Benjamin Vere Wilson
Benjamin Vere Wilsons Autobiography written in the 1970sVernal
We bought Don Pearce’s home. We decided to move to Utah again for my health. I even began to worry about dying, but when we moved to Vernal, I began to improve. I began to lay brick, and plaster, and work with my father-in-law, LaVell Manwaring and his brothers in the building business. He was the Bishop and I learned to love him very much, along with Ashel and Dee. They were strong and righteous men. We spent many days together and even slept in the same bed when we were away on jobs. We helped build 5 chapels, and several schools, as well as homes.
The course of events brought us another son, Terry, one of the sweetest natured children I ever saw. His mother nearly hemorrhaged to death after he was born, and we were terribly concerned. But they were able to stop the blood flow and she began to stabilize. For days afterwards she was slow to think of names and associations. Her doctor was Hansen, but he didn’t seem to realize her condition, so we changed doctors and Dr. Seager was a good doctor and knew her condition at once and began helping her.
I was working out at Rangely at the time and Kris was quite mischievous. He had got into the honey with both hands and strung it all over the house. Lola was too weak and sick to cope with three small children. So I stayed home for a while to help her more and her mother came and helped a lot and so did Laura.
I had been called as MIA Superintendent and Irvin Haws and Orville Merrell were my counselors. Here I learned a great deal about the organization of the Church in the youth program, but I’m sure there were others more qualified. There were so many things that needed attention.
Bishop Ross Merrell had worked hard to get plans underway for the construction of a new chapel. Ashel Evans had been his councilor, but moved out to the BYU to finish his education, so had to be released and I was put in as councilor. We went out to Conference and the Bishop had appointments with the Presiding Bishopric, but he became very ill and had to enter the hospital with kidney stones. I had to go in his place and discuss the building of the chapel with them. We got permission to begin.
The tearing down of the old chapel was set for Monday morning and I was the only one there to assume the responsibility. It nearly pulled me apart to see some of the older brethren of the Ward who had helped to build that old chapel, actually weep as the roof was torn down. They loved that old building and it was a very sentimental circumstance. We worked hard and got the old building torn down in two weeks. Now we were ready to start on the footings for the new building. President Albert G. Goodrich was called to be supervisor and he was a very capable man, though far along in years. We held Church in the Naples school (old school) building for over a year while the construction was in process.
Soon Dee Manwaring was called in as counselor over the building and worked very hard in his job. When the building was finished, President David O. McKay, who was then a member of the first Presidency, dedicated the chapel. What an important and great day that was!
We sold some of our land to Birchell Goodrich and began building the basement of our home. We had outgrown our first small home that I had built. It had been built with the idea of making it into a garage. But our plans changed and we decided to build in a different spot. We moved into the basement before it was finished and rented the little house. Later we traded it for a house in Hurricane, which David bought from us and fixed up into a beautiful home.
We lived in the basement for 5 years before we could get enough money ahead to start building the upper part. But during that time I was able to get a water connection and put in running water and a shower and toilet.
One thing I forgot to mention was that while Lola’s father was Bishop he had put forth great efforts to build up the building fund, but during those hard depression years if was a great sacrifice and effort to raise any money, but he had been able to get a nice sum through the cooperation and dedication of the people of the ward who really loved him.
Now back to my life. I took a job at the Central School doing custodial work one winter while building was almost at a standstill. I took the place of Albert Norton who was ill. Later on, they asked me to work there again when a vacancy arose. This job lasted years. Many things happened here in the way of experience. I learned about the school system and gained many lasting friends in the department.
I went back to building. One thing happened which stands out in memory. Lola was pregnant with Don. I had only been at work about an hour when Lola called Mr. Stagg, the principal, and told him to tell me she was in labor. He came and found me sweeping floors and said: “Get for home. Our wife is going to the hospital.”
Seager was her doctor and we felt that he was the best. As she delivered a very fine baby boy, he looked different from the others. He did not have dark hair nor too much of it. We felt that we were especially blessed with a special spirit, for he had been born because of many prayers offered up that she would be given the strength to carry him safely and have a safe birth, as she had had complication after Terry was born and then two years later had a miscarriage. He was given the name of Don Benjamin—my father’s name as well as my own. He grew to be a very special person with a great sense of humor, a very friendly personality and has contributed much in joy and love in our family circle.
