Life History of
Gordon Reed Bartlome
Born: September 16, 1940
Montpelier, Idaho
Parents: Godfried (Fred) Bartlomé born in Bern,
Switzerland April 3, 1899, passed away Dec. 28, 1990. Immigrated at age 19
through Elis Island in New York and moved to Montpelier Idaho where he worked
on the railroad for a few years, then went to barber school and was a barber
for several years. He then went to work for Beneficial Life and sold insurance
for about 50 years and then retired. He passed away at age 91.
Lena Marie Sutter Bartlomé was born in
Montpelier Idaho January 7, 1904 and passed away October 14, 2002. Lived in
Montpelier all her life within two blocks of where she was born. They were
married April 4, 1923, in the Logan Temple. They raised eight children. I was
next to the youngest child and the youngest boy.
Siblings:
Phyllis married a rancher named Lloyd
Smith and lived in the Montpelier area/Georgetown all her life except a short
time after graduation when she lived in Ogden, Utah, and later Paris Idaho
after Lloyds passing with Weldon Eborn her second husband until she passed
away.
Frank after
high school graduation he was drafted into the Army WWII. He was General
Paton’s aide during the invasion of France and Germany. After he got out of the
army he returned to Montpelier, Idaho where he lived the rest of his life. He
married Bertha Taylor. He became an EMT. He was one of the EMT’s that responded
to the Cokeville, school invasion that was made into a movie the Cokeville
Miracle. He worked for the State of Idaho in road construction.
Roy served
two years in the navy. He graduated from UCLA in electrical engineering and was
the project manager on the Polaris Missile. He married Patricia O’Donnell.
Helen
Married right out of high school to Doyle Portela. They owned Walton Feed in
Montpelier, Idaho; it was a grainary where the farmers brought their grain for
distribution.
George Got
married to Patricia Ikenberry and worked on the Union Pacific Railroad most of
his life. His second wife was Elizabeth Lohmann She also worked on the railroad
most of her life.
James
married Geraldine James right out of high school. He was in an accident at age
19 shortly after being married and lost his right arm in machinery at work. He
later went to LDS Business College. He had many different businesses.
Linda she
married Roger Alland right after high school lived in Salt Lake area and sold
Real-estate and moved to Clearfield.
Gordon front row, third from the left
Schools attended:
Lincoln Elementary grades 1
through 6 in Montpelier, Idaho
Montpelier Junior High grades 7
through 8 in Montpelier, Idaho
Montpelier High School grades 9
through 12 in Montpelier, Idaho
Stevens-Henager
College 2 years received an associate’s degree in Business and Accounting.
Pictures of High School Graduation:
MARRIAGE:
Cherrie Rae Tippetts: married July 7, 1961, Idaho Falls Temple. We went on our honeymoon to
Coeur d’Alene Idaho, and then to Seattle Washington, Portland Oregon, Boise
and then home. We had our reception when we returned in Georgetown, Idaho.
We met in the summer of 1957. I was a senior in high
school and she was a freshman. We dated for four years before we were married.
She lived in Nounan, Idaho and I lived in Montpelier, Idaho. It was about 15
miles one way to pick her up and go to whatever we were doing.
We had our first child August 8, 1962, and named her Yvette. She was born in Montpelier,
Idaho.
We had our twins May 5, 1967, and named them Monique and Monette and
they were born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Monique weighed 4 pounds 1 oz and
Monette weighed 6 pounds 10 oz.
Our
fourth child and only son, was born June 30, 1973 and we named him Andre. He was born in Albuquerque, NM.
The fifth child was born July 9, 1975; her name is Nicole she was also born in Albuquerque, NM.
The sixth and final
child was born October 26, 1980; she was named Marci and was born in Salt Lake City, UT.
Cherrie was a very good
mother she loved her children with all her heart. She went without to give the
kids what they needed. She was a stay at home mother and took care of the
children. She was very musically talented. She taught piano for many years. She
also played the ward organ, accordion, guitar, and played the saxophone in high
school. She also sang in the high school choir and ward choir.
She was also in the high
school Pepetts (Pep Club). She was queen/royalty of the Future Farmers of
America.
Cherrie passed away in
1986 from Multiple Scleroses after suffering from it for many years. She was bed ridden
for six years. Three years at home and three in a nursing home. Our
youngest child was only one year old when Cherrie was confined to a bed. I
worked full time during this time. Our ward relief society helped us out a lot.
