VOLNEY E. BLACK

Obituary: Volney Emery Black By Deseret News Jun 14, 2000, 6:59pm MDT Volney Emery Black, 97, of Orem died Monday, June 12, 2000. He was born in Cowley, Wyoming on July 14, 1902 to John Franklin Black and Eliza Rosetta King. He married Pearl Sanders Black on April 2, 1924, in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. His parents were part of a group of LDS people from central and southern Utah who traveled to northern Wyoming in 1900 to settle the Big Horn Basin. His father died on his 11th birthday and left his mother with six small children to raise. After working on their ranch to help his mother support the family, he graduated from Cowley High School. Later, he and his brother, Jack, bought the family ranch and were partners in its operation until the mid-1990's. In 1926 he and Pearl moved to Laramie, Wyoming where he began a long and successful career with the Union Pacific Railroad. For 10 years he worked part of the year on the railroad in Laramie and returned to the ranch when the railroad business was slow. In 1941 he was promoted to engineer. During his career he ran the big streamliner trains, including the City of Los Angeles, City of Portland, and the City of Oakland. He especially enjoyed running the rail fan steam engine trains and dressing up in full "engineer" attire. Volney retired in January 1971. He took an active part in the LDS church and served as a counselor in the bishopric in Cowley and as a high councilor in the Cheyenne Stake. He also served as ward clerk of the Laramie Ward for many years. As chairman of the building committee, he was instrumental in securing the building site and necessary funding for the first Laramie Ward chapel. Volney and Pearl moved from Laramie to Orem in 1975. He spent 19 winters in Mesa, Arizona and especially enjoyed dancing, golfing, and traveling. He was an avid gardener and took great pride in his yard both in Laramie and Orem. He always stuck with a job until it was done and was famous for saying "there's no such thing as a small job." Survivors include three daughters and one son, Velna Blood, Evetta Sue Averett, and Beth Black, all of Orem; and Franklin Black of Collbran, Colorado; 19 grandchildren, 66 great-grandchildren, two great great-grand-children; two brothers and one sister, John K. Black of Lovell, Wyoming; Wilson Lythgoe of Sacramento, California; and Irene Belue of Billings, Montana. The last eight years of his life he enjoyed a special friendship with Jo Walkowiak. He is preceded in death by his wife, Pearl; daughter, Joyce Black Reasch; great grandson, Tyler Grandalen; brothers, Parnell and Clinton Black; and sister, Melba Nebeker. Funeral services will be Friday, June 16, at 1 p.m. in the Orem Cascade Stake Center at 481 E. Center. Friends may call Thursday from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Sundberg Olpin Mortuary or Friday at the chapel at 12 noon. Burial will be in the Orem City Cemetery.

Recollections of My Siblings as Children By Volney Emery Black (1902-2000)* I know that my brothers and sisters have each written their own histories and or life stories but I feel that my story would not be complete without me adding something of the early memories I have of them. JACK (John K. Black) One incident that was very painful and almost tragic happened when Jack was only (?) years old - just a little fellow over to the neighbors playing with Ted Ketchum, a year or so older than Jack. They had a small fire going and Ted had gotten some gasoline out of a can in their old car to make the fire burn faster and somehow some of it got spilled on Jack’s clothes. In a moment he was on fire and before it could be put out he had severe burns on one side of his body from his foot to his head. No one knows the pain and suffering he endured except himself and his mother. It was nothing short of a miracle that the new skin did grow back and that he suffered no permanent damage to his body. The Lord certainly blessed Jack that his life was saved. I remember an incident that happened just when these painful burns were starting to heal a little. Mother decided to take him out for a little ride. It was on the 24th of July and we older boys were in Lovell to the celebration. We had a one-horse buggy and Aunt Melissa Harvey went with mother to hold Jack on her lap and in her arms to be as careful with Jack as possible. Their drive took them towards Lovell and going down the dugway to the river bridge, the horse became frightened and ran away. The buggy tipped over and they were all thrown out. Mother’s arm was broken and Jack’s burns were greatly