Glen D Lamb

I only remember my dad from the time I was a young boy. His name was Glen D. Lamb. The initial was an initial only, from his mothers maiden name, Davis. He was born on Dec 31, 1909 to William E. and Mary Ann Davis Lamb. There is quite a bit written about Dad from his own written histories and from accounts written by his children. That will be given to you later to place into your history books, when I take time to scan and prepare them for you. To my knowledge this story about my father has not been written to this point. It was told by his cousin Stan Price at his funeral. I really enjoyed the story during the funeral and thought it would be very fitting to share it with you tonight. When dad was a teenager he was a person that loved life. He had a great zest for life and fun, and was considered by most to be a bit rough and rowdy. He and his brother, Talmage (known as Tal), were usually involved in the fights that would take place in the neighborhood and in town. Dad told me that he and Tal fought with each other a lot at home and since Tal was larger, even though he was a couple of years younger, he would usually get the best of Dad. However, if anyone outside the family were to pick on Dad, then they would always have to answer to Tal, and that was usually in the form of a whipping . In addition to being rough and rowdy, they were also quite adventuresome. This story has to do with that quality of their lives. It happened when they were young teenagers. One day Dad, Tal and their cousin, Stan Price, were all riding in the back of Grandpa William Lamb’s pickup truck. Grandpa Lamb being Dad and Tal’s Father. They were going down an old dirt road in Ephriam, Utah. Stan said they were traveling about 25 miles an hour. They were chatting about a number of fun things they had done during the week when Dad came up with a thoughtful question. What would happen if they all jumped high in the air? Would they stay in the truck because they were also traveling at 25 miles per hour, or would the truck run out from under them because they would be suspended in the air? There was a bit of discussion and debate and they could not come to an agreement. So they decided they would have to test the theory to find out. They all took hold of each others hands in a circle and with all their power they jumped into the air. What do you think happened? Well, the truck kept right on going down the road while they stayed suspended in the air. In a short second or two the truck was gone and when gravity brought them back down from their jump there was no truck bed to catch them. They all hit the road and went rolling all different directions. When the rolling was finished, they found that they all had scratches and road burns on many parts of their bodies. However, they were all lucky that there were no broken bones. Grandpa William realized in a short time that the boys were no longer in the back of the truck and stopped to see what had happened. He saw the boys laying back a on the road and drove back to pick them up. When they told him what had happened he just laughed and laughed. Stan said that really didn’t help their dispositions very much. It took a good many days before they felt like they were back to normal. They talked later and there was no longer any question as to what would happen if they jumped. They all had learned from painful experience. Do you think they could have learned the same lesson simply by asking Grandpa William? Often learning from experience is painful. It is usually better to learn from others past experiences than it is to learn from our own. I hope you can all learn from those who have already walked the road, often with suffering, so that there will less pain in your own lives. By William A Lamb

History of Glen “D” Lamb - written by himself As the year 1909 was nearing its end, my mother was wondering if she was to have a New Year’s baby or an Old Year’s baby. This question was definitely settled at about 3 P.M.31st December when I, Glen “D” Lamb was born at Wales, Sanpete, Utah. I am the son of William “E” Lamb and Mary Ann Davis. My father was born 4 September 1889 at Wales, Sanpete, Utah the son of Alfred Wilson Lamb and Mary Jane Edmunds. My mother was born 23 September 1890 at Wales, Sanpete, Utah the daughter of John Davis and Mary (Polly) Margaret Rees. My parents were married 7 March 1909 at Manti, Sanpete, Utah. There are two or three things that stand out in my mind about living in the little town of Wales, where we lived from my birth until February of 1916. My father was manager of the Wales Cooperative Store during part of this time and I remember that he had candy in large wooden buckets underneath the counters in the store. Naturally, he wouldn’t allow us, my younger brother John Talmage Lamb born 19 June 1912 at Wales and my cousin Richard Leon Price about my own age and my self, all the candy we thought we ought to have. The store consisted of two rooms, the store proper and the storage room immediately behind it. There was a side door into the storage room and, also, a connecting door between the two rooms. This side door to the storage room had a hole in it. I would say it was maybe 