They would send a person in everyday to feed Cherrie, visit with her, and read to
her. After three years of them helping us out at home, I decided that she needed more technical care as she was
deteriorating. This was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make
but it was the best thing for her and the only thing that I could do. I visited
her every day for the next three years until she passed away even though the
last year she was not aware of any visitors.
April 1992
In 1991 I met Carol Peacock at a church dance. We
dated for about one year. She was a very sweet person. We were married August
18, 1992, in the Salt Lake City, UT temple for time only.
Then on August 18,
1995, we were sealed in the Bountiful, UT temple. Our two sons were our
witnesses.
When we were married I had six children, three were married, and
Andre left for his mission one month prior to our getting married. Carol has
one son Zigmund Kirk Peacock who was still at home, making seven children.
I
had four grandchildren when we got married: Heather 4 yrs old, Whitney 3 yrs old, Rachelle 3 yrs old,
and Mick 8 months old.
She has been a great
blessing in my life. She treats my children as her own. We had some problems at
first especially with our youngest child Marci but it all turned very well,
after a lot of sleepless nights.
We are each other’s best friends
we love to do things together. We enjoy trips, hiking, plays, playing games
with friends and family, watching sports, and being with our family.
JOBS THAT I HAVE HAD:
When I was nine years old until I was fifteen I worked on
farms during the summer. I drove the tractor and pickup so that the bales of
hay could be loaded and later staked up on the hay stack. I was too small to
lift the bales of hay until I was about thirteen, and also too small to reach
the pedals on the truck so they had to put wooden blocks on the pedals so that
I could reach them to drive the truck. Also I had to sit on some kind of
cushion to see out the windshield. I made 25 cents an hour and ended up making
75 cents per hour.
Age 16 to 17 I worked part time at Koford Furniture. I
don’t remember how much I earned, maybe $1.00 an hour. I helped deliver
furniture and cleaned up the store.
Then when I was 17 until I was 22 I worked at Central
Farmers Fertilizer Chemical Company. First I worked in the kiln area which
turned raw ore into modules. In this area I drove a pay loader (kind of like a
bobcat scooper but twice as big) and also did manual labor. Sometimes we had to
use a solid mounted gun to shoot out rings in the kiln (the kiln would build up
clinkers inside this stopped the molten ash from flowing down). During that
time is when I damaged my hearing because we did not have adequate ear
protection. About two years later I moved to the distribution area then to the
furnace area. There were many different jobs that I did there: making sure the
bins were full above the furnace, measuring the carbon electrodes to make sure
they were long enough (when they got to short the furnace was shut down and new
ones were installed) they needed to be about eight feet long. When the electrodes deteriorated they would
break off and plug up the tap holes. We would then have to shut down the
furnace and dig it out with jackhammers. It was so hot in the furnace we could
only spend about two minutes in the furnace and then we would have to come back
up. We would wear asbestos clothing and wooden shoes to keep from burning up.
Then we would rest for ten minutes and drink lots of water and then go back
down this went on for eight hours.
We
also used oxygen tapping rods that were about twelve feet long. They were made
of metal and we would insert them in a hole that was about four inches in
diameter when inserted the oxygen would burn through until the molten slag
would come out and run down a silica trough that we had made and run out into the
water to cool. We had to make sure that there wasn’t any metal that was white
in the slag because it would explode when it hit the water. If we saw it we had
to plug the hole with a wooden plug that we inserted with big metal tongs. The
last year that I worked there I worked in the lab running various sample tests.
Then the plant closed down in 1963.
In
1963 we moved to Draper, Utah where I worked at the Utah State Prison as a
security guard. I worked swing shift and grave yard so that I could go to school
during the day. It was a very interesting experience but not a place I would
like to be for a long time. I earned $354.00 a month. I was going to school
full time, paying rent, and paying for expenses. At that time gasoline was .25
a gallon. A week’s worth of groceries was about $25.00.
After
I got my degree at age 25 I secured a job a General Electric Supply Co. I
started in the credit department where I was over Montana, and Wyoming area.
Many trips were made to those areas during the year. After three years I moved
to the advertising department. My responsibility was working with retail
stores, and co-op advertising. I was in this position for three more years.