irritated making his recovery more painful and prolonged. This was certainly a time of trial for mother and Jack and all of us. When our family moved to Otto in the late summer of 1918, Clinton was already at the ranch to keep care of things, since Parnell and Myrtle had already left the place. There was Melba, Jack, Harvey, baby Wilson and mother. I came a little later. Over the next six years, we were a family and each had a part to play in trying to make a living, to try to keep the ranch from bankruptcy and to find some happiness and joy during these years of our lives. MELBA Melba was our only sister at that time. She was so faithful in helping mother with keeping the house and in helping to fix meals for these hungry boys. I don’t think she ever did learn to milk, but she did her part with washing the separator, milk buckets, and related objects. After completing the 8th grade in Otto, she spent the winter months in Cowley attending high school. I am very proud of her as my sister. HARVEY Harvey was the youngest of the Black brothers being only six years old at the time of our move since he was born Sept. 24, 1912. I am thinking that his first year in school was at Otto. He was a loveable white-haired mild mannered little brother. Mother really delighted in having him to be with her. There was a closeness that she felt because he was her baby for five years and there was a close affinity with our father. He soon became mother’s helper with the turkeys. He could locate turkey nests that no one else could find. He soon learned to ride a horse and it wasn’t long before he was finding and bringing the cows home from the river bottom at milking time. He did learn to drive a team of the most gentle horses on the harrow before he was twelve. He could tromp hay and help load grain and clover seed bundles at harvest time. He was twelve when mother moved back to Cowley. He had grown to a fine looking young lad of thirteen at the time of his death. Our grief was almost unbearable. WILSON (Billy) Wilson, our baby brother did his share of growing up from 1917 to 1924. Jack and Harvey were his playmates, his ideals, and they were his constant companions. He was a lovable boy and a joy to all of us. IRENE Irene, our little sister, as born in 1921 at the ranch and she was a loveable little sister and we all loved her very much. THE FARM WORK AND JACK Jack was the mainstay of our man power crew after his brothers Clinton and Volney. At age eight he could ride a horse as fast as she could run and we were all terrified when he took off on his pony. By age ten he was driving a team to harrow or other less dangerous jobs. Of course, he went with Melba and Harvey first on horseback until we started to take them and some other children to school in the school wagon. When school wasn’t in session there was always chores and work to be done and of course during summer the ranch and livestock demanded full time work from all of us. He helped Harvey to find the cows and many times they were fording the river when the water was too high to be safe. Fortunately none of us were drowned. After Clinton went on his mission in 1922, Jack was driving the team on all the jobs except the plowing and the most difficult operations. When we were harvesting clover seed, he would ride one of the horses and keep them going in the right direction while I was riding the binder behind. We had to harvest it early in the morning when the dew was (?) so it would not shatter off, but it would be so dark that I could not see were to drive. Jack loaded his side of the wagon when we were hauling grain or clover seed bundles or hay from the field while Harvey was on the wagon to load. Without Jack’s help, we could not have accomplished the work at the ranch nor could we have been able to keep Clinton for two and a half years on his mission to South Africa. When mother and the children moved back to Cowley in 1924 after Pearl and I were married, Jack stayed on with us at the ranch. He helped me all summer to plant and harvest the crops and care for the stock. When school started he returned to Cowley to be with his family and to go to school. I am sure that he received no pay for his summer’s work. There just wasn’t any money, but he didn’t complain. This shows his unselfish devotion and loyalty to his family. Since 1943 Jack and I have had our ranching partnership at Cowley and our relationship is still a very happy one. *The date of this document is unknown. A handwritten copy was found among his papers following his death. This was transcribed by Volney’s daughter, Beth on August 5, 2015.