12 inches in diameter and Richard, better know as “Little Dick”, and myself would push my younger brother Talmage through this hole in the door and he would sneak into the store proper and get under the counter and into the candy. Sometimes he was lucky and would get his pockets full of candy and come back out without being seen, but many times he was caught by Marvella Anderson, the clerk my father had hired to help him. I can still see her coming out the front door of the store with my brother by the ear and then she would send us on our way, but in due time we were back making another attempt. Another thing that I can remember about my childhood days in Wales is that our home was located on a lot that covered about one quarter of a city block. Around the fence-line of this lot were several English Currant bushes and during the season when the currants were ripe, I well remember how the bees and I would compete for these currants. I received my share of the currants because I really liked them but, I also received plenty of bee stings. I would get stung and run crying to the house to mother and she would dope me up with Denver Mud, or just plain mud and then I would be back fighting the bees for more currants. I attended school in Wales from September of 1915 until Feb. of 1916 when we moved to Ephraim, Sanpete, Utah. About all I can remember of my school days in Wales is that a boy by the name of Alfred Daniels and myself were very well matched when it came to fighting, especially wrestling. One day I would get the best of him and the next he would outdo me. Anyway we spent all our free time testing each other out. When I started to school in Ephraim in 1916, I really had a tough time of it. Ephraim was and always has been known for a town of nicknames. To this day I can read the Ephraim Enterprise, the town weekly newspaper, and not know half of the people mentioned in it because their nicknames are not given and I didn’t know half of the people by their real names. Anyway the kids immediately began to tease me because of my last name of Lamb. They would form a big circle around me and start saying baa, baa, and all the other things they could think of to tease and irritate me. It didn’t take much of this until my temper would get warmed up and I would begin to strike back at my annoyers in about the only way that I could figure out to do and that was to start fighting. This is exactly what they wanted as long as they were not on the receiving end of things. This thing continued for quite some time and every night I would come home from school with my clothes all torn and dirty and the marks of a fight on my face until my mother became so upset that she would accompany me to school and stay until school commenced and then meet me as soon as school was out in order to keep me out of fights. The school Principal happened to find out what my mother was doing and had a little talk with her. He advised her to leave me alone and in time I would fight my way into the confidence and respect of the kids in the Ephraim Elementary School. After my handing out hundreds of lickings to my annoyers and receiving a good number myself, I was accepted as a bonafide Ephraimite and it wasn’t long until a nick name was attached to me. I was soon known as “Buck Lamb” and that name stayed with me all through my school years and all the time that I lived in Ephraim. I’m sure that when I attended Snow College and played a little basketball and football that there were half of the kids in school that didn’t know that I had a name other than “Buck”. During our first summer in Ephraim my younger and only sister, Fern, was born 8 May 1916. This completed our family, two boys and one girl. My school days in Ephraim were happy ones. I didn’t have any trouble in school as far as getting good marks was concerned and the teachers seemed to like me in spite of all my fights and tussles. I missed a lot of school during my childhood days. It seems that I was susceptible to every childhood disease that came along. I would catch every disease and bring it home and at that time we were quarantined for 11 communicable diseases and my brother would wait until the very last day of quarantine before he would come down with them. It seems that we were in quarantine almost half of the time when I was young. When I was in the 4th or 5th grade I contacted the Mumps and was really quite ill with them. Finally I reached the point where I could be up and around in the house a little and I would stand by our front window and watch the kids come home for their lunch and go back to school afterwards. One of the neighbor boys, Stewart Thompson, delighted in coming in by the window and blowing out his cheeks and pulling all sorts of faces at me because he knew that I couldn’t come out. This went on for a few days and then one day my mother had to go to the neighborhood grocery store to get something and just at that time here came the neighbor boy as smart as you please blowing out his cheeks and having a good time again. Mother had warned me not to go outside but this was too much of an opportunity for me to ignore. I had been waiting for just this very thing to happen, so out I