Then I was promoted to inside sales for a short time and offered a promotion to
open a supply store in Grand Junction, Colorado. Cherrie, Yvette, Monique,
Monette and I moved to Grand Junction. I was the manager for two years and was
able to get the supply house in the black in that time (normally it takes three
years or more). Because of this I was offered a promotion to move to
Albuquerque, New Mexico as an inside sales manager. Where I worked for one year
and then quit. I wanted to be an outside salesman and was passed over twice for
the position because I did not drink, or smoke and they felt that I could not
party with the clients to get their business.
Age
35-36: I went to Dallas, Texas to train to be an insurance salesman for
National Comp Assoc. I worked the whole state of New Mexico. We traveled as a
team almost every week working a different town each week. My supervisor from
Dallas came in to work with each individual to see how they performed after he
worked with me for a day he told my manager that I would not make it as a
salesman. But my manager insisted I have another chance for a few weeks and I
started to produce. During those two years I earned every sales award offered
by the company. I had a system to get myself up for the next contact if I was
turned down. What I did was I had beans in my left pocket and when I was turned
down I would take a bean out of my pocket and put it into my other pocket and
say quietly your just another bean to me. I had a very good experience with
that. I went into a parts store and the manager threatened to kick me out
physically he said what the hell do you want? When he said that I said that is
fine you’re just another bean to me. He said what do you mean by that and came
running after me. When I explained my system he was very interested in what I
had to say and told me to come back and bought basically everything I had. It
was really rough being away from my family so much. The money was very good,
however.
Gordon at work
Pictures of Gordon winning awards at NCA
They had problems with the parent company and closed the New Mexico
territory down. I transferred back to Utah and we all moved back; Cherrie, Yvette,
Monique, Monette, Andre, Nicole and I. We had a very exciting move back to
Utah. I rented a large U-Haul with a big trailer on the back. As we left
Albuquerque I told Cherrie to start out and I would follow. She had Monique,
Andre, and Nicole (she was a baby) with her. She left and I tried to catch up
with her but she was driving a little too fast and I could not catch up with
her. I told her to stop at the junction for Farmington, New Mexico. When I got
to the junction she was nowhere to be found. So I waited a little while and I
had a friend who was having a meeting at a business at the junction. I asked
him if I could borrow his car and back track to Albuquerque to see if I could
find her. After backtracking to Albuquerque I couldn’t find her so I got in the
truck and started going towards Farmington, New Mexico wondering where she was.
She didn’t have a credit card and not a lot of money which worried me. I did
not find her in Farmington, New Mexico so I continued on and when I hit the
Utah border at the port of entry I stopped to ask if they had seen a women in a
1967 Chevrolet with three kids and the border crossing personnel said she had
stopped there and said she was going to check into a motel in Monticello, Utah.
So I drove into Monticello and there was only two or three motels and found her
at the first motel I went to. (I had nightmares about this adventure for
years). After this adventure I told her I would lead and she needed to follow
even if I can’t go very fast, I was too scared to have them get lost again.
(Note cell phones were not invented at that time.) After working another six
months in Utah things were not going very well so I left the company.
Age
37-48: I started working for the Vernon Company selling advertising
specialties, such as calendars, pens, hats, decals etc. I covered downtown Salt
Lake City, Vernal, and Roosevelt, Price, Richfield, and the Ephraim areas
including the small town’s in-between. I worked for them for eleven years and
made a fair living at it.
Age
49: Went to work for Premium Ice Cream Company working for my brother Jim
setting up ice cream machines in Utah and Nevada. For six month I traveled to
Las Vegas each week to set up ice cream machines. Political pressure from the
Nevada State Dairy Commission stopped our company from doing business in
Nevada. The business started having financial problems and so folded.
Age
50-52: Did not work for a wage. My brother and I were trying to raise money to
start a multi-million dollar business. We worked on this for more than three
years. We were unable to get the
financing necessary to get it going. So the plan was abandoned.
Age
53-67: I went to work for Hoyt USA. I worked in various areas for eleven years.
I was the packaging manager, and then moved to inventory manager. Hoyt is a bow manufacturer and are known
worldwide for their product. I retired from Hoyt January 31, 2007.
Age
68-73: I got bored being at home by myself so I got a part time job as a
Courtesy Driver for Larry H Miller Ford dealership. I would drive people to
work or home while their car was being repaired.
CARS THAT I HAVE
OWNED:
1.
1950 Mercury
2. 1957 Chevrolet Impala
3. 1960
Chevrolet Impala new
4.
