Navy

DON H. LINDSAY

A copy of a partial personal history I found that he wrote, himself, in 1964 & 1965

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This story starts with the date of 8 Oct 1929, when my mother gave birth to a baby boy, me. Mother tells me that my Aunt Clara Sheen was with her and that it took place in the same house I grew up in, in Rupert, Idaho.

Some of the first things I can remember are herding cows with, my big brother, Elro Clive Lindsay, playing in the snow that was over the fence posts, playing with small calves etc.

SCHOOL DAYS:

I started school in the fall of 1936 at the Washington Elementary School in Rupert Idaho, at the age of 6. I stayed 2 years in the first grade. I must have been too young or dumb, anyway, I didn’t settle down to study. All through my schooling, I must not have taken it to serious because my grades were always very low.. I flunked the first grade also. Our teacher was a Miss McLean. She was about 40 years old and just could not handle us. We had a boy named Jimmy Ellette in that class that would bring animals in and put them into an empty desk. They would make a noise, then Miss McLean would lift the lid, and the cat, mouse, or whatever it was would jump out, and the class would laugh at the teacher, but wouldn’t tell who pit it there. One day , in the same class, three of us boys had some cigarettes and was smoking them in the back of the classroom. She caught us and made us go to the front of the class, chew up 2 cigarettes each and swallow them. I didn’t feel too good, but didn’t get sick. One of the other boys, for meanness, asked her if he could eat the rest of the package. This made her cry because she was so mad, and she went out of the class room I do wish I had known then what I know now. She was there to help me learn, and I wouldn’t give her a chance. In my second year of the fifth grade, our neighbor (David Campbell) got me interested in playing the trumpet in band. I bought a trumpet from my spud picking money, $30.15 is what it cost, and I believe Mother had to help me also. The only lessons that I had was taking band at school. The teacher and David would take extra time, off and on, to help me when I needed it. David was really good. He took lessons and was first trumpeter for the last 2 or 3 years of his school. Anyway, I really enjoyed playing in the band and the Pep band the last year, going to the games. The 7^th & 8^th grades were in with the High School on the East end of the building. School was fun there. One time, in fun, I crossed my eyes and , for a joke, every time I looked up, I’d cross them again and I told them all that they were caught. I got a trip to the doctors office to fix them. After I had gone so far, I had to play it all the way, but when the doctor gave me a shot of ether, I think he knew, because he really gave me a big dose. It even made my eyes water. So I never played like that again. Also at this time I started dating, a girl in my own ward (Rupert 2^nd ward). Her name was Carol Orchard. She was very quiet, but was a very good clean girl who was active in the ward, MIA, and Sunday School. I think I owe her a lot of thanks in keeping me out of the wrong group of boys. Some of the kids I use to chase with were sent to the reform school for stealing. I think this girl kept me from being there.

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The next year, (8^th grade), started going to the Y-Dell Dance Hall in Burley. We would more or less go as a group, each paying his own way. Later we made dates and went three couples in a car. The girls I dated were Barbara Lowder and Leola Jensen

We had a lot of fun, and didn’t even stay out very late.

9^th grade (freshman in High School) was a good year. I played trumpet in the band, and also in the Pep Band at the games. The last part of the year, I was used as a substitute bus driver, and the next year I got a route of my own. Also had one for the first 6 weeks of the next year, up to the time when I quit school and started working at the Sugar Factory. I have wished many times that I had finished school. Later, while in the Navy, I did take a test, and passed with a mark of 35, which was the lowest passing grade you could get, to get my High School Equivalency (GED) diploma.

Up to this time, or the time I went into the Navy, I had been very active in Church activities. I served as Deacons Quorum president, also President of the Teachers Quorum, as patrol leader in scouting, also Senior Patrol leader. I became an Eagle Scout, that was with Dad’s help. He worked in the scouting program while I was going through scouting. A Mr. Herbert May was the Scoutmaster some of the time. Scouting has played a big part in my training and the things I have done. I recommend it to all boys who can get in a troop.

The first money that I had was when I was 15 years old. That summer I worked with a Mr. Paul Penrod. I drove the tractor pulling a wire hay baler. He paid me $5.00 a day and furnished dinner and transportation. It seemed that most of my transportation was on the tractor, going from one job to the next. This was a big John Deere A. We worked all over the Rupert, Burley, and Declo areas, and a couple times in Oakley, up against the west hills there, and once or twice we went to Murtaugh.