went and surprised the boy and gave him a sound thrashing to think about. This was a great mistake, I soon found out to my sorrow. I had a back set from the Mumps and was really ill for a long time. In fact, the Mumps and the back set lasted for three months and I came near to losing my life. I enjoyed engaging in all the sports while in school and managed to find time to spend enjoying them. There is one thing that was rather a problem for me in school and that was that I have always been rather backward and bashful and I didn’t push myself ahead any or volunteer to take part in oral recitations of stories, etc. I always did my homework and could always pass any tests given but would rather answer unprepared than get up and read anything I had written or take an oral part of any kind. I feel that this is one thing in which the teachers I had failed me by not making me participate. I have really had to pay up for this as I grew older because I have really had something to overcome. I haven’t completely overcome it yet but have made some progress along this line. I still bear my testimony many times in Church sitting down to myself rather than get up in public and do it as I should. I have to fight myself constantly in order to get up once in awhile. It is so much easier to just sit still. My father was owner and manager of a furniture store for several years while I was a child in Ephraim going to school in the grades and there wasn’t much for me to do at home during the summer vacations. As a result, I spent practically all my summer vacations on the farm with my grandfather and grandmother Davis for which I am most grateful. I became very close to them and gained so much from their teachings and love that they showered upon me. In the fall of 1922 we moved to Castle Gate, Carbon, Utah where my father had obtained a job in the coal mines. I attended the eighth grade in the Castle gate Elementary School graduating from that school in the spring of 1923. We lived in Castle Gate until the fall of 1923 when my mother, my sister, my brother and myself moved back to Ephraim so that I could attend the Ephraim High School because there was no high school in Castle Gate. My father stayed and worked in Castle Gate. We really had a winter while in Castle Gate. I remember making my way to school in snow almost to my arm pits. I never enjoyed the school year while in Castle Gate. Most of the pupils in my room were kids of foreign blood and were so much older than I. We had pupils 22, 21, 20 and on down to 15 years of age. There was only one boy that was any where near my age and he was two years older, so I felt like a child among adults and this didn’t make it enjoyable for me nor help me any to overcome my bashfulness. I was glad to graduate from there and be able to return to Ephraim and friends my own age. I attended the Ephraim High School for the next four years graduating from there in the spring of 1927. While in high school I played football for two years and basketball for one year and really enjoyed my associations and friendships. Here I, also, had my first love affair. Her name was Mary Bjerregaard and I thought I had found the most wonderful and only girl in the world, but it was only puppy love and before high school was over this affair had come to an end. This is about or is the only girl that I went out with to amount to anything during my school years though. I took many others out but just for a time or two and that was all. In the fall of 1927 I enrolled at Snow College and went there to school for the next two years graduating from there in the spring of 1929. While in college I played football both years and tried out for the basketball team but wasn’t good enough to make the first team so dropped out of this sport. Here, I also, took a class in dramatics and was in a couple of plays which gave me some fine experience along with my main studies in the Education line. The summertime of the years I was in high school and at Snow College were spent in Nephi, Juab, Utah working on my Davis Grandparents’ farm as I did as a younger child. In the late summer of 1929 I received a contract to teach school in Lewisville, Idaho. Education having been the line I had followed while at Snow College. I taught the seventh grade in Lewisville for two years and had students ranging in age from 12-18 and I was only19 myself. I enjoyed my work at Lewisville but it being a very small community and not anything in the way of entertainment or any girl friends, I became dissatisfied and looked for a teaching job elsewhere. During the summer of 1931 I obtained a contract to teach school in Sugar City, Idaho and went there and taught for the next year. While at Sugar City the banks went broke as they did all over the country that year. And we teachers, about 20 of us, lost $3000 when the Bank of Sugar City closed its doors on a Friday after we had deposited our pay checks and never opened there again. The school board also lost about $5000 in this bank, so we were asked to teach the remainder of the year at a pay cut of 8% in order that the school could be kept in session for the full year. This we agreed to do. When new contracts came out in