1961 Chevrolet Impala new
5. 1949 Ford
6. 1963 MG Sport Sedan new
7. 1964
Chevrolet Impala
8. 1965 Volkswagen sedan new
9.
1967 Chevrolet Impala
10. 1975 Pontiac Astre
(new)
11. 1951 Chevrolet Pickup
12. 1976 Chevrolet Impala
13. 1980 Pontiac
Phoenix
14. 1985 Mercury Topaz (new)
15.
1985 Nissan Pulsar NX
16. 1982 Mercury Escort
17. 1985 Honda Accord
18.
1987 Toyota Celica
19. 1995 Mazda 626
20. 1986 Plymouth Horizon
21. 2000 Honda
Civic (new)
22. 2004 Mazda Tribute
(new)
23. 2008 Honda Accord (new)
24.
2011 Honda Pilot (new)
25. 2016 Honda Pilot (new)
My first car $350 I bought it in 1956.
My first new car was 1960 Chevrolet Impala and cost $3,100.00. On the 1961
Chevrolet Impala I put lake pipes on it (They run from the exhaust system
behind the front wheel along the side on the bottom part of the car to the
front of the back wheel.) On the end of the exhaust pipe was a cap you could
open to make more noise. However it was against the law to have them open
because they made too much noise but we put them on anyway. They had a chrome
finish. The gasoline was 24 cents a gallon. Most of the cars had large engines
and you only got 15 miles to the gallon.
HOMES THAT I LIVED IN OR OWNED:
Home Born & Raised- 946
Hays Street Montpelier, ID
Apartment 1961- 6thStreet Montpelier, ID
Apartment 1961- 850 Monroe Street, Montpelier,
ID
Apartment 1962- 760
Grant Street, Montpelier, ID
Home 1963- 710
Grant Street, Montpelier, ID (owned)
Apartment 1963- 800
E. 12200 S. Draper, UT
Apartment 1965- 3850
S. Hillside Drive, Salt Lake City, UT
Home 1966- 1921
Redondo Avenue, Sugarhouse, UT (owned)
Home 1971- 2116
Yosemite Road, Grand Junction, CO (owned)
Home 1973- 4708
Danube Drive NE, Albuquerque, NM (owned)
Home 1976- 6784
S. 1530 E., Salt Lake City, UT (owned)
Home 1990- 215
E. Greenwood Avenue, Midvale, UT (owned)
Home 1992- 1154
N. 1100 W., Farmington, UT (owned)
Home 1996- 1307
S. 200 E. Kaysville, UT (owned)
Home 2002- 9324
Avignon Place, West Jordan, UT (owned)
Home 2013- 1109
E. Silver Shadows Drive, Washington UT (owned)
Our first house we bought in Montpelier
in 1963 was 2 bedroom, one bath, full basement and cost $9,000.00. Our home on
Redondo in Sugar House purchased in 1966 cost $18,000.00. The house in Grand
Junction purchased in 1971 was 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, full basement cost
$35,000.00. The Albuquerque house purchased in 1973 was 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom,
and cost $40,000.00. I just thought it
might be interesting for you to see how housing has increased over the years
but also so have wages.
We did not have a
television when I was little so most of the time in the summer my friends and I
played kick-the-can, hide and go seek, cowboys and Indians, baseball, and football.
We loved to raid the vegetable gardens for snacks (turnips, rhubarb, cabbage,
potatoes, and carrots) were our favorite. The neighbors didn’t seem to mind. In
the winter we would go sledding, played basketball at the high school gym
because my friend’s dad was the custodian so he would let us in as long as we
cleaned the floor afterwards.
In the house I grew up in we had an outhouse
out back until I was around 6 years old.
I had to sleep with my brother James until George moved out. That helped
to keep us warm in the winter.
We had a lot of kids in
our neighborhood, it was nicknamed incubator street.
Fun and scary things I
did during my life before being married:
For years during Christmas
Holidays the whole family would go to Phyllis and Lloyd Smith’s ranch to cut
Christmas trees. They would hitch up the team of horses to a large sleigh and
to the mountains to cut trees. We always had hot chocolate to keep us warm.
This was a lot of fun. We would also go to the ranch to ride horses during my
younger years. Phyllis and Lloyd also had the first television in the valley
because of their location they were able to get good reception with the
antenna. So every Friday we would go to their ranch house and watch the Friday
night boxing fights, along with many people in Bear Lake. Their television was
black and white about 15 x 20 inches.