On my 14^th birthday, Mother went in town (Rupert) with me to get my drivers license. On the way home, I was driving, went around the corner west of our place a little too fast and went down in the borrow pit. It about scared the life out of Mother. Later, in the school year, I got a chauffers license and drove school buses. My sophomore year, the first 6 weeks of school, I didn’t go to school too much and when the exams started, I didn’t know the first thing about them, so I quit school and got me a job at the Sugar Factory. I worked on what they called the pup crew, a crew of 6 men that made small packages of sugar in 5, 10, 24 and 50 pound bags. I worked there the next fall also, until I went to the Navy the last of March. That’s when I enlisted in the Navy.

For the year before I went to the Navy, about every Saturday night, the guys I went with, Alfred (Pal) Packham, Dennis (Dennie) Dixon, Jack (Gook) Gransbury, and a few others, would go to the Y-Dell dance, and would sometimes take girls home, after the dance. I was there on one of these nights, when I saw a good looking blonde, and one of the boys (Gook) said he knew her and her sister. I was determined to dance with her, and that I did. Her name was Marian Frost. She was kind of bashful, and very quiet, but she did talk about a lot of the normal things, weather, school, etc. Then she said she had a sister there and pointed her out, over on the side line, where there was a long line of

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girls, and said, why don’t you dance with her. I did, right after that, and that was Irma, my wife to-be. We met every Saturday night after that, until I left for the service. (Here is where I, Irma, insert a bit. He was too cheap to buy my ticket for the dance. So he always let me buy my own, then would take me to my home after the dance).

I left for the Navy on the 30^th of March 1948. Dad left for his mission to Canada that same day. It hit Mother quite hard, her birthday, and both of us leaving the same day. But she’s a strong woman and I’m glad and very grateful that my Father in Heaven sent me to a home like that for my childhood.

LIFE IN THE USN

This part was written 8 September 1964. On March 30 1948, I left for Salt Lake City from Burley, Idaho, on a Trailways Bus. There were three other boys from Buhl, Idaho, also going to the Navy. We were sent to the U.S. Recruting Station in Salt Lake City for our physical examination, and to be sworn into the Navy, also given my new name, which was 369-15-63. There were nine of us who left for San Diego that night, for boot camp, aboard a Railroad passenger car. The next day we arrived at the training camp. We were marched to the chow hall, then to some empty barracks, where we spent the first night. The next morning at 5:30, up, eat, then to medical for our shots, then to the clothing store for a new set of clothes. What a mess. Some of the men were given shoes half big enough for them and others twice too big. I was lucky, most of mine fit.

The next two weeks was what they call the quaranteen period. That’s when they give you no liberty or passes to go off base. But they kept us pretty busy, up at 5, march, eat, work, march, eat, school, eat, work, bed at 9 p.m. St the end of the third week, we got a pass to go into San Diego on a Saturday afternoon. Every other week after that, for the 6 weeks, we had liberty for weekends. The first weekend the four Idaho boys and the two Salt Lake boys went into town (San Diego) to see around. There were about 20 sailors to every civilian on the streets. What a mess. Then we went to see what the burlesque show was like, and back to the base. For the next three week end liberties, Bill Hale (one of the Salt Lake boys, and I went to visit his aunt, who lived in Vista, California, about 50 miles up the coast. She had an avacodo ranch, also some oranges that were still real green. We slept in the bunk house she had for the pickers each fall. We would go to the show there and once we went to the dance down on the coast (Ocean Side). We were the only two sailors there, the rest were US Marines. After a while, the thing looked like some of them would like to get rid of the sailors, so we beat them to it, and left. I was always willing to fight, if I couldn’t run.

After 8 weeks of boot camp, we were assigned to the different ships and stations. My assignment came in as being the Hospital Corps School, for training. This was Balboa Hospital at San Diego. I was the only one from my ‘company (48-100) that was sent there. This was a 24 week course, with long hours, 7 AM to 5 PM with a half hour off for lunch. We also stood port and starboard watches around the camp, and sometimes we went into the hospital.