We farmed our land and raised a few animals and milked a cow to help provide our food. One day when the neighbor’s sheep got into our lucerne for the umteenth time, I took Kris with me to help get them out. They would run around and around the haystack. Finally I stood Kris between the fence and the haystack and told him to head the sheep off. As I drove a big ram around the corner, he saw Kris and stopped and looked at me. He decided Kris was the one to tackle and he lowered his head and hit Kris in the chest and knocked him flat and knocked the breath out of him. I was mad and frightened and grabbed a plank and hit the ram on the head. When he got up, he staggered through the hole in the fence and wandered off shaking his head. Six year old Kristen was badly frightened and shaken up, but fortunately the horns had not wounded him and he seemed to get over it soon.
The war had brought a shortage of cars and when we were offered a top price for our Chevy two-door late model car that we had brought from California, we took it and put the money into the building fund for our house. This turned out to be a disappointment for the old car we bought for $150.00 turned out to be a lemon—a real lemon. That car was very hard to start and would balk every time we really needed to go somewhere in a hurry. It was balkier than any horse I ever saw. So life was a struggle of ups and downs and we had to work very hard to keep our head above the water. Many times Lola had to take the water turn and water the pasture and alfalfa and garden and make big dams while I was away working. We had the misfortune to lose the team Dad gave us. One of the horses got shot by hunters, and one got hit by a car when he got out on the highway and had to be put out of his misery and hauled to the mink farm. We bought a small Farm-all Cub tractor to haul our hay, plow and work the garden and each year hired the grain cut and thrashed. From year to year we found it hard to meet expenses. The winters were cold and many days there wasn’t much to do except work on the house and little by little we were able to put it together.
When Lola went to the hospital with Daryl, things went very fast and he made his debut before the doctor got there while Lola was still in the labor room. He had many of the same features that he others had—a strong, beautiful boy. Each one in their place made our home hum with activity. We named him after his Granddad Manwaring, and he is much like him in spiritual strength and desire to serve the Lord.
By this time the boys were doing the milking and most of the chores. One night while they were out choring, they began throwing mud and clods at each other in a playful mood. Running out of clods of dirt they began using dried manure piles for ammunition. Before too long, Kris got a stick which he used to propel his “ammunition”, and saw a fresh pile of it and as Terry ran around the corner of the shed or peeked around it with his mouth open in a big laugh, he got “it” right in the face and mouth. Terry came in spitting and choking and began washing with all his might. I think they learned their lesson.
One day they went to milk and came in so quickly I got suspicious. They had milked some into the bucket and filled it on up with water. I couldn’t get them to admit it then. Years later they have laughed several times about the watered down milk.
When Daryl was about four, I had finished my chores and was getting ready for work when he came staggering into the kitchen, gasping for breath and turning blue. I ran to him and took him in my arms, and asked the Lord to keep him alive until we could get him to the hospital. We left Sharon to watch the children and ran to the car, and headed for Vernal (about 4 miles) and several times I thought he was going, but I drove as fast as I dared and jumped out and ran up the hospital steps with him in my arms. They took one look at him and began running around getting oxygen and got him in an oxygen tent in a hurry. The doctor rushed in and soon he was getting relief and beginning to breath better. Lola stayed right with him for several days, but no reoccurrence showed up so we took him home. While Lola was in there with him, she had a growing tumor under her ear along the jaw-bone taken out. It was quite large, but was benign. Again we had cause to be especially thankful to the Lord for Daryl’s life and Lola’s health.
A few days before Christmas, when Daryl was 6, he came in and said his eye hurt. He had a red streak underneath the eye so we took him right to the doctor and he thought it was an allergy and gave pills for him to take. Daryl did not complain or fuss much, but slept quite a lot. The day before Christmas we got up and saw that his eye was beginning to bulge out. I took him to Dr. Seager and he gave him a double dose of antibiotic and sent us immediately to a specialist in Salt Lake. We found that infection had set in behind his eye and was swiftly traveling toward his brain. Again we had him administered to, and pled with the Lord to heal him. He was greatly blessed and we knew again how dependent we were on our Heavenly Father.
Another time Daryl was playing on a pipe which crossed the canal. He fell off and hit his face on a rock. For a long time afterward he had a dimple in his cheek to mark the spot where he injured himself.
