got steel pipe and pumped water up to where the main east highway now is to water peaches, a major accomplishment. Davis's orchard was east of the highway and Wallace's was on the west side. The purchased pipe was made of riveted steel strips wound in a spiral. Keeping the spring area free of water cress growth so water could feed the pump was a major job.]

[The deep well by the highway was driven in 1931. The pump had a shaft with a turbine in the bottom. The depth was about 75 feet. The water came up ice cold. They built a large cement trough and kept it full of cold melons to sell. The water went on to irrigate the orchard. When the road was widened, the pump had to be moved. It was redrilled about 75 feet further west. Years later water became available from Pine View dam. It was routed on the bench land near where it had been proposed earlier to route the irrigation water. This made extensive acreage available for irrigated farming. However, the canal water introduced every weed ever known along its length. The well water never had any weed seed in it.]

Wallace was always proud of his children and all their accomplishments in college and in their lives. He was proud of Dale and DRoss serving in World War II. Keith left school to run the farm being deferred for physical reasons.

Wallace had farmed all his life in Perry until after World War II. He then moved into town selling his part of the farm to DRoss while Keith was on his mission. Rose and Wallace purchased two houses next to each other. The south one had been converted to a duplex. An upstairs apartment was added to the north home. Apartments were much in demand with the coming of the large Bushnell hospital to Brigham to care for wounded soldiers. Wallace and Rose lived in the North House downstairs [at First North and First West]. Wallace's retirement was spent in reading and visiting with many friends who would come to spend afternoons on his front porch and trips to the farm. [While living here, DRoss always supplied them with fresh meat they needed and the summer fruits. DRoss parked his truck there when he worked at Thiokol and thus saw them frequently to take care of their needs.] Rose continued her gardening skills and made the home the show place of town.

Church Activities

Wallace was taught at his mother's knee how to pray. The family observed fast days by fasting from sundown to sundown. His testimony was strengthened in the Southern States Mission where he served 27 months. He often went without purse or script. [His description of the irritation of chiggers under a belt would make anyone scratch. He also injured his knee that gave him much pain later in life.] A letter came at a place they used as a regular stopping place in Chat., Tenn. In it was a $2.00 check. With this Wallace bought a new pair of pants, got his shoes half soled, and several other things. They were assigned to go to a new area. It was several days before anyone would give them any food or shelter. Later they heard that many of the cattle in the area they passed through had died.

Clarice has a copy of his missionary journal and a knife he carried on his mission with lots of tools on it. They enjoyed any beach areas where they could make a clambake. The knife was very useful to pry open the shells.

He attended the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple as a small boy. Wallace and Rose were very active in the church and he was ordained a seventy 19 Dec 1914 by Rulon H. Wells. Mother and dad were respective presidents of the MIA in Perry. He went with Rose to church meetings in Brigham City Third Ward when he felt up to it. He had arthritis and his leg gave him much pain. He was ordained a High Priest in the Brigham City Third Ward where he lived in retirement.

The Auto Replaces the Horse and Buggy

One morning Wallace washed and polished the buggy and drove away. When night came Rose began to get very worried and made frequent trips to the porch to look up the road. Finally Wallace came looking very tired and pale. He had purchased a Dodge touring car in Ogden 20 miles away and after one hour of instruction had driven it home. To Rose's inquiry he said,"It wouldn't stop when I said whoa."

Later the family bought a Model T Ford Sedan. Both Rose and Wallace drove until the New Model A cars came along about 1929. The Model T had three foot pedals and Rose never tried to learn the new Ford two pedal system. The only accident with it was when the milk truck on the neighboring farm backed out in front suddenly blocking the road. The damage was slight.]

[The next car was a 1935 Dodge sedan. The family took a trip in it that year to Yellowstone. In 1941 it was damaged by a car striking it while crossing the main highway at night. Neither Dale who was driving, nor Marlowe Thorne, nor the two in the other car were injured. The passenger in the other car had passed out from drinking Ida Thorne relates. It was decided to buy a new 1941 Dodge car. This proved fortunate since new cars were not available after war was declared in December. The new car had "fluid drive" enabling it to be started out in any gear. This appealed to Wallace. The price was about $1000.]

It became more difficult for Wallace to hear in later life and about age 65 he was persuaded to get a hearing aid. He developed a double hernia working to clean watercress out of the ditches by the springs. The cress grew summer and winter and eventually got so thick water would not flow. It was very heavy to lift usually taking mud up with the roots. Hernia trusses were worn to help keep the bowel from protruding but these were never very successful. When the hernias became very painful, Rose persuaded him to go have them repaired. Dad said he felt better walking out of the hospital than when he had walked in. He wished it had been repaired before. He had always been frightened of hospitals since his brother, Bert, died on the operating table and Heber Stokes also never recovered from his appendicitis operation. His reluctance also can be explained by the death of Dee Thorne, his nephew, who died of a similar operation.