Our first television was
black and white but we put a plastic cover over the screen to make it colorful.
It was blue at the top and then gray in the middle, and then green at the
bottom. The televisions had tubes, kind of like a skinny shaped light bulb, in
them that had to be replaced from time to time, everyone had a box of tubes to
replace the burned out one. They did not have electronic components inside.
When I was in Montpelier
Junior High School I was riding my bicycle through an alley and a car pulled
out in front of me and I could not stop so I t-boned it and flew over the top
of the car. I was not hurt other than a bruise on my back. The car was a beat
up old car so it didn’t damage it.
My bicycle had a wooden
seat and it did not have any brakes. I went up on top of M hill and started
down and was unable to negotiate the turn because I couldn’t slow down and
ended up flying off into the sage brush.
When I was about fifteen
my friend had an old 1945 Chevrolet that had no brakes, we would drag our shoes
to make it stop. We would wrap our shoes with old burlap sacks so that it would
not wear out our shoes.
My friends and I earned
money by going down south of Montpelier (we hitched a ride on the railroad
freight cars then hopped off farther down south) they were going really slow
because Montpelier was a railroad roundhouse where they switched the cars and
coupled them together to go the other direction. When we got off we would
go into the willow trees and climb up and gather Magpie eggs and the babies and
take them back to the service station and they would give us a penny for each
egg and two cents for the babies because there was a bounty on them. We earned
around twenty to thirty cents each and with that money we had enough to go to a
show and buy a treat for the show. The movie cost 9 cents and the treat was a
penny (a handful of penny candy we bought at the candy store next door).
My friends and I were in a
field south of Montpelier we spotted a badger. We thought we were tough and
really brave so we got a big stick and threw it at a badger and it made it mad
so it started chasing us. It was about as big as a medium size dog. We had
never run so fast in our life, luckily he did not get us.
I believe I was about
eight or nine years old when I got my b-b gun and my sister Linda was a year
younger. She thought that she could dodge the b-b. She said shoot me in the
chest and I will dodge it. So I thought ok we will give it a shot. I aimed and
she stood in front of the garage and I pulled the trigger and it hit her right
in the chest she didn’t have time to move. My gun was taken away for two weeks
after she went crying to my mom.
About 8 years old.
Linda always wanted to play
with me and my friends and kept following us around. We decided to ditch her
one day so we helped her climb up in a big tree and left her there. She was
there for about three hours until my mother heard her hollering and helped her
get down. Of course I got in big trouble for that.
When I was young our
telephone was what is called a party line (you would pick up the telephone and
listen to see if anyone was talking before dialing, if anyone was talking you
couldn’t use it until they were through). Sometimes we would try to pick it up
quietly so we could listen to what they were saying.
We had a phonograph to
listen to music. We played the old 78 speed records; they were thick and about
9 inches in diameter, on a turn table. Then when I was a teenager we went to 45
speed (they were small records about 5 inch in diameter with a large hole in
the middle we put a plastic adapter in the hole so it would stay on the small
spindle on the turntable. The next one was a 33 1/3 speed a larger record about
12 inches and thinner. Then the records went to stereo recordings. All of these needed to be plugged into the
wall. Sometime in the mid fifties they invented a portable radio that ran on
batteries and used transistors to connect to the radio stations. We thought
that was really neat to be able to carry our music with us. I believe it was in
the fifties we had tape recorders that had big reels of tape that were about
five inches in size that went from one side to another take-up reel and you
could speak into them or record other things on the tapes. Later there were eight track recordings, then
cassette recordings, then CD’s. Etc.
During my teenage years I
loved to go fishing and hunting. My brother-in-law Doyle and I would go fishing
almost every Saturday. A couple of memorable trips were a trip to the Blackfoot
river. I was only about twelve years old and did not know what size of fish we
would be catching. I hooked what I thought was a big fish and finally pulled it
in. The fish was about twenty inches and weighed about eight pounds. Doyle
jokingly said we don’t keep such small fish, so I threw it back. Doyle almost
jumped in to get it back; it was the largest fish we caught all day. Another
trip was to Sage Creek up Montpelier Canyon past Geneva we were fly fishing in
a rain storm and were catching two fish at a time. We were using two flies on one
line the fish would hit both flies at a time and we caught our limit in about
20 minutes. At that time the limit was twenty fish per person.
