Alfred Skinner

Personal History of Lyman Skinner My grandfather, Samuel Skinner was born in Glenwood, Iowa on Dec 29, 1847. He married Sarah Sixsmith and came to Utah. My father, Alfred Skinner was born in Provo, Utah on Oct 19, 1883. He married Rosy May Bucklar on July 1, 1904. I was born on Dec 15, 1909, the 4th of 10 children. Samuel Skinner homesteaded ¼ section of land in Orem. He built a small adobe house where the Westmore school now stands. My dad left home at age 14 and started working. After he married my mother they moved to Murray, Utah to work in a smelter where he was badly burned. Allan, their first child was born there. Awhile after my dad's accident they returned to Orem where the rest of us children were born. He dug wells for other people while buying land for his farm. I remember starting school when I was very young. The grades from 1 to 8 were in the same building. The principal would stand at the top of the steps like an army sergeant making them stand there until he gave each grade permission to march in. All of us children had to help on the farm, even when we were young. My job was to keep boxes for the people that were picking tomatoes. As I would try to drag the boxes through the vines, they got tangled up, so I tried a new stunt. I put my head & shoulders in an open box then stood up and walked through the vines & that worked. When I was eight I was baptized into the church. Once, when I was still a kid my mother went to visit my grandmother Skinner and left us kids playing in the yard. After going about 2 blocks, she couldn't seem to make her feet go, so she stopped and turned around. Then, she would almost run. When she got to the house she could see me upon our high barn walking along a narrow edge, about 12 feet high. Somehow she got me down. After we were old enough we would go to other farmers and help them on the farms. Once I went to a place where they had goats. I thought they were great. He had a real small one he said I could have. I took him and raised him. I thought it was fun to teach him to butt. One day my grandpa Bucklar was visiting us. He went out in the yard walking around and stooped over to pick something up. That was like a red flag for the goat. He took off on a run and hit grandpa in the rear, knocking him over. Grandpa wasn't hurt but he sure was mad. We often staked the cows along the ditch banks where the grass grew thick. I remember once when I was trying to lead a cow, she wouldn't come so I went behind her and whacked her hard. She took off with me holding onto the rope. When I couldn't keep up running I fairly flew above the ground until she stopped. Our brother Acel got meningitis at 6 months old. He was an invalid until he died at 18 years old. We only had 2 large rooms at first but as the family grew we added on 3 bedrooms. We slept on a mattress made of straw. We carried water from the well to the house until we later got it piped into the house. Then we added a bathroom. We used kerosene lamps and wood burning stoves. The three oldest boys (including me) had to take turns getting up first in the morning and making a fire to warm the house up. Finally, we got electricity and put in electric lights. We had to turn a washing machine also, until we got electricity. We had milk cows and had a machine to separate the cream from the milk. We used what cream we needed to eat and made butter and sold the rest. We used the skimmed milk and what we didn't need we gave to the pigs. We had chickens, so we ate lots of cream, butter and eggs and were healthy. We watered our crops from an irrigation ditch. We raised hay, tomatoes, raspberries, fruit trees, and acres of strawberries. We hired girls from Southern Utah to pick them. While up here they stayed in a house we had for them. I had to watch over them and see each crate weighed so much. I kept a record of all the girls. When we were pretty well grown us boys went to neighbors who had lots of cherries and picked for them. As our work was slow at that time, we were paid 1 cent a pound. When we were old enough to go to high school (9th grade) we had to stay home and help with the fall harvest. When it was over and we went back to school, we were behind the rest of the class. Then the school made a special class for all the boys that had also stayed home to work. We had to write articles and stories and read them in the class. If we made a mistake we had to pay a penny penalty. If we were not prepared we paid a dime. When we had enough money in the jar we had a party. But as it got harder and harder to get caught up and school expenses got higher, I couldn't even get enough money for tuition. So at the end of the 10th grade I quit school. When I was 18, my father took us 3 older boys deer hunting with him. From then on it became a yearly affair. The whole family worked to cook and prepare the meat for the winter's use. After we 3 oldest boys were grown, my dad said if we stayed on the farm and helped him until it was paid for, he would give us each 5 acres of land, so we all agreed. In 1933 when I was 24 and the farm work was over, I decided to go looking for work. I hitch hiked to the Pacific Pipe plant South of Provo. When I got there, the yard was full of men standing around looking for work. While I was standing there looking lost, 2 men came up to me and asked me what I was looking for. I