Life Story of Ruth Elizabeth Proctor-Part Two

Written by

Ruth Elizabeth Proctor Cook

Ruth Elizabeth Proctor

When we were in Conrad, we didn't live too far from Canada, so as a family we had a vacation in Canada.  The folks didn't have very much money but somehow we always went on a vacation somewhere in the summertime.  We went camping a lot and would get around a bonfire at night and sing songs.  We had a lot of love in our family.

We went to Tooele, Utah, from Conrad.  Dad lost his job as beet field man.  So we loaded everything we could in our car and a trailer and started for Tooele.  We came over the Continental Divide with our furniture in a trailer being pulled by a blue Chevy which we were riding in and also packed to the hilt.  Many times Dad would have to stop the car.  We would all jump out and put rocks behind the tires so it wouldn't roll.  Then we would have to wait until the car cooled off before we could go any farther.  We all pitched in and it was a fun trip we had coming over the Divide.

When we reached Tooele, the folks found a house to rent on 357 South First West. 

Home on 375 South First West

It was a large red brick house.  In the back it had a grape arbor over a small building that kind of connected on to the house.  Us kids slept in it in the summer time and we stored things in it in the winter.  It had two big pine trees on the lawn and another large tree, whose branches spread way out.  What super good time we had on that lawn in the summer.  I walked to the school building down on Vine Street.  It was called Tooele Central School.  We lived about 4 1/2 blocks from school going straight north.  The blocks in Tooele were very long.  I went from grade school to Tooele Jr. High.  We had 7th, 8th and 9th in the Jr. High.  It was connected on the north end of the high school.  I took Seminary in Jr. high and graduated from it.  I also took Seminary in high school and graduated from it.  I took a business course in high school.  My teacher, Mr. Wood, was a good teacher.  One year we went to Provo, Utah, for a contest, We left Tooele early in the morning in a large bus.  What a fun time we had there and going and coming home on the bus.  I can remember my Seminary teacher, Mr. Bently.  He was a very humble man.  I would have learned more about the gospel if I had listened more; I can sure see that now.  I had fun in high school.  We sure did some dumb things like making rotten egg gas and putting it in different places so it went through both the jr. and high school.  School was dismissed very early that day.  Mr. Steele, the principal, questioned every one of us, but no one said anything so we all got to graduate.  We all thought it was very funny at the time because we all go out of school for that day and the next.  I graduated from Tooele High School in May 1937. 

Graduation Day May 1937 

Ruth' with her parents George Annie Proctor
High School Graduation

Ruth Graduation Day

I sure had some neat friends then and after school.  Some of them were: Katherine Spray (Mrs. Herb Lohse) now deceased, Winnifred Black (Mrs. Carl Anderson) now deceased, Bernice Mills (Theral McArthur) who are presently living in Cedar City, Utah.  We were planning to meet when they held our class reunions and that never panned out, though I did get to the 50th reunion held in June 1987.  We had brunch at Harold Barlow's home.  He was our student body president.  Many were there and my how we had all changed.  We even had one of our teachers there, Max Gowns.  He always wanted to wear western clothes to school when he taught and the school board frowned on it, but he certainly had them on that day.  He was a good teacher.  We took a bus and went sightseeing around Tooele.  It had changed quite a bit.  The high school takes in four blocks, has a new football field and a swimming pool.  When I took swimming in Tooele it was an outdoor pool with cold water. That night we went to dinner at a swanky cafe in Tooele that was build up on the south end of Main Street.  We had pictures taken and a fun evening for all who attended.  In the morning when we met, they pinned name tags on us as our names were when we went to school.  We had a silent prayer for our classmates who didn't come home from the war they were in in 1942.  There were quite a few of us who had lost our partners in this life.  But all in all it was a fun time.