Mother's mother, Matilda Atkinson, and Great Aunt, Martha Merrell, stayed often with the family during the winter. The two of them shared an old folding bed in the dining room. They had to have their meals after they got up after everyone else had gone. They had to have tea for any special occasion.

Wallace was always interested in the cultural things of life. He offered his children music lessons. He took one year of peach crop profits to pay for the expensive Ivers and Pond player piano. [The music rolls could be inserted and presto you would have William Tell's Overture perfectly played with all the piano keys moving. The family paid for piano lessons for the girls. Dorene Young Crane has the piano now. Clarinets were purchased for Dale and Keith. Never was the time spent in practices and three mile walks home without benefit of school bus complained about.]

[Wallace's family was one of the first families in Perry to have a car and the new Atwater Kent Radios. Later a Sear's Silvertone radio was purchased. An antenna between the house and chicken coop chimneys brought in San Francisco and other distant stations. Radio programs then were great.]

Wallace encouraged Rose in all types of handcrafts such as quilting, crocheting, needle work, etc. Rose and Wallace encouraged their children to go to college and paid their way. [DRoss was not interested in college. Keith was not interested in the farm, so the trade was made to put Keith through college in Seattle and sell DRoss Wallace's part of the farm at a reasonable price. [Dale was willed Uncle Bert's part of the farm.]

[Wallace was one of the first to try out, about 1943, all the different tractors plowing the heavy soil in the fields. He purchased a new Ford tractor since it would pull a double plow where the others only would pull a single. It also had the hydraulic control that assisted in raising and lowering implements. Regular trips to Clarkston and Newton were made to see Rose's sisters and her mother. The old highway through Mantua followed the mountain sides to keep a moderate gradient. Rose collected hollyhock seeds and distributed them along the highway. They added nicely to the scenery in future trips.]

[In later years Wallace learned that he had diabetes when a small face sore never healed. He spent ten days in the Ogden Hospital getting his diabetics under control with insulin. Rose then fixed him special diets and gave him his insulin shots. He resisted changing from eating his favorite jams and cream but perhaps it was his more sedentary life that contributed most to hardening of the arteries. His foot began to give him problems and the doctor was allowed to amputate his leg just above the knee about the time of his last Thanksgiving. All the family had gathered for this holiday. He was recovering when a series of strokes resulted in his death one month later.] He died at home 21 December 1956 at Brigham City, Utah and was buried in the family plot next to his family.

The House Where The Family Was Raised

The house was built originally by Thomas Young and purchased by Wallace. The original walls were adobe. During the years the rain eroded the exposed adobe outside walls and per a family council, it was decided to plaster the outside walls. The adobe walls were good insulators and kept the house relatively cool in the summer on the first floor. One by one the outside walls were plastered with the north the last. The front entrance for the house that faced east was across a wood porch and into the dining room. This room had a southern exposure. A large leather covered sofa was against the south wall. The east end of the sofa was in the sun from a large window. This made a cozy place for winter months. A glass prism hung for many years in the window. It was always fascinating on sunny days to watch the rainbows in the room as the prism would turn. The northeast room was used as the parlor. The Ivers and Pond piano was located there.

A large kitchen adjoined the dining room. Except for special days, the kitchen was where the family ate. It would accommodate an entire threshing crew for dinner. The kitchen table was even used for early tonsillectomies. The northeast corner of the kitchen was taken up by a large kitchen stove complete with warming ovens. Next to it was a large woodbin. Next to the stove was a door to a bedroom used by mother and dad. [This was originally the kitchen when they first lived in the house.] Between the bedroom and parlor was the bathroom [a later addition]. It was not heated except by the hot water tank in a corner. A door to the back porch was on the Northwest corner of the kitchen. The porch was screened in but was cold enough in the winter to keep any meat frozen as it hung from the rafters. The porch had a large flat cellar door that opened to a cellar dug beneath the porch. This provided non freezing storage for all the bottled fruits and raw vegetables. The area above the dining room and kitchen was divided into two large bedrooms and a large northeast room never finished inside that served as an attic storage room. A steep enclosed stairs went up from the dining room to the upper bedrooms. None of the upstairs had any heat except a stovepipe from the living room below and the warming effect of the lower rooms. There was no roof insulation except the inside lath and plaster so the upstairs rooms were cold in winter and warm in the summer. Dormer windows did provide cooling after the sun went down. The rug in the girl's room was one woven of braided rags by grandmother. Dad finally built a closet in the girl's room for their clothes.