1322 Sully Laramie, Wyoming February 9, 1960 Dear Brother Clinton: Since receiving your letter a few weeks ago there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about the many experiences of our life together, and in my mind I have relived these experiences with great joy and satisfaction. I shall always treasure your memories as you have written them to me among those things which are most dear to me. Your vivid account of our life together as boys and young men is as true and real as if it had been only yesterday that they were happening to us. I doubt if anyone around Cowley had more worries and trying experiences with three boys than did Mother during Father’s long years of suffering and after he was taken from us. When we think of how much simpler it would have been for her to have traded the undeveloped land at the ranch for the 40 acres Dr. Croft had just over the hill east of town. Anyone with less foresight and determination would have gladly made the trade. In spite of all that we did to bring worry and doubt to her as to our wisdom and behavior we managed to live thru it and I am sure the Lord was watching over us. One thing about it we didn’t play with guns until we were old enough to know a little about how to handle them safely. I will never forget how Parnell had made a deal (with Mother’s consent) to buy a new 22 from N.P. Johnson. He was so thrilled he could hardly sleep that night. He was going to trade a calf for the gun and for no apparent reason the calf died that very night. I have often wondered if it wasn’t more than just a coincidence that it happened that way. Young kids don’t have the experiences now days like those that we went thru and in many ways I think they miss some very valuable lessons of life. No one will really know what it meant to three hungry, thirsty boys to have another swallow of milk out of a one quart or a two quart jar. Parnell was larger than we and his growing body needed more food than ours perhaps, but none the less we were hungry and thirsty, too, so it seemed that we should have as much as he. It was dead serious business with us and we were in earnest when we counted the swallows as each one drank from the bottle. I will never forget when we stayed at the farm at times in the old log room and we would go down to Nelsens at night with a 5 pound pail to get milk. It was 5 cents a quart and remembering Nelsens there was little more than a quart ever went in the bucket. Bread and warm milk was our supper, and of course the quart of milk was never enough. You recalled the fishing experience we had along the river and I am sure you were in particular remembering the time when we found a hole near the bluff that was full of suckers after the high water went down. We rigged a willow to hold the sack mouth open and fished every one of them out before we would quit. The cows were in the field and no doubt the water needed tending but we thought that these trivial chores were of little importance to 20 or so pounds of sucker fish which Mother promptly dumped on our arrival home. I’ll never forget another time when we left our work at the farm and unbeknowns to anyone we got on Old Bess and went to the Cedars to hunt rabbits. We brought home a half a sack full of rabbits arriving sometime after dark. Mother, of course was beside herself with worry and of course the rabbit meat hardly compensated for what we had done. I remember one spring you and Parnell were going to the ranch every day and I raised quite a fuss, so you stayed home and I went with Parnell. You had just gotten the water turned in the ditch but it was late in the spring and the ditch was dry and full of cracks. Just west of where the house now stands it had washed thru a crack and had made quite a hole. Parnell was determined to fix it with the water in so we went to work with the slip and one horse. We would get a pretty good dam started and then about that time he couldn’t dump the slip soon enough and would scrape the whole thing out. Finally in desperation he had me stand in the opening and was going to pile dirt around me with a shovel but he couldn’t keep up with the water washing it out so as a finalty to utter defeat he knocked me down in the ditch and gave it up. You can imagine how it was with gnats as thick as hops and hot, too, with Parnell in his sock feet after losing his low cut shoes in the mud. I think I had enough of the farm for a while and didn’t beg to go down for a while. Yes, it was a wonder we ever got through the gates at the Croft place when we went with the wagon. It didn’t matter to us if we wasted a half hour or more arguing over whose turn it was. I remember more than once the one who finally opened the gate was left to his own devices while the other two galloped the team and wagon off to the ranch. By the time he walked the remaining distance to the ranch he had had time for some serious thought and meditation. Whether it improved his disposition and outlook on life I was never quite sure. I remember when we hauled hay to town it was a job of no small undertaking. As you recalled we generally had to borrow a collar or lines or maybe some harness and even a wagon tongue on occasion. I always promised myself as a boy that when I got to be a man I would have a wagon with a tongue in it that wasn’t always broken and one that would keep the wagon in the road or tracks. Yes, you and I did contend with Parnell and we thought we had to preserve our liberty and safety, but we always liked to brag on how strong he was and how much superior he was than other boys of his own age. We really did love him with a love that was genuine and powerful. I never did get in much on the wood hauling from the Cedars as you and he did most of that. I’ll never forget how proud he