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Ferrel E West - 10/24/2005

Class of 1936

He was born in Lindon, Utah to Lester Gay and Margaret Foutz Walker West.

He married Nelda Maria Newren on June 28, 1936. They are the parents of seven children, 24 grandchildren, 44 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his wife; his parents, six brothers: Leo, Burnell, Ray, Rulon, Shelby and Julian, abd one sister, Phyllis Dixon.

He was survived by his children, Dixie (Gary) Oakden, Judith (K.D.) Schwiermann, Linda (Martin) Yack, Cliff (Claudia) West, Mary (Jerry) Sandberg, Lester (Ester) West, Becky (Gordy) Wilde, sisters, Belva Adams and Delores Wendte and sister-in-law, Leora West.

I'm grateful that I was born and raised in a good LDS family consisting of my father, Lester Gay West, and my mother Margaret Walker West. My brothers are Leo, Burnell, Ray, Rulon, Shelby, then me-Farrel; and my sisters Phyllis and Belva, then brother Julian, then the youngest sister Dolores.

I was born December 5, 1916, in Lindon, Utah. I had the blessings of being raised on a farm and my dad taught by example that we should work hard, and do a good days' work for whomever we worked. Mother tells of the deep snows of the winter of 1916--two to three feel all winter long. However, my first memory of anyone was when my uncle Archie West, came home from World War 1 in the fall of 1919. iw as on the porch and he called as he opened the gate. He looked different from other men; he was still in uniform as a soldier.

I had a good childhood. We, as a family, always had plenty to eat, clothers to wear, a place to live (anice home) but very little money. However, most of the families around us were in the same boat. When I was about 5 years old (during the summer we raised sugar beets, apples, berries, etc.) I thinned sugar beets and weeded them right along with dad and my 5 older brothers. Since I ahd no sisters older than I, I also helped mother wash dishes, scrub floors and sweep and dust.

In 1918, Dad bought a big home down on the highway across from Uncle Ben Walker and bishop Cullimore (the father of James Cullimore-one of our general authorities). When I was 6 or 7 years old, it was my job to herd the cows through the spring and sumer. We had several head and one of them was a big Holstein. In a short time, I had trained her to let me ride her and she would follow along back of the other cows. I also had a dog for company, and mother always fixed me a big lunch. I would drive the cows about one and a half miles to the foothils where Dad owned some ground and let the cattle eat. In the late spring, I would take a stick and dig up sego lily bulbs and eat the.

During the summer, I would swim in the Murdock Canal with a lot of my friends. I was a pretty good swimmer by the time I was 6 years old. We spent a great deal of time in the canal. Just before I was seven years old, I got diphtheria. I woke up early one morning, and was having difficulty breathing. I called mother, who called Doctor Linebaugh. he came out and checked me over, then told mother I had diphtheria-one of the worst cases he had seen. My father was working in Idaho at the time building a power line for Utah Power. i asked mother if she would have dad come home and give me a blessing, so I could get well. She had dad come home, I was blessed and in several weeks, I was learning how to walk again. Grandma Walker stayed with me for a few days. One day, when there was a lot of noise going on, Grandma said, "You boys are giving Farrel a headache." Then she turned to me and said, "You have a headache, don't you Farrel?" I asked her, "What is a headache?" Now I know that she is the one who had a headache.

I am so grateful for my parents and their parents and all my brothers and sisters and lots of wonderful cousins, aunts, and uncles. On my first day outside, after my illness, I felt so good that I ran down the walk, out the gate and jumped the ditch. However, I fell backwards in the water and boy was my mother upset with me. You see, the doctor had told mother that I had gotten diphtheria because of my swimming so much. When she told me that, then I became afraid of the water and it was hard for me to learn to swim again.

At about this same age, Dad had a lot of chickens. I would feed and water them and gather eggs--sometimes as many as 3-4 dozen per day. When gathering the eggs, I would feel under the hend and occasionally she would pick at my hand. Then if there were no eggs under her, I would push down on her back and she would lay an egg for me. Dad took the roossters and caponized them. Then he took them out to uncle John Johnson's coops.

Quite often I would rollerskate out to uncle John's in Orem, put the chickens to roost (some were so big 8-10 pounds, that I carried them up to roost) then my cousin, Helen would pop popcorn or make candy and we'd play games. To this day she is my favorite girl cousin. I remember that during that time, a lot of our chickens were stolen. At one of the ward's old folks dinner, a little play was given and in it, it showed my dad going out to the chicken coop. He had heard a noise, so he went into the coop. He couldn't see anything, so he said, "Who is here?" someone said, "Nobody but us chickens." Dad said, "Oh, well okay, " and went back to bed.

