100 YEAR S OF MY FAMILY HISTORY ON GRANDVIEW HILL

This is the text of the talk I presented to my ward's primary sharing time. The information in the brackets adds details for a general readership / adult reading audience.

I always wanted to start a church talk this way:

Brothers and sisters -- young and old and indeterminate:
boys and girls and budding little wise guys:

100 years ago, in 1911, my grandfather and grandmother bought a farm and built a brick home a mile north of this church [Grandview South Stake Center]. They planted peach and apricot trees and raised a family of four boys and a girl. They watered the trees and plants, trimmed them, and harvested fruit from them. They sold peaches and apricots. They grew grapes and made grape juice. Very old grape juice.

My father started to milk the family’s cows at age 6. His father also taught him how to prune and water trees and pick the fruit. He learned how to grow grapes from his father and how to grow raspberries in Lincoln High School in Orem.

74 years ago [1937], my father bought a farm on Grandview Hill [1650 West 1460 North Provo]. Westridge Elementary School and Rotary Park are where his farm once stood. My father’s farm had apple, pear, and peach trees, grape rows, raspberry patches, flowers, and vegetables gardens . Father trimmed trees in winter. He sprayed the trees with stuff to get rid of bugs and watered trees in summer. He and his workers picked fruit in Septembers and Octobers.

70 years ago [c 1941], Father planted that row of tall old pine trees east of Westridge school and north of the parking lot. The pine trees were all about five inches tall. His barn stood 150 feet north of the last pine tree of that big row of pine trees.


63 years ago [18 July 1949], my Father married my Mother.

61 years ago [January 1950], He built our first red brick home where the park restroom now stands.

I arrived here 55 years ago [September 1956]. The street in front of Westridge School did not have sidewalks when I walked to and from Grandview School. The neighborhood had a few homes, and many open fields where kids played. There were other farms, too.

My father liked to do concrete in April, so I help him. In spring we would burn the dry weeds off ditch banks so water could flow to the trees. When I got older, I drove tractors and trucks around the farm and helped watered trees.

About 69 years ago, [1942], my father built a white wood building called a “packing shed.” Where the tennis court now stand at the corner of the park, In that building, he and his workers (including me) sorted the fruit by size using a noisy machine. Big Medium Small Tiny. We put the fruit in baskets and boxes, placed them in big refrigerated cooler rooms to stay fresh until we sold them. I helped sell fruit when I was a boy.

41 years ago [April 1970], my family moved into the house where I now live. The neighborhood then had the street in front of Westridge School [1460 North Street], and the street where the C***l family now lives [1750 West] and the street where the R******* C******** family now lives [1400 North]. The street where the S******t and S****s families now live [1500 West] was a dirt lane lined with wild roses and tall shade trees and fruit trees. The street where I live was then a dirt road with an open irrigation ditch and no sidewalk.

My relatives started joining the Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] in the 1930s. When I was your age, I attended church in an old chapel 9 blocks northeast of this building [Columbia Lane, Provo]. It belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints then. Today, the Baptist Church owns it.

I also attended church in that brown chapel 4 blocks northeast of this church [1350 West]. The church held primary in the middle of the week in the afternoon after school. We primary children studied Jesus and The Articles of Faith. {I held up my old primary bandallo around my neck} On our birthdays, the boys and girls would contribute coins to a bank in the shape of Primary Children’s Hospital. We sent that money to the hospital to care for poor children.

39 years ago when I was a priest, [November 1972] the ward moved into this chapel [Grandview South Stake Center, Grand Avenue]. At that time the church held Sunday school classes separately for adults, big kids, and little children. In fact, I blessed the sacrament for the Junior Sunday School children at this desk right there.

Today [24 July 2011], I remember the open fields and all the fruit trees, white with blossoms in May and glorious in autumn color in October. My grandparents and parents have all long gone.

The past is only the present a second ago. When you get good at writing, I hope you will write down what you do in your homes and in church so that the children of the future will remember you too.