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On one of my leaves from the Navy, I became engaged to my girlfriend, Irma, and gave her an engagement ring. She was only 17 and still in High School

After graduation from corps school, I was transferred to the Naval Hospital at Bremerton, Washington. Again, I was the only one to go there from school. I went by train. Life here was quite different from that in school. Ward duty is where 1 nurse and 3 corpsmen are assigned to take care of a ward. (a room of about 30 to 50 patients). The working hours were from 7 AM to 3 PM. I was assigned to “G” ward, which was a EENT ward, where they took care of men with eye, ear, nose or throat problems. The food was prepared by civilian cooks, and we had inner spring mattresses to sleep on. Quite a change. After about 6 weeks I was transferred to “g” ward on nights, that was from 11 PM to 7 AM. This was clean surgery ward. While on this shift, I carried my liberty card with me at all times. While on liberty, we never had to wear our uniforms and had very few Special Watches to stand, only if the day crew and the swing shift could not cover them. This life was very good, in some ways, but very bad in others. Too much time to get in trouble. From this ward (night duty), I was transferred to “H” ward on days (dirty surgery) for about a month, then I went down to the EENT clinic to work with a LT. Commander Henry, in the Eye Department. This work, I liked very much. I even did extra studying. Commander Henry also talked me into getting my high school diploma at that time. He treated me somewhat like a son, really a good doctor. I also worked as an ambulance driver during this time, of which I wrecked on of the new ambulances. What a day, raining wet and just a mess. The call was to the Army Hospital at Tacoma, Washington. Anyway, I lost my government drivers license that day.

Shortly after that, I had the chance to get out of the Navy on an ALNAV 117, which was for the conveniency of the government as I had been helping Mother a little, and they wanted to get out of that, their part of it. So I was discharged the last of February, after 23 months of service.

While in the service at Bremerton, I attended church a few times. They had a small ward. Small, but very friendly. Also I hocked my trumpet for $7.00 for a down payment on a 1936 ford, of which I have regretted very much.

Home from the Navy, I started to work for H.C. Bortz, a German farmer at Rt. 1 Burley, out in the Springdale area, just one mile east of the Frost’s house, which made it very handy, for Irma had already proposed to me (like heck), and I had accepted for a June wedding. I started to work for him on March 1, and Irma and I were married on the 9^th of June 1950, in the Salt Lake Temple. I remember once, after we were married, Alfred Packham, and some of the guys I had chased with, came out to see us. Irma had just made some home made bread, and they ate the whole batch. (2 loaves).

The next fall, I started again at the Sugar Factory, and put in another 6 campaigns. First as a brown sugar cutter, then as a white sugar cutter. During the summers I worked at about anything, spud houses, gas stations (usually for $1.00 an hour), and one year at J.C.Penney’s storesboth at Rupert and at Burley. I also worked 3 years at Farmer’s Equity in Burley. First in the lumber, then in the grain. Then in 1957, Nory Herrera and looked into a job at the AEC, and in October of that same year, after they checked out our clearance, we received a phone call and said to report to work the following Monday. So we moved to Idaho Falls and bought our first real home. Nory and Donna moved to

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Pocatello, but we both worked for Westinghouse Electric and was on the job on October 27^th 1957. I was first a janitor, then a laborer, a warehouseman, then a clerk, and last as a storekeeper. Our home was at 1111 Bannock Ave., in Idaho Falls. We lived there about 7 ½ years, then moved to Basalt onto a 25 acre farm. At this time, we had 7 children, Shirley 14, Randy 11, Dennis 10, Clyde 9, Kirk 7, Debbie 4, Kevin 2.

Now if I can bring to mind, or remember the Church jobs that I’ve had. In Heyburn I was Scout Master and 2^nd asst to the Sunday School Supt. In Unity I was a Sunday School teacher for a very short while. In Idaho Falls, I was Sec in the YMMIA, then Age Group Counselor in MIA, then Superintendent, then Scoutmaster, and last 2^nd and 1^st Counselor to Bishop Bernard Price. At Basalt Ward, I was Scoutmaster and Deacon’s Quorum Advisor.

To all who read this history, I would like to bear my testimony to the fact that only the times we have been active in church work have we been happy as a family. We are able to work more closely and our love is an eternal love. I hope that I will never have to be without a job or church assignment again. I’m so very grateful to my Heavenly Father for showing me the way, and my need for the church. Don Hymas Lindsay