The attic storeroom was above the parlor. Outside the attic room was a flat landing over the parlor bay window covered by sheet tin. It was near the same level as the upper floors. A pair of french doors provided the entrance from the landing to the attic. Using the ridge structure of the house, a pulley could be attached and furniture could be raised or lowered to the second floor and taken through the attic [the stairs were too narrow.] The unfinished attic was an interesting place to play. Bert's cylindrical Edison phonograph and mother's dress making dummy were there. Boards were suspended by wires from the ceiling and sacks of flour placed on the boards. This kept the mice from bothering the flour. The attic things were not taken when the folks moved to Brigham. Most of the family then were not enamored of old things. There were also old cap and ball pistols in the granary. DRoss now has them. As boys we enjoyed hitching a horse up to one of several buggies and enjoying a ride. Before the bathroom was finished when Clarice was a child, the house privy was just north of grandmother's log house. A row of bushes concealed it from the new house. All water had to be drawn from grandmother's well. During the winter, baths were taken in a tub next to the fire in either the kitchen or dining room. Sometimes this was done in the winter after the bathroom was finished since the bathroom was not heated.

Family Household Chores

There was a large woodpile just west of the house where all diseased/dead trees that were torn out on the farm were taken. It was screened from the house area by a row of shrubs mother had planted. Small, brush-like prunings in the spring were burned near the orchard in a big bonfire. Railroad ties were later hauled to chop up when discarded by the railroads. They were stored in a small adobe shed so they would be dry during the winter for kindling fires. When anyone came looking for food, they were offered a turn at chopping wood for their dinner. Many seemed to come from the railroad tracks west of the house. In the new farm house before 1945, there was a large wood burning stove that heated water as well as cooked the food. It was a nightly chore to see that there were kindlings and wood in the house sufficient to cook the next meal. During the 1930s, the main winter fuel was coal carried from a coal bin back of the granary. Kindlings were needed to get the coal fire started.

About the late 1920s, the family built a big barn. It had nice cement floors and metal stanchions lined with wood to hold the cows while they were milked. They could eat hay from a cement feeding bin while they were being milked. The shed roof covering the stable was shingled. The large hay loft was not. Before the new barn, you took a one or three legged stool to the corral. If the cow was pleased, she would stand still. If not you hoped to get the pail before her feet did, follow her, and try again. The boys and dad did the milking. The hay loft had a trolley in the top that was used to lift the hay from the wagon with a trip fork. A horse pulled the fork of hay up, the mechanism locked it to the trolley before it moved along the track. A yank on a rope dumped the hay in the barn. The stacker then distributed it to keep the stack even. The new open ended barn helped on the dust. It was a big improvement over the old barn where hay was thrown in a small door on one end of the barn with only one other door for dust to blow out when there was a strong breeze. The hay was hand carried to the other end of the barn. The dust and hay leaves made one itch continually. The old barn has been torn down. The new one is not used much. When new, it was a real test of courage to get up and grease the trolley mechanisms from the top of the roof where one board was omitted so the trolley could be reached. The barn burned in 1991 with only the large logs used as uprights surviving the fire. Life on the farm was never easy; everyone worked. The local milkman who lived on the next farm came first to our farm. This meant the cows were milked and the milk put in large ten gallon cans on the road by 6:00 am in summer time and 8:00 am winters. Sometimes if we missed him, the milk man was kind enough to stop back after his north loop before going on to Ogden. The milk cows then had to be driven to the pasture in summer and work horses brought back. The men ate a hearty breakfast and were ready to harness the horses when they arrived. Then it was time to cut hay, put up hay, or whatever. Riding the horse to cultivate row crops, pull the hay up for the derrick, plough out irrigation ditches, etc. passed from child to child when they became old enough, girls not excluded. Dad or the boys would guide the cultivator to get the weeds and miss the plants. There were three field streams of irrigation water and the pump irrigation that needed to be done regularly.