Ruth and her sisters, Atha, Annie and Bessie

While living in Tooele, I was going with a young man named Elmer Searle.  My folks thought things were getting to serious, which they were, as were planning on getting married shortly after I got out of school.  He was a year older than I.  His birthday was 11 November.  So my folks sent me up to live with my sister Bessie Butt.  They lived just out of Ogden, Utah in a little place called Marriott.  What a fun summer I had there.  I picked beans.  We would get up at 4:00 a.m. and try to get all done before it got too hot.  One day I wore a nylon blouse and got a super sunburn.  Bessie had to take me to the doctor and I had to sleep on my stomach for a month.  I also picked cherries.  They used cherry pickers.  I ate so many cherries that I never bothered to eat any the rest of the time we picked.  You had to make good and sure you left the stems on them or you got docked.  Bessie's health wasn't the best, so they had Anna Margaret Johnson (Mrs. Don Berrett) from Roberts, Idaho, came and work for them.  They used to live in Roberts.  Lavelle, Bessie's husband, was the mailman on the route for the Post office.  The doctor told them Bessie needed to get in a milder climate so they moved to Marriott where he worked for the post office there.  I met the neatest gut there.  His name was Kenneth DeFrize.  He would take me dancing to a dance hall they had in Ogden, the White City.  It had mirrors that went from the ceiling to the floor.  They also had a dance floor out under the stars.  It was fun to dance there.  I met Kenneth at church there.  They had a neat ward and everyone was so friendly.  We just seemed to hit it off.  Elmer wrote to me and I to him but!!!  I am quite sure that Bessie wrote to my folks in Tooele and then to my sister, Atha Staker in Roberts, Idaho, for lo and behold here comes Opal and Atha from Roberts.  They visited for awhile and then said they were going to take Anna Margaret back to her home in Roberts, how would I like to come and visit with them for awhile.  I was planning on going to BYU in the fall as my sister, Carol, was going to put me through school.  I think between all of them, they decided I shouldn't get so serious with anyone.  But I did  write to Tooele and ask my folks about going to Roberts and staying with Atha.  They said go ahead and have fun.

Atha and Ruth

On our way to Roberts, they didn't have any freeways, I can remember asking Opal how much longer, and he would answer just over the next hill.  I think we must have gone over 15 hills.  It was dark when we got there.  They took Anna Margaret to her home.  Atha and Opal lived on the east side of the tracks in a red brick home with a long front screened in porch.  Roberts consisted of two stores, Dutson's and Gibson's; two pool halls, one with a dance hall above where we went to many good dances; a hotel with a bar; two service stations; a lumber yard; a drug store; a post office; and a dilapidated theater.  I was all for catching the next bus that came through going south to Tooele.  Atha said, "Oh come on and give it a try.  Go to church and you'll meet lots of good kids."  I went to church the first Sunday.  I only knew Anna Margaret, but I stayed and went the next Sunday. 

At Opal and Atha's home in Roberts
Back: Bessie Proctor Butt, Atha Proctor Staker, Ardis Butt, Ruth Proctor, Opal Staker
Front: Lavelle Butt, Jay Staker, Dick Staker, Vernell Butt

Vergil Cook, Lynn Christensen, Woodrow Welling, Wally Robinson
Anna Margaret Johnson, Ruth, Ruth Berrett, Esther Cottle

That afternoon Dorothy Berrett (Mrs. Marden Wells) had a dinner party.  She invited me, Anna Margaret, Ester Cottle, Vergil Cook, Lynn Christensen, Woodrow Welling, and Wally Robinson.  We had a lot of fun.  Pictures were taken (I have one).  When it was time to go home, Vergil asked if I would go home with him.  I said ok.  He also took Anna Margaret and Lynn Christensen home, as Lynn had asked Anna Margaret to go home with him and he had come with Vergil in Cook's car.  We got to Anna's home and Lynn took her to the door.  Then we took Lynn home.  We got back to where I was staying with the Staker's and we talked for awhile.  I told Vergil I was going back to Utah because there wasn't much use staying in Roberts.  He asked me to stay another couple of weeks and go to church with him next Sunday.  I told him I would think it over.  I did go to church with him and I was beginning to have fun.  We would go to Liddy Hot springs out by Dubois.  They had a swimming pool and a dance floor.  So we would dance for awhile and then rent swimming suits and swim.  We also went dancing at Wandmere, a dance hall south of Idaho Falls.  What fun we had there. 

Ruth and Vergil

One night we went there dancing and then decided to go to Lava Hot Springs swimming.  I got back to Staker's about 6:00 a.m.  They weren't very happy with me.  At that time I was working in Dutson's store where Opal was running it, as the owners Rollo and Thelma Dutson were on a mission in Hawaii.  I started to go into where I slept and Opal said, "Ruth, you are to be to work this morning at 8:00 a.m."  I told Opal my shift didn't start until 10:00 and he told me that it had been changed and I had better be there on time.  I was there on time.  He put me in the back part bagging candy.  I almost went to sleep a few times but he made sure I didn't for he kept coming back and checking on me.  When Atha came to work, I asked her why Opal was so hard on me and she told me that I had scared them to death because they didn't know where I was or what had happened.  I told them both that night I was sorry and I didn't even eat any supper, I went to bed as soon as I could.  Vergil told me his dad met them handed a milk pail to him and Cleo.  They milked the cows, did all the chores, had breakfast, changed their clothes and went to work in the fields.  Verla, Lila, and Leora were with us, and they helped in the house and their dad made them go to work in the fields.  We didn't try that trick any more.  Gee it was a fun night, though none of us realized how we would frighten people.

Ruth and Vergil