I also when hunting when I
was very young we hunted deer, elk, rabbits, ducks, and geese. My friends and I
would get our guns and hitchhike south of Montpelier to hunt Jackrabbits. In
those days you could do that without the person being scared to pick you up.
Then we would hitch a ride back home. We also hunted at a place called rocky
point. This is a place that the highway and the railroad tracks went over the
river. We would check the tracks by putting our ear to the tracks to make sure
that the train was not coming and then we would run on the ties to get across
the river. It was about the length of a football field to get to the other
side. If a train would have come we would have had to jump 50 to 75 feet into
the river, but we never did.
1958 Gordon and sister Linda
I was about ten or twelve
years and we were ice skating on the Bear River. When I fell through the ice,
it was about four feet deep and very, very, cold. My brother James and a couple
of friends pulled me out. My friend happened to have some matches and they made
a fire to dry me off and warm me up because we were about five miles from town.
We never did tell my mother about it so she would not worry.
This is a dumb thing that
could have got us into a lot of trouble. My friends and I were about five miles
south of Montpelier which was close to the county airport. It was in the middle
of winter and we decided to pull a prank. We took a lot of branches and in
large letters spelled out help in the snow. We didn’t think much about it until
we saw a plane circling around the area and then more planes joined the first
one. We were sure we were in deep trouble so we took off for home. That night
we heard about it on the local radio station. Needless to say we never did say
anything about it to anyone.
SPORTS DURING MY LIFE:
Baseball, football,
tennis, ping pong, running, plus many other things.
My favorite was baseball
and softball. I would play almost every day when I was young. I played baseball
for Montpelier High School. I played fast pitch softball in the church and city
league in Salt Lake and Grand Junction, CO. I later played slow pitch softball
in County Rec. and church ball until I was about 55 years old.
When we moved to
Albuquerque, NM I didn’t participate in many sports but I did work out with
Yvette when she ran with the Duke City Dashers. As a family we traveled to El
Paso for her track meets. We then moved back to Salt Lake City and I started
playing golf with friends from my work and neighborhood.
Starting at age 12 we had
a large sheet of plywood about 4 x 8 with homemade paddles and a net. We played ping pong. The
neighborhood had competitions. When I was in high school they had a standard
size table and net. I played during lunch. My sophomore year I finished 2nd and my junior and senior year I was the champion of the school competition.
I played tennis and
football for Montpelier High school. In football I played offense, defense, and
special teams. My sophomore year I only weighed 95 pounds (wouldn’t work now),
by my senior year I weighed around 140 pounds.
Around age 30 I decided to
learn to referee basketball, baseball, and soccer. I had a certificate for
basketball, and baseball. I went to school down in California for soccer to get
a certificate. I refereed high school basketball for 15 years, about 18 years
soccer while my kids were playing. I umpired baseball for about 10 years. One
of the highlights of my basketball refereeing was in 2015 when I refereed for
the Huntsman Senior games in St George at age 75, ten games in one week whew!
2016 at age 76 I did nine basketball games in a week. So I am feeling pretty
pleased I can still do that.
I took up running about
age 35 because my friend talked me into running with him. I entered my first 10
K race shortly after that, and entered several more for about a year then I
decided to start running marathons as well. During the next seven years I ran
14 full marathons (26.2 miles). I entered the Golden Spike marathon, entered
the Deseret News marathon five times (24th of July from Mountain
Dell Golf Course, up East Canyon, through Emigration Canyon into Salt Lake City
through the parade route, to Liberty Park.) Stansbury Park marathon was my next
marathon, then Las Vegas twice, then St George five times during that period.
The last St George marathon I qualified for the Boston Marathon with a time of
three hours and four minutes but was unable to go to Boston for the marathon
because Cherrie was too sick at the time.
Family Pictures:
1961 with his family
1961 with his dad and brothers
1973 with his brothers and sisters at his parents wedding anniversary
1983 with his family at parents wedding anniversary
CHURCH CALLINGS: I was Stake Athletic Director twice in Cottonwood Heights, Salt Lake
City for fifteen years. The same calling in West Jordan for thirteen years, and Assistant Stake
Athletic director Washington, Utah.
At one of the stake sports events that Gordon led, his family won a trophy.
In Farmington we were in the nursery at church for two
years. We had about 40 toddlers in our classes. I loved to line up the match box cars on one end of
the table and then tilt it up for a race. The kids would all squeal and clap
their hands. One little girl would run to me and wouldn’t go home with her mom,
it made her mom feel bad. I was co chairmen with my wife Carol as Activities Director
(the bishop said he would not release us until he was replaced so we were in it
for about seven years). We had a lot of fun.