I was almost 7 years old when I started school, so my schooling came easy for me. Iwas also a good athlete. When we would ask our grade school teachers to come play kick the can, or racing games, it was always yes, if Farrel will be on my side. When I was in the 6th grade n Lindon, my brother Burnell, taught the 6th grade at Lincoln (in Orem). They had a school tournament with Vineyard where one of my cousins taught the 6th grade. Burnell had me visit his school and enter the track meet. I won 1st place in the 60 yard dash, in the high jump, the broad jump, then was awarded first place in the pole vault, as we didn't have time to finish. I won 4 first place ribbons that day.

I also remember my first vacation. It was the summer of 1919 or 1920. Dad, mother, Rulon, Shelby and I went out to Strawberry Lake in a covered wagon and when I got tired of riding, my brothers would get out with me and walk behind the wagon. We spent 2 weeks there fishing and hunting. Dad was an excellent hunter and fisherman. One day while hunting grouse, he shot 2. I was watching beside hi. I said, "I see the 1st one." Dad told me to go pick it up. I ran over and got it, then he told me where the other one was. I went over and picked it up, carried them over to dad, and when I started to hand them over, one of them flew right out of my hand. Dad said, "I guess he was only stunned."

While growing up, I tried about everything there was to try; like getting deathly sick on hard cider and beer. i tried smoking, but couldn't roll a cigarette, so that didn't stay with me. I got my first shotgun (410 gauge) when I was 12 and my brothers took me pheasant hunting along with some of their friends. When we started in a long line to drive, I was between my oldest brother and one of his friends. The first rooster that came up next to us, I got it. Then I got the second one. Before the day was done, I had been pushed clear to the end of the line, because I was much faster to shoot than the rest. I turned out to be a pretty fair shot with a shotgun rifle, and a 22 riftle. I always got what I hunted for.

If I had been born 50 years earlier, I'd probably have been an Indian fighter aor maybe a prospector, or cowboy. I really love the outdoors. Now I kind of wish I had gone to collge and become a geologist or a forest ranger. Instead I became a rancher, logger, contractor or carpenter. Whatever I did for a living, I enjoyed it asl long as it was outside. In my hight school years, I contracted my work wherever I could. Before I was 12 years old, I could make 600 bushels boxes for apples in one day. I got three fourths of one cent per box, so I would get $4.50 per day. Hired men were only getting $1.50 per day. I would pick fruit for 5 cents per bushel. I could pick 100-125 boxes per day in a good long day.

Doing beets we got $5.50 per acre to block and thin. I got so I could do an acre in less than 7 hours. In sports in hight school, I played basketball in my sophomore and junior years, and was just average. Intrack I ran the 100 yard dash and was never defeated in any competitions. i could run the 100 yards in 10 seconds. I could broad jum 22 feet, but the sport I really loved was tennis. I won the school district championship in the singles division. Also my partner, Rex Gourley, and I won the doubles. I went to the state playoffs and took 3rd place. I am sure that these abilities came from my father as he was a good athlete in his time also.

I graduated from seminary when I was a junior in high school. then the next winter at Christmas time, 4 of us fellows decided to go on a bumming trip. We went to Los Angeles, down the coast and through the Imperial Valley and over into Old Mexico. We stayed amonth, looked for work, but had no luck, so we came home. To me, it was a real experience to see so much country. We bought gas for 10 cents a gallon--quite often filling our tank for a dollar. We had a lot of fun on that trip, but were glad to get home. I waorked at home that winter, then decided to go back and finish high school. I went that winter for one month, then graduated in 1936.

I had a chance to go to college at Logan. However, I met a very special girl on a blind date in Provo with my cousin, Rex Gourley. He introduced me to a Nelda Newren, who was going to BYU at the time. In the sprin of 1936, my parents wanted me to go to college at Logan, so I went up in February, and stayed with Shelby and Grace, who had just married. After two weeks, I decided college was not for me, so I went home and got a job working for the state road commission. I was sent back to Logan, repairing the road between Logan and Smithfield, then out to Vernal, then over to Price and over to Emery.

In my spare time, Nelda and I went to Farmington, Utah on June 28, 1936 and were married. We took her sister, Beverly, and my friend, Bill Lewis, and they wer eour witnesses. For our honeymoon, we spent several days camping up Provo canyon. We had planned on getting married in September, when Nelda's mother came back from her vacation to Great Falls, Montana. when she left, we decided to elope--and we did. Mother Newren was really unhappy with us for a period of several months, but she finally forgave us.

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