EVOLUTION OF TIME
March 21, 2014
My story has been a classic in my own mind and I’m sure that
there’s not many things that I would change if I could. It has been filled with
a variety of events all of which have been necessary to produce a quality of
life and a retrospect that continues to formulate each day of my life. My
earlier years were lived in extreme poverty. Looking back I consider that
period of time to be a blessing.
My mother and father were kind and hardworking individuals and
at the time I knew nothing of their hardship. My only remembrance was love and
stability. I never realized that we were poor people. Their youth and their
everyday effort to conquer their problems gave me a feeling of security. It
didn’t matter to me that they actually had to walk and carry me upon their
shoulders everywhere they went. I really loved the time we spent getting to our
destinations. I, being the first born, enjoyed all their attention.
The stories of our virtual existence have been told many times
by my parents. The actual pain of their suffrage was absorbed by them alone. I
will always appreciate their sacrifice and to grow up as a child protected from
the world and encouraged with lofty goals.
Since my parents lived in a rural area and away from industry, the
only source of their income came from small opportunities of helping farmers
with their daily chores. They became a part time fill in resource for all the
farmers in the area. If someone needed to leave or go on vacation, my parents
would take care of their chores until they returned. Their pay included all the
milk, eggs, and vegetables they needed plus ten cents per cow that needed to be
milked. Most farmers milked 8-10 cows twice a day which gave them from $1.60 to
$2.00 each day. We were happy as they as they carried me on their shoulders to
the next engagement.
Over the years Mom and Dad have related their stories. They were
happy stories…stories of love of two people starting out in life together,
doing whatever they had to do to make ends meet. I will forever be grateful for
their attitude and their ability to never give up. Those two strong individuals
gave me a firm foundation, the value of which cannot be estimated. I was by
their sides every day. I learned how to work with them and at a very early age,
I learned how to take care of our own chores as we became farmers ourselves.
At the age of 8, my parents left me and my aunt, Colleen, to
milk our cows and to take care of the daily chores while they traveled to Provo
Utah to pick fruit for a week. After just 4 days, my aunt became ill and had to
return to her home, and I was left to do the chores by myself. Each morning I
got up early and milked the cows and fed the pigs and chickens and gathered the
eggs. Lucky for me, my dad had purchased electric milkers, and so the cow
milking was not so labor intensive. I remember on Friday, as I was running the
half mile to the bus stop, I realized I had forgotten to pick a vegetable for
our school’s Autumn fair. My uncle lived on the way so I stopped in and asked
Aunt Noreen if I could get a vegetable from her garden. She quickly picked me a
squash and I ran on to catch the bus.
On Saturday, I got out of bed early, milked the cows, fed the
pigs and chickens, fried myself 4 or 5 eggs, and then caught my horse from the
pasture, and rode five miles to my grandparents house. I spent the
day helping them harvest their garden and waiting for Mom and Dad to
return from Provo. I remember they returned home late in the afternoon with a
truck load of fruit. Our joyous reunion was short lived as I was told that my
father had to return to Provo that evening. He had found a full time job at the
Geneva Steel mill. Since we only had one old truck, my mother and I took my
father to Duchesne to catch the bus. When we arrived in Duchesne, we found that
we had missed the bus. I will always remember the sadness I felt as my mother
and I drove away leaving my father standing with his suitcase in the dark
beside the highway. He was determined to get to his new job, hoping to catch a
ride with a traveler who may be going his way. He had to hitchhike 120 miles
that night.
You can see my parents faced a lot of hard times. No sacrifice
was too great. They did whatever was necessary. I’m so proud of them. I
couldn’t ask for any better examples to be my mentors. They never faltered and
they never gave up.
Because of their hardships, they were very conservative. Their dreams were very small. They were wise at the time to hold on to every opportunity that came their way. Their lives had been filled with shortages and meager existence.
You can just imagine how my parents felt when I became old
enough that I had dreams of my own. I was adventurous and at the age of nine, I
was riding my horse to several sheep herds, helping the sheep herder work his
sheep. In return, they saved their bum lambs for me to pick up and feed on a
bottle. Bum lambs were baby lambs who were left behind by their mother. Each
week I would ride the range and gather the orphan lambs that the sheep herder
had saved for me. By the end of lambing season, I had gathered 32 lambs and had
nurtured them on a bottle with cow’s milk.
That Fall we moved to a larger farm in Talmage where the area
was more primitive. There was no electricity available and the distance to the
school bus stop had increased from one half mile to two and a half miles. To
catch the school bus, we had to navigate long muddy roads in extreme weather
conditions. My parents accepted their hardships as just another day and kept
moving on. I don’t remember any complaining. I can now see the goal and
responsibility that my parents had for their children. They understood the need
for us to get a good education and they battled the elements every day to make
sure we had that chance.
My blessing and sense of responsibility came from standing by
their sides and trying to lighten their load. It’s just assuring to know that
some of our happiest days came from their struggles. In fact our ability to
feel real joy comes from the firsthand experience of living through those
struggles. I have no regrets.
At this point in time, I stand at my pinnacle of life looking
back at those people and applauding those early pioneers, still marveling at
their strength and fortitude. We were not alone. Every family in our community
lived through those trying times and became the salt of the earth. Many of them
have gone now and I stand with the elders of our time hoping for the
youth…hoping that their trails will be steep enough to provide a strong enough backbone
to get through their tests. I hope we haven’t made it too easy. Easy spawns
lazy and lazy leads to irresponsibility and decline. Eventually the foundation
gives way to decay and rubble. You can see where I’m going with this. We must
not let this happen.
Thank God for hard times.
Love ya,Taylor