I was a councilor in the
High Priest group leadership for two years.
TRAVEL EXPERIENCES:
Dominican Republic: went as a trip with work.
Hawaii Four
Times
Washington State & BC honeymoon
Florida with
Carol’s work for seminars five times
Phoenix with
Carol’s work for a seminar
Washington DC, Mt
Vernon, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington, Smithsonian, Congress, White
House, Library of Congress.
London, Warwick
Castle, Buckingham Palace, Stone Henge, Windsor Castle, Tower Bridge, London
eye, Tower of London, Oxford, Bath, etc.
New England
cruise we were able to see Ellis Island where my father and Carol’s grandfather
came to the USA, and the Statue of Liberty and ground zero, Boston, Maine, Nova
Scotia.
Alaska
cruise
Caribbean
two Southern and one Western Mayan ruins
Road trip to
Martins Cove and Mt Rushmore
LDS Church History Sites, New York, Niagara Falls, Smith Farmhouse, Sacred Grove,
Palmyra, Carthage Jail, Nauvoo, Haun’s Mill, Independence, Liberty Jail,
Kirtland Temple, etc.
European Romance to Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Austria
Road trip to
Glacier National Park etc.
Australia, New Zealand, and FIJI cruise
Road trip to
Alberta Canada, BC, Seattle, Portland, Redwoods, Sacramento, Las Vegas
Family Outings: Every summer we try to go on
a family trip or outing. Our first one will forever be engraved in our minds
and go down in history as the most unusual and scary. We decided to go on hike
to Cecret Lake in Little Cottonwood Canyon it is a small glacial lake just
above Alta. We saw a few clouds as we
started up the trail but didn’t think anything of them. As we progressed up the
trail it started to spitter a little bit and the clouds got heavier but we
still weren’t worried. When we were about three fourths of the way up the trail
it started raining really hard but everyone wanted to get to the lake, so we
kept going. Then it started hailing, then lightening as we were almost to the
lake against better judgment we went to the lake looked at it and turned around
and headed down as fast as we could go. When we got down we went to Yvette and
Roger’s house and had lunch.
We have gone to Bear Lake
three times, Moon Lake once, Colter Bay in Teton National Park &
Yellowstone National Park once, Bryce Canyon Once, Picnics several times in
Salt Lake, and Zion’s Ponderosa Ranch east of Zion’s National Park it was a lot
of fun because we were all in the same house and were able to spend more time
together playing games, eating, and talking.
We always get together for
Thanksgiving or Christmas or both since 1976.
MEDICAL:
5 years old I
had my tonsils out and I was circumcised at the same time. I couldn’t figure
out how tonsils made me hurt down there.
8 years old I
had my appendix out
16 years old I
cut my knee throwing tomatoes at cars and I didn’t want to be caught and took
off through a field and it was an uphill grade and I fell and cut my knee on a
bottle. I didn’t realize that I had cut it I thought I just bruised it but when
I touched my pant leg it was dark with blood. When I got home my mother said I
needed to get it stitched up. We didn’t tell her what we were doing. When I
went in to get it stitched up the doctor was a smoker and didn’t wear any
gloves or anything. The ash from the cigarette kept getting bigger, and bigger.
I was afraid that it would fall in my cut but he seemed to know when to flick
it off in the ash tray.
When I was 44 years old I was working on a very heavy wooden garage door because it was off
the rollers. The door was up high and it fell down and there was a two inch
metal brace on it where it folded up. That came down on top of my head. It put
about a two inch gash ¼ inch deep in my skull. I was home alone it didn’t knock
me out but it dazed me a little bit. I grabbed a wet towel and jumped in the
car and started to the Instacare to get it looked at. The kids were coming home
from primary and I told them to go home and I would be home as soon as
I could. When I got to the Instacare, it was about a mile away, I had blood
running down my back. When I walked in they took one look at me and took me
right in and didn’t make me fill out any papers. They stitched me up and kept
me there for an hour to make sure I was all right before they let me go home.