the spring of 1932, I was offered a contract for 30% less than the original contract I had received at that school. This was due to the depression times and the money that the school board had lost in the bank’s closing. I was not satisfied with the wage offered in the contract, so left Sugar City without a contract or a job, as many of the other teachers did. We felt that we could find something better to do. My father and brother had been working in Las Vegas, Nevada for about a year when I left Sugar City so I went down there and worked with them until Christmas time when we were laid off and moved back to Ephraim. While in Las Vegas we delivered milk and milk products out to Boulder City to the men and their families that were engaged in building the Boulder Dam, now known as the Hoover Dam. We lived in Ephraim the remainder of that winter after returning from Las Vegas and it being a time of depression and no work to be had, I decided to go to Nephi in the spring of 1933 and work on my uncle’s farm. During one of the summers that I had been working on the farm in Nephi as a boy, I had met Jennie Reah Anderson on one of my trips home to Ephraim and had a couple of dates with her and was really impressed with her, but she had another steady fellow and I stepped aside for him. Later on while in Las Vegas and, also in Ephraim that last winter and while on the farm in 1933, I had been writing to Reah and in the fall of 1933 she came home to Fountain Green, Utah, on a vacation from her job in Salt Lake City and we spent sometime together and decided to get married; which we did on the 4th of September 1933 at the home of my Uncle Thomas B. Davis. The marriage was performed by Bishop Thomas Bailey. After our marriage my wife went back to Salt Lake to work for two months because she had promised her employer that she would before she went home on vacation, even though she decided to get married. (I might mention here that she had accepted an engagement ring from Theodore Haynes of Eureka, Utah just prior to her leaving Salt Lake for her vacation.) Thus, the concern for her return by her employer, but she had no thought of Reah marrying me. I stayed at Nephi and worked until just prior to Thanksgiving, when Reah returned from Salt Lake and we went to Ephraim to live. Times were really rough and jobs were at a premium so I decided to go back to Snow College for a quarter and brush up on school teaching in order that I might be able to secure another job teaching. The pay wasn’t very good but it was better than nothing. I attended school for a quarter and made application with the South Sanpete School Board for a teaching position and received a contract to teach in Ephraim for the following year. I enjoyed my work in Ephraim very much. I had the sixth grade there but the pay was small and the following summer I was offered a job in the elementary school in Tooele, Utah for more pay so we left Ephraim in the fall of 1935 and moved to Tooele. This turned out to be a big mistake as far as I was concerned. The work in Tooele was of the finest. I had the subject to teach that I really liked to teach and it gave one a chance to specialize and become more proficient in this work, but again we had financial troubles. Tooele was a high priced place to live and all we did was get into debt over our heads while there. We were practically forced out of school on this account. I had to find some way to make more money in order to exist. While in Ephraim our first child, Merwyn Gene was born 23 September 1934, and about two years later while on summer vacation from school our second child and first daughter was born at Moroni, Utah 31 August 1936. This little family and the high prices was too much for my wages in Tooele. After the second year of teaching there, I obtained a job for the summer at the American Smelting and Refining Plant at Garfield, Utah. When it was time to return to Tooele to teach that fall, I just couldn’t see it because the wages were so much better at the smelter, so I quit my job in Tooele and remained at the smelter. This was the fall of 1937. We left Tooele at this time and moved to Magna because it was closer to my work. The next few years were really hard ones for me and my family. Things did not turn out very well for me and my work during this period of time. About this time the smelter and the Utah Copper Company put in Ex-Ray machines and examined the lungs of their employees as a safety measure against their employees getting Silicosis and these pictures showed a spot on my lungs and when a reduction in force came along, I was laid off and was never rehired. This was for my best interest as far as my health was concerned, but I couldn’t see it at the time and we spent two or three rather lean years working wherever we could find a job for a short spell and then off again. During this period our second son was born; William A born 28 March 1940 at Salt Lake City, Utah. In the spring of 1942 the government started to build Geneva Steel and I came down to Provo and obtained a job working for Columbia Steel as a timekeeper and we moved to Provo in June of 1942. This is all Grandpa Glen D Lamb wrote. He died May 20, 1974.