I had a narrow escape one day when putting in the footings for our house. A cave-in occurred and a lot of dirt came down on my head, pushing my face against the cement. When I dug my way out and got into our little house there was blood and scraped places all over my face. I looked awful for a week. I could have been killed, but again I was protected.
In my early youth I had been thrown from a horse and fractured my arm just above the wrist in two places. While working on a bathroom for a widow, I fell from the rafters and landed on my feet on a cement floor. This jarred my back and put it out of place. A vertebra was out and pressing on the sciatic nerve which went down my leg. I finally got so I could not move and had to rest and take chiropractic treatments. But I have suffered with my back periodically since then and have to be careful what I lift and how I move.
One time I was riding the horse (either Prince or Ribbons) up the lane and he shied and crushed my ankle against a fence post. I was laid up with that about 6 weeks and made a peg leg that I could strap onto my knee and walk on my knee to get around. I never did go to the doctor with it. At one of the garages I was plastering a wall. The salesman was out and the office girl was trying to demonstrate a car to a customer and accidentally put it into reverse and backed me against the wall and really hurt my knee. After I got better and the doctor said I could go back to work, I applied for insurance and the Company said that I had gone back to work two days earlier than their disability or accident insurance would pay for. That was the picture of all my dealings with insurance companies. One time I was driving up the highway and a person drove out from the drinking parlor and smacked me in the side of my truck. He was one of the big-shots in town. He said the sun was in his eyes and he did not see me. Well, they hatched it up that I had to be going 5 miles over the speed limit according to the skid marks. So I did not get a dime then either. That is typical of my bouts to collect any insurance. I think if I was walking in a pedestrian zone and got hit by a car going through on a red light and with a traffic cop motioning me to cross, that I could not get a penny’s worth of insurance.
But if I depend on the Lord to help me or protect me or save me from harm, I know I have a sure thing. He is the best insurance on the face of this earth, and if I can just live so as to be counted worth of His blessings I will fear no evil.
We bought a beautiful white colt when the children were getting old enough to ride and we named her Ribbons. She was a spirited horse and could really run—a quarter horse. We were anxious to get her broke to ride so we could enjoy her. I rode her in several parades and she became so spirited that she danced all the way home. She was always full of life, too much so to please Lola, for she feared her and worried when we were riding her. She had a beautiful white foal sired by Wayne Collier’s palomino. Prince loved people and was one of the smartest horses I have ever seen. We trained him to do tricks and several things which were unique. We could call him from anywhere and he seemed to love to be under the saddle. One day when I was breaking him to ride, I put a hackamore halter on him and forgot to fasten the chin strap. I was putting him through his paces when I pulled the halter right over his head. He sensed the freedom he had just received and thought he would go for a run. I was on him bareback and he was really stretched out when he saw a fence ahead of him and he instantly decided to jump it, but at the last second, made a sharp turn. I went sailing over his head and struck my ankle and leg on the fencepost. I thought I was really hurt, but after a few weeks was up to the old routine.
About this time Sharon was riding Ribbons. We had been watering the field and some water had gotten into the plowed ground. When Ribbons got into the deep mud she started to buck. Then she came to her senses and stopped in her tracks—dead still. Sharon turned a summersault over the horse’s head and landed on her feet in the mud—the most beautiful demonstration of acrobatics I have ever seen and the funniest. Sharon was too scared to think it was funny.
Kristen was now sixteen and had his driver’s license so he traded around with a friend and got an old car without lights, or brakes, and he called it the Bomb and from all I could see it was rightly named. The motor sounded like a thrasher and he nearly got killed in it several times, and finally got so many complaints from his mother that he decided it had to go.
One morning we got up to several inches of snow and Sharon took the car up to Aunt Laura’s and on her way home decided to flip a “Use” and got more of a thrill than she planned—she wound up in the canal. I could tell what she was thinking by studying her tracks in the snow.
One day the boys caught a baby skunk in a gunny-sack and put it in the neighbor’s mailbox so it couldn’t get away. At least that was their excuse—however I suspect that the motive was to get even for some mistreatment they felt they had received from the neighbors.
I should have started this a long time ago. I could write a whole book just on the escapades of the children.
One time I went hunting with the Duvall twins, Orville Merrell and Lynn McKonkie, and we were standing in a circle and one of the fellows said if a person knew how to handle a gun right there would never be an accident. Just as he got through saying that, POW! His gun went off and plowed a furrow between Lynn’s legs and mine. The very next day the same fellow thought he saw the white tail of a deer through the trees and shot at it and it was LaVoir Duvall who had a white handkerchief in his back pocket. The bullet went through the fleshy part of his fanny and miraculously missed the bones and left quite a large wound.
