I obtained this from.... hmm, I don't know. Likely my grandparents, but no interviewer is indicated on the copy I have. This is a transcript from my copy and the photos were inserted by me to illuminate the story a bit more.
Photos are from the personal albums of Clayton Huber and Rhea Huber Merkley.
PART TWO
During that first winter I met Vera in front of the old post office where Gerry's store is now. I used to ride our little saddle horse, Mit, and I would pick her up and take her for a ride. After I dropped her off I would have five or six miles to ride back. I courted her for about two years and then we finally got married. I didn't have any money so I took a load of wheat into Vernal and got it ground into flour. Then I brought it back and sold it to Zack Kump for fifty dollars and I bought a ring and a license. That winter I went back to the Park Utah to work. Vera took June with her and we stayed with Mother. We got enough money that winter to buy us a few pieces of furniture, a stove, table, and bed. We lived in Lawrence Abbeglin's dirt roof cabin. I remember we had a heavy rainstorm after a dry spell and Vera went to check on June and we saw that there was a stream of mud and water coming straight down in her face. We lived in that cabin a year or so and then we moved up beside Frank and Ardith.
Frank holding Kathryn, Grandma Huber holding Rhea, Vera, Dutch holding Lynn, Roy with Darryl.
We were really happy the first years of our married life. We got a few sheep and some milk cows. The milk checks would be up to around eighteen to twenty dollars. The times were really scarce and most of our business was trading. We would trade beef for coal and so on. At first Frank and I batched it. Sometimes we had fifteen to twenty dollars a week and it would be divided up between Ardith and Vera. They would buy the groceries and sometimes ended up with a dollar or two left for the rest of the week. Even in the dirt-roofed cabin we had real happiness. After this, Mother passed away. Vera and Ardith would take turns taking care of Mother in Midway. Frank was in Colorado with his sheep there and I had taken over his here. We had about a thousand head of sheep here and Dutch had a couple of hundred. During that time the alfalfa seed came into being and we had one or two good crops. We bought a car and everyone thought it was crazy to live in a dirt-roofed cabin and buy a car, but we enjoyed having it. I remember Vera and Ardith went to town one day and one of them went to open the gate and the other left the door open. Anyhow, the door was taken off our first new car.
Vera on left, Ardith on right
When Frank came from Colorado he had a pickup and Mom and I were out there so we rode home with him. The front was too crowded so Mom and I rode in the back and I about froze to death. Eventually we pounded on the window and climbed in the front. Even if it was crowded we still kept warm. Finally we dissolved our partnership and I bought a fraction of the sheep. I ran sheep for several years. Because of this, I had to be away from the family too much so I sold most of the sheep.
Our first sorrow was when Dale got cancer. Mom and I would go out every two weeks to Salt Lake and he would take treatments. Sometime in April the doctor told us to take him home and be good to him because he would only last a few more months. He died in August. During his sickness I was called to be the second counselor to George Hacking, the Bishop. It was quite a change in my life but you can get no greater joy than working in the Church. After that I was put in as Sunday School Superintendent. I did that for several years until I asked to be released.
Several years after Dale died, Larry had an accident in December. I can remember Mom and I takingturns staying with him at the hospital in Salt Lake. He was there for several weeks. Finally he passed away with a blood clot. That was a period in my life that I never did get over. As good as Larry was and that he would be taken was a shock to me and was probably one reason why I quit going to church as much as I had been going. It seemed like when I went to church and paid my tithing there was always money to raise the family and keep Larry and Clayton on a mission. No matter how tough the times were, we always had a little money in the bank. I remember when Grandma Taylor was left a widow and lost her home so I bought her a house up in town. I got real pleasure out of seeing the happiness she got out of living in town in a house that had little conveniences. She had a bathroom and water in the house which was one thing she had never had.
I surely enjoyed the respect and love of the family for several happy years. Finally we had our golden wedding, which I wasn't very enthused about having. My health had been good until I had a little heart trouble and I'm still kicking around a little.
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