told them I was looking for a job. One of them said “come with us just as if you worked here.” Then they took me to the boss and he hired me at 39 cent an hour. I worked there 2 years in the winter and coming to the farm in the summer. The boss at the pipe company didn't like me to take the summers off so my dad asked me if I was going back the next spring. He said if I didn't help on the farm I would have to give ½ of my wages to my brothers. It was a hot dirty place to work so I quit the plant and stayed on the farm. In the fall I started looking for another job. A friend of mine got me a job working in the coal mines. I bought a small car with the money I had saved and went to work in the mines. Mining was slow in the summer and they didn't care if I came home. After awhile I sold my car to Arnold and got a better car. That summer I told dad if he would pay for gas I would furnish the car and take him to Oregon to visit his brother. We took bedding and food and we slept on the ground and cooked on a camp fire. We stopped in Idaho the first day for lunch. We were just ready to leave when we saw a herd of big black crickets flying just above the ground landing all around us. As we went down the road I could feel them squash as the car went over them. When we arrived at my uncles place it was his day off so he was there. He took us around to see the place and to the fire station where he worked. We stayed with his family that night. He had to work the next day so we left that morning going along the ocean towards California. We finally decided to go through the giant redwood forest, which was a real sight. In 1937 5 fellows and I drove one car back to Detroit to bring back 5 new cars for a dealer. We drove day and night, taking turns sleeping and driving. When we got to Detroit only 1 car was ready. One fellow took the old car and one the new car that was ready and headed home. That left four of us to bring the other four cars home. We went over to Canada sightseeing. That night we stayed in a hotel in Detroit. The next morning we left for home, each driving a new car. We kept together until a cop stopped us and said we were traveling too close, to leave more space between us. We reached Chicago that night, pulled into a parking lot and slept in our cars. Next morning we took off separately. I started to look for something to eat. I saw a place that looked like a store so I stopped to ask if they knew where I could get some breakfast. They were all sitting at a table, and the lady said her son hadn't joined them yet so I could take his place. So I had breakfast for 20 cents. That evening all four of us met in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The guy I was traveling with said he had spent all of his money and had to wire for more so I went on alone. Once I came to a place where 3 or 4 cars were going up a hill but they were too slow for me so I decided to go around them. Wouldn't you know a cop saw me and pulled me over. He said that wasn't legal. Then he asked me what if another car had been coming. I grinned and shrugged my shoulders. He said 'you are right' and warned me to never try that again. I got home with the new car OK. I kept on working in the mines in the winter and on the farm in the summer. In 1939 I met Frances who had come up from Escalante, Utah where she was working for a doctor. She had met Iletta Reynolds in Escalante and she came up to visit her. Iletta got me a blind date with her. Soon after that the doctor came to Orem to practice and she came too. I started dating her again. Before the year was over we were engaged. Just before Christmas she quit the doctor and went home to Texas where her sister and her parents lived. We kept writing to each other and tried to decide what to do. The Army had called me up for examination twice, but hadn't called me to enlist. We decided to get married. In April 1941 I went down to El Paso, Texas. Frances was baptized April 25th and we were married April 27th. We went to the Carlsbad Caverns for our honeymoon, then back to El Paso before we headed for Utah. We went to Denver, Colorado to visit her brother and his family then home to Utah. I was never called into the Army. My dad deeded me my 5 acres. We rented a little place in Orem while we started to plant some trees and build our house. What we couldn't do ourselves, we hire done. By fall the house was done enough to lock up and leave. We went back to the mines and rented a little 2 room house. We were there when we heard the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In the spring we came back to Orem. The inside of the house was done enough to move in and live in half of it. We put blankets up to shut half of it off. I got a job helping build Geneva Steel Plant at 50 cents an hour. I didn't go back to the mines any more. Our first child, Hazel was born October 14, 1942. After the steel plant was finished, I went to Bunkers Feed Mill to work. Larry was born March 7, 1945, while the war was still going. In June 1947 we lost little Hazel in an accident. In 1947 Lila was born. In 1949 I lost my hand in an accident in a machine. For a time we had hard times. When I was able to use an artificial arm I got a job as head custodian in a school where I stayed until I retired in 1975. As of Jan 1997 I have 6 grandchildren, 7 great grandchildren, and one more on the way.