When we were in the first year of our marriage I dreamed a beautiful dream of two lovely girls who were very young coming toward me with their arms outstretched and I felt that they were to be our daughters. But one was dark and one was blond. We were blessed with two blond daughters but I suppose one of our descendants will have to have the dark one.
By the time Valerie and Rick came along the birth had become more or less a routine event. I did not worry so much about everything that came up and we had a chance to enjoy them a lot more, so we did just that. Valerie was premature (or at least came nearly a month before we expected her) and it seemed to make a difference in her disposition. She just couldn’t seem to get adjusted to her new surroundings. She up-chucked all her food, and although she kept enough down to grow on, she sure had a touchy stomach. She continued to spit up a lot until she was a year old. She also cried a lot. Once she got started, you could not get her to stop, but she out-grew that too.
Having four big brothers had quite an influence on her—she tried to keep up with them. One day when she was playing ball (about 4) she got clobbered with the bat and got two front teeth knocked out. It took a long time for them to come back in and probably caused some of the problems which called for an orthodontist to put braces on her teeth to the tune of about $500.00. Maybe that is one of the reasons she was so shy, but I wouldn’t have her any other way. We love her so much and it has been so nice having her in our home. She has been such a good girl and has strong will to resist evil and has such fine standards that can only produce excellence. We expect great things of her. She has been an “A” student and even got an “A plus” in her science. She loves music and is gifted in that line.
We bought a brand new truck with a cab-over camper as a demonstrator, but I found they did not sell very fast at that time, but we enjoyed it very much until I drove under an apple tree and poked a hole in the front.
Lola began to experience morning sickness during this year and we began to plan for one more child with joy for it had been over four years and we had thought we might not be able to have any more. I was sure that this one would be the little dark haired child I had seen in my dream—but no, it was another boy and we did not even have a boy’s name picked out. Rick has been one of the dearest spirits—he is a very special boy. We have been buddies and done things together that I could not find time to do with the others while they were growing up. I am very thankful for him but must say that each one has been unique in their own special way. I just couldn’t have been more blessed. I have the best children in the world.
Valerie was in her stroller and fell down the basement steps and received a terrible bump on her head. One time when she was about three she walked up to a coral snake without being bitten. At one time we were all on the mountain logging mine props on the ward timber project, when Valerie and Kerri wandered off and got lost. It was dusk and they could not see the road. They called out to Heavenly Father to help them and they then found the road and got back to Sharon.
Rick has had several spiritual experiences that I shall always remember. He was in Hurricane where he got near the spray truck or the neighbors had been spraying insecticides or weed killer—anyway whatever it was choked him up and he could scarcely breathe. We got some consecrated oil and I administered to him. Immediately he went to sleep and had a short nap and when he awoke he was perfectly okay.
We were on our way to Salt Lake and Rick was asleep in the back of the car when he sat up and said: “Dad, we didn’t have prayer before we left.” Then, without any break in his breathing, he seemed to fall asleep again. I didn’t think much about it for a minute, then stopped the car and we had our prayer. About ten minutes later we were going up a hill and a lady came over the top and headed right at us, crossing over into our lane. I honked the horn and stayed in my lane, but there was a steep drop on my side and nowhere to go. She woke up and got back into her own lane just in the nick of time. Again the Lord had answered our prayers.
We were leaving to go to Hurricane to a family reunion and I had to stop on the outskirts of town to pick up a spare tire that they were fixing for me at the tire shop. I was gone a while getting it and Lola laid down in the back of the van and went to sleep. Rick got out of the car, and I thought he had climbed in the back with his mother. We got about ten miles and Lola woke up and said: “Where is Rick?” “Isn’t he in the back with you? I queried. Well we turned around and drove as fast as we could and found him at the tire shop. The man there said he had run after us down the middle of the road, crying and calling to us. He was still in tears, although the man went after him and took him back and told him we would soon miss him and come looking for him. He was very unsure of our love for him and it took some time to gain back his confidence and trust.
I went into the stone casting business and did a lot of experimenting. It went over quite well and yet it was soon out of date and being in a cold climate was unable to work it enough to keep it going and make it pay out. Some day we may begin to work at it once more.