Watering was usually done after evening milking or whenever the need arrived to change where the water was to go. Watering hay fields after dusk required thick clothing to avoid bites from swarms of mosquitos. The girls picked raspberries, strawberries, cherries, and beans in the summer. Later the boys picked sacks of bush beans to earn money. Weeding in the garden and melon patches, digging irrigation ditches, handling the hay, and other farm tasks kept everyone busy. For many years, peas were raised and hauled to the viner at the time the inspector said they were ready. This could be any time of day or night. They were frequently cut at dusk and driven to the viner for a two a.m. shelling. It was made a little easier by using an old car or tractor to pull the wagon without hitching up the horses. Dad had raised sugar beets before but one year Dale contracted to raise three acres of sugar beets as a High school FHA project. Mother also came along to use the long handled hoe and encourage the rest of the family workers. Beets were thinned with a short handled hoe. It always gave me a great appreciation for work by migrant workers. Later the short hoe was forbidden. Perfection of segmented seed that most of the time grew only one plant made the process of thinning much easier. Later the weeds had to be hoed out with a long handled hoe. This was true for mellons and other row crops. Cultivators couldn't get the weeds in the row between plants. Work was started early in the mornings during the summer months and stopped about 11 or noon. Lunch was always called dinner. Dinner was the heavy meal of the day. A two hour lunch time with part of it as a nap on the living room carpet except for water turns was the norm. This made up for the short nights sleep and avoided the hotter part of the day working in the sun. Supper was frequently homemade bread, milk, and green onions, or radishes fresh from the garden with stirred refrigerator ice cream for dessert sweetened with fruit. After supper it was back out to work until darkness came.

Mother called her garden part of her heaven. She and the family counted the mellons, cantaloupes, fruit, and all sorts of vegetables raised in a large garden east of the house as a great gift from God. Nearly every temperate climate fruit grew well to provide a continual summer banquet. Enough was raised to store in the cellar and grain bins for winter. Fruit was canned in jars. The depression years were poor money wise but there was always ample food on the farm. Tithing may have been the secret. Mother has written that during the depression, whole milk sold for 10-12 cents per gallon, sharp cheese at 35-40 cents per lb. and butter 25 cents per lb. Peaches went for 25 cents a bushel. However, with the means used and ample food available, the family never suffered for things to eat. Through mothers efforts with chickens, the extra clothes and music lessons were provided to make life comfortable. Mother made many clothes for us.

By 1932 cars were used for travel most everywhere except in winter. Trips to the store in Brigham for groceries were never oftener than twice a month. During the winter time, the trip had to be made by sleigh. Occasional trips were made to Ogden for special clothes after the Model A Ford came. There were no snow plows so when the car couldn't be driven, horses were hitched to a bobsled with a box on top and this was the conveyance to church. When the snows were deep, it was fun to ski to the local grade school or take turns towing each other behind a horse with a rope. The winter of 1932 was very cold. Snow was so high that Velda couldn't see the bus to Weber College unless it was at the intersection. Rebecca B. Young said it was the only winter that ice froze over Greenlake in Seattle. I remember it was the middle of March before we got the Ford dug out. We could ski from the shed roofs without hardly a drop because of the drifts. Because of dad and Clarice's birthdays in May, the saying was, " they made the cake on dad's birthday and ate it on Clarice's birthday." Mother and Dale's birthday were on the 21st and 23rd of April, respectively. DRoss's birthday was June 2 and this permitted a good party out of doors. A family tradition for holidays, birthdays or special occasions was for everyone to enjoy a hand turned freezer full of ice cream. Having plenty of rich cream and milk made the ice cream delicious. It was turned on the north side of the house in the shade. Straw covered snow provided ice until June. Everyone would take turns cranking and younger ones got to lick the beaters.

Thanksgiving made Wallace and Rose happy to see the dining room table stretched out as far as it would go. It was set with snowy white embroidered "Y" linen and chrysanthemums in the center from the garden. The table was laden with the roasted big bird and all the dressing, trimmings, and pies one could dream of. Rose, after all her years caring for chickens, never ate the turkey [or any chicken]. Christmas was always celebrated with all the family coming on Christmas eve in remembrance of Christ's birthday. Dinner, a program with the reading of Luke, and exchanging gifts for those not local finished the evening. There was always a Christmas tree the children had decorated. It was never as formal as many neighbors made their tree. [Keith adds this. Two large chicken coops were erected for keeping chickens. Mother greatly helped the depression farm income by raising the chickens from baby chicks to full size and selling the eggs. When the baby chicks came, keeping the brooders at the right temperature in the early spring chilly weather was very critical. Mother usually slept? on a cot right with the baby chicks until they could tolerate a little more temperature swing. How much sleep she got with their constant peep-peep is easy to imagine. As the chicks got older they were placed in the larger coop. This coop had a cement tunnel under the length of it. A fire at one end and a chimney at the other kept a good draft and warmed the coop during the early spring. She was an expert at keeping the chickens well. We purchased oyster shell and chicken scratch from the feed store in Brigham and grew what wheat and alfalfa they ate. Cleaning chicken coops was a regular thing every other Saturday. The rich fertilizer kept the peaches a good size.] The Walker springs were below our property. They had lots of rushes, frogs, crawdads, and carp fish. Clarice's husband used to come and shoot the large carp with a 22 rifle. They had much natural oil but tasted good. Since the springs were warm and never froze, water cress grew all winter and ducks frequently stayed there to winter over.