was to bring in a good load of wood on week ends or during the Holidays. Of course the fellows would stand around the drug store and would call out “Caw-Caw” if he came by in the daytime to tease him about bringing in a crow’s nest. I recall one nite when you had to leave the wagon and wood on account of rain and muddy roads. It was the time Mother had gone to Utah to visit after Father’s death and I was home alone. You called for me to come and take care of the team but I pretended being asleep so didn’t rally to the call. I remember how proud Parnell was when he came home from working at Adelaide Lake that summer when he was only about 16 or so. Mother was in the Post Office and he came in and handed her the money he was paid for his summer work. I am glad that we can remember our lives together as boys and young men with experiences where the facts of life were real with more to hold us together than a soft easy life. Well, Mother and Grandpa after their life started together did manage to hold on to the farm and it was a means of livelihood and home for them for many years. It is still in the family and I hope we can keep it so as long as there is any interest in the family to do so. Did you know that we were able during the holidays to enclose the area north of the ranch and over by the big wash on the east with a new fence. We hope this whole area is now enclosed so we can keep the stock from straying off. I remember one time when Grandpa was coming to see Mother. I guess I was hungry so I decided to have some bread and milk. It seemed that all that was left in the bread can was crumbs and scraps and I was making the best of them. The next nite Grandpa called again and on his shoulder was a 50 pound sack of flour. I never did think of us as being poor or hungry because mostly I think Mother’s independence and resourcefulness always seemed equal to our needs. I am sure, however, there were many times when she didn’t know where the next sack of flour was coming from. I am not sure if it was the first year that Father farmed down at the ranch or if it was when he farmed the Copen place, but anyway, he had raised a bin of oats. He was away that winter on the railroad, I guess, and when we had to have things at the ‘Equitable’ we boys would have to sack up a sack of oats and borrow a wagon and haul it up to Bro. Mann’s who would weigh it and give us credit for what we needed. You said that it seemed that I had more boyfriends than you did but I wasn’t aware of that. I know that we always had more fun together and could find more things that were interesting than we could with any other play mates. It seemed you had more accidents than I did and some of them quite serious. I remember when you fell off the wagon up at Pryor Mountain when we went up there on a little outing. Mother was so upset over it she was sick and when you think about how serious it could have been so far from the Doctor we can understand why she was so worried. I believe it was on this trip that Father scared the daylights out of you and I. We had gone down the road a ways from camp I guess to look for him. He was in a berry patch and saw us coming so to have some fun he growled like a bear, which set us on a high run for camp. Father got a big laugh out of the incident. I think that some of our happiest years were spent at Otto in spite of our terrific battle to subdue the heavy gumbo land. I appreciate your sentiments about my coming to the ranch to help out when Parnell gave up his interests there and again when you were sick and while you were away on your mission. I always felt that whatever the family was doing or what their problems were was of great interest and responsibility to all of us and I wanted to do what I could and be a part of it. I am glad I had these opportunities and experiences. I very clearly remember how terribly sick you were with the flu in 1918. Mother was sure you wouldn’t make it through the night and I went out in the pasture and got Poster and rode down to see if Bro. Lyman would come. He thought there was nothing he could do and perhaps there wasn’t. I know how thankful we were afterwards when Sister Lyman and Smith died that we could feel that they hadn’t gotten it from us. Your glandular attack was so near to being fatal in spite of what we and the doctors could do that it was very evident that the Lord had a mission for you to fill on this earth which you have done and are doing. I am sure the Lord is well pleased with your work and His trust in you. Our wonderful Mother certainly had a lot of faith and a great store of resourcefulness. I hope the lives of her children was a source of Joy and honor to her during her lifetime and I hope we will never do anything that would make it otherwise. I remember I always thought that you could work any arithmetic problem that otherwise couldn’t be worked, and any other lesson problems that I had you were always there to help me out. You played marbles better than I did and could milk or weed the garden better than I could. I guess I was just lazy and you weren’t. It would be wonderful if we could spend our retirement years down there where we could be together in different interest as you have invited us to do so. I hope I can retire when I am 65 and if the Lord will continue to bless us with good health we will certainly look forward to many of these interesting opportunities that you have in store. I think that Brothers should mean more to each other than just being of the same family and having the same parents. We were so happy to have you come and see us this summer and then our visit and stay with you afterwards was a most joyous and happy occasion. I must close for now. With love, Volney P.S. Joyce has a new baby boy. (born Feb 6, 1960). 2 of each now.