Part 3

On February 27, 1937 Mary and I were married in the Phoenix LDS Third Ward chapel by Mary's uncle, John J. Udall. He was Bishop of the Phoenix LDS 1st Ward and Mayor of the City of Phoenix. My brother Charles was best man and Mary's sister Charlotte was maid of honor. Family members and close friends attended, and it was a short, simple, and very sweet ceremony.

We enjoyed a wedding reception at the home of Elaine Pace, Mary's sister. On that cold February evening the air was clear and the stars shined more brightly than ever as we drove east on Thomas road in our baby blue 1932 Model A Ford Roadster. The red moon rose in front of us so round and big that it filled the whole of the road, making it seem that all we had to do was keep driving east to get to where it was.

We didn't take a honeymoon at this time, but moved into a small apartment on west Adams street. That was our first home, but soon we found a pretty little cottage in northeast Phoenix with a big yard and a place to grow flowers.

Mary continued her work as secretary for Motor Supply Company, with branches in Holbrook, Tucson and Yuma. The company served as auto parts supplier to those areas with little competition.

Working as a district representative for the Liggett-Meyers Tobacco Company, with its head office in San Francisco, I called on wholesale and retail outlets in Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Glendale, Chandler, Buckeye, Tolleson, and occasionally in Prescott. I'd been working for Standard Stations while attending Arizona State Teachers College in Tempe (now Arizona State University) when I first met the district manager for Liggett-Meyers.

Returning often to my station for gasoloine and service, one day the sales manager asked if I'd like to work for his company. He sold me on the idea by pointing out that I would start for more money than beginning teachers were making, reminding me that I still had two years of school to complete before I'd be a licensed teacher. The idea of good pay, regular raises, health insurance and a retirement plan had a lot to do with my decision. Signing on with Liggett-Meyers seemed the right thing to do at the time.

It did not take long however before I was unhappy with the real world of a tobacco salesman. Although I continued to carry out my duties in an acceptable manner, my thoughts were often centered on finding another means of making a living. I spent a lot of time asking questions about farming opportunities whenever I was in Buckeye, Chandler, Glendale or other valley farming communities.

Farming interested me far more than other possibilities since I had grown up knowing the sense of freedom from restraint that comes with being a farmer. More and more I despised the petty regulations that my sales job imposed. To top it off when I took the job I had no idea that something of a moral issue would be involved. However my wife being a Mormon girl from a staunch Mormon family brought that issue to the front.

All of us were products of our upbringing and backgrounds, pressured and molded by the uncertainties of our distressed economic environment. In our local community as well as throughout the country a feeling of having come to a dead end permeated our lives. Along with that there was fear - deep seated and largely unspoken - that something bad was impending. Actions and attitudes of individuals as well as society at large reflected those feelings. We all had little means at our disposal other than simply finding a way to live.

Suspicion, bickering, contesting for every crumb and any kind of job was just the way things were. If you had a job you hung on to it by whatever means necessary, devious, honest, or otherwise - it made no difference. I put up a good front while a tobacco salesman, but doing less than I actually could have - just enough to stay with a job that I hoped one day soon to rid myself of.

Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were marching their troops while threatening each other and the world around them with destruction. All the while our politicians made speeches assuring us that we had fought our last war for permanent peace, and that under no circumstances would we become involved in Europe's quarrels. Nevertheless as a British ally we converted factory after factory to war production supplying the needs of our English cousins.

Young people, in spite of flowery assurances to the contrary, deeply believed the time was fast approaching when America would be drawn into the war and they'd be drafted and sent overseas, if for no other reason than to save Britain from invasion.

The day came when my mind was made up. I turned in my company car and equipment and put that despised job behind me, not yet sure what I'd do next. This was soon after George was born. Following leads on new work and some tentative starts, I finally went to California to visit my Hodge cousins in Bakersfield. They were in construction and I hoped to find work with there.

While awaiting a job opening in Bakersfield I traveled to Pasadena to visit yet another Hodge cousin who worked as a roofing contractor. However there were no openings on his crew, so each day I read newspaper ads looking for work opportunities. Then one day I found an ad for a ranch foreman's position, so I wrote a letter inquiring after the job and telling about myself.