I decided to get my bunions, neuromas, and hammer toes
fixed when I was about 66 years old. They
did both feet at one time, which is unusual. We noticed that my toes were
turning black. We called the doctor that night and he said it was ok. When we
called the doctor’s office the next day they said that it was ok as long as we
pushed on them and the color came back. It still looked black over the weekend
and by Monday was very painful. I called the doctors and they told me to come
in. It turned out that the bandages were too tight and they were cutting off
the blood supply. They were very worried that I might lose my toes. They sent
me to the LDS Hospital to have oxygen treatments in the hyperbaric chamber; it
is a clear dome chamber, twice a day for a couple weeks. They insert you in and
gradually raise the oxygen level. You stay in there about an hour each time
because they have to raise the oxygen level and then lower it at the end so you
are at normal levels sort of like scuba diving. Carol would drop me off in the
morning on her way to work and then one of our good friends would come get me
and take me up again at the end of the day and then Carol would come get me on
her way home from work. I was very blessed to not lose my toes or foot.
My next adventure was when I was 71 I had been suffering with sciatic nerve problems and
they increased so that I decided to have my back operated on November 2011. I
have three discs fused. However I was in the Salt Lake Regional Hospital and
they didn’t take very good of care of me. I aspirated vomit that night. They
thought that I had thrown a clot to my heart or lungs, so they did a ct scan
and other tests and all I can remember about the experience was that they were
running a lot of tests and I was sedated and I had nightmares that there were
gorillas and snakes all around me and coming after me. They found out that I
had not thrown a clot but had pneumonia. I was put in a comma for several days
on a ventilator and I didn’t know what was going on. Andre and a male nurse
that was a member of the church gave me a blessing I feel that was influential
in turning my condition around. When I came to I found out that I had almost
died and I was lucky to be alive. When I got home we found a bed sore both on
my bottom and on the heels of my feet. The bed sores on my feet were because
they did not cushion them and we spent several weeks getting them healed up.
The other one was because they did not roll me enough and give me a bath for 9
days. It ended up being a staph infection pseudomonas, which is very dangerous.
I had to go get a pick line put into my heart from the large vein in my arm.
They gave me antibiotic infusions for 13 days both in the morning and at night
at the Murray Intermountain Cancer center. Once again we had great friends that
stepped in and helped up out. Carol had used up all her time off at work so we
had friends that would take me there in the morning and Carol would take me
there after work. Then in February of
the next year I had a mild stroke. They said it was caused by the high
antibiotics and severe infection that I had.
As you all know just in time for the family-get
together in August 2014 I had heart
surgery. I had gone to the doctor and told him I had experienced a slight pain
in my chest several times in the night over a three month period and when I
walked up the steep hill in front of my house, tightness in my chest. He sent
me in for a stress test on Monday. When they finished they said they wanted to
do a dye test on Thursday but we were leaving for the family get together on
Thursday and I already had the hotels booked. The doctor said he would
rearrange his schedule and do it on Tuesday because we were going to Glacier
Park after the get together at Bear Lake and he did not want me to go until he
saw the results. When they did the dye
test I had a 99%, 97%, 79%, and 75% blockage and the doctor said he would write
a letter to the hotels so we could get our money back but he highly advised
against going on the trip unless I wanted to have a massive heart attack. So I
had a quadruple bypass instead of going
on the trip. You all came down to
see me in the hospital or within a couple of weeks after. That really meant a
lot to me.
My last medical adventure hopefully, is my kidney
stones. December 2013 I passed two, then
in December 2014 we came up to the family Christmas party and I was not able to
pass them. When we got home the doctor said if I had not passed them I needed
to go to the hospital and have a ct scan and see what was going on. I had two
large kidney stones one on each side and they were too big to pass. They went
in and put in stints so that I could pass them because they were blocking off
my kidneys and were threatening to shut them down. When they did the CT scan
they discovered that I had a large amount of stones and they did not want to
break them up with ultra sound because I had such a hard time passing the other
ones. It was determined that they would go in through the back into the kidneys
and take them out, which they did and they put me on a special diet of low salt
and no green vegetables or fruit because they contain oxalic acid and that is
one of the things that causes my kidney stones. So far it has worked.
I feel that my Heavenly Father has blessed me
throughout my life and especially, over the last few years having serious
illnesses and situations that I have been able to find out about in time and
have them treated, and my life has been spared.
As
of December 2016 I am still kicking.
Pictures of Gordon from his wedding to Cherrie until 1991 are in a blog called
Gordon and Cherrie together.
Pictures of Gordon after 1992 are found in the blog called Gordon and Carol together.
