Interview with Claude Merlin Thacker

Claude Merlin Thacker was interviewed on May 5, 1969 in , County, by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of Voices of Remembrance Foundation. He related his personal history of living in various parts of , and .

FH:What is your full name?

CT:[My name is] Claude Merlin Thacker.

FH:[What] is your birth date?

CT:[I was born] May 13, 1902.

FH:[Where were you] born?

CT:I was born in [Milbourne] .

FH:[What was] your father’s name?

CT:My father’s name was 00:01:00Fredrick Albert Thacker.

FH:[What was] your mother’s [full] name?

CT:My mother’s name was Sarah Jane (Price) [Thacker].

FH:What do you remember from your early childhood?

CT:[My earliest memory] I was standing to the side of the table looking over the top of the table which belonged to a family of Moulton’s. 00:02:00This lady, [Isabel Thacker, who] brought me to her home was a sister to my father. I was three years old at the time.

FH:How did it happen that you were brought to this home?

CT:My mother passed away when I was two and a half years old and this lady took me to her home to care [for] me.

FH:Was she your aunt?

CT:Yes.

FH:Do you remember any more about [your] early years?

CT:I remember a little incident that happened at the 00:03:00time I was about five years old. [It] led me to believe that my aunt and her husband tried to take care of me in the proper way. One day I was out in the yard playing around and my uncle was repairing some fence in the yard. He had an older son [who] was quite a hand at pestering and teasing me. He was giving me a bad time. I remember Uncle John [Moulton] threw a claw hammer at him 00:04:00because he would not mind him. He missed him as luck would have it. What the boy was doing was provoking. Later on, I could see why [my uncle] was actually justified in a way. Of course, he very easily could have done some damage to the boy.

I had the measles [while] I was living there with these people. 00:05:00It was a peculiar [situation] in my life. I remember my aunt putting me in the bedroom with one of her daughters [who] was about a year older than I was. We were about four or five years old. I was reading a nursery book that she [found] for us to amuse us while we were getting [over] our measles. This girl 00:06:00had an influence on me. She was a very talented girl with music and comedy. She had an older sister [who] was the same way. Her sister [who] was older had learned to play the piano. She used to sit me on the stool [at] the piano and teach me little songs and prepare me for activities in Sunday school and [The] Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and] performing on the stage. This was something that helped me 00:07:00in later years. She had two children and passed away while she was a young woman. The younger girl is still alive. The older girl, the one that used to teach me for these performances, was 00:08:00Devce Moulton. The younger sister was Ethel [Moulton].

Later, Ethel Moulton used to take an active part in [our] family reunions. It was most always comedy or playing the piano. I did the same [and] usually performed. I tried to take part in the family reunions. 00:09:00While our family was growing up we liked to take part in the reunions. Most of [my family] liked to take part in any kind of performance. All of our family was quite talented in music. We never did have much. We never did have to raise 00:10:00much persuasion. It seemed like most of our family liked to take it on their own to perform.

FH:What about your [education]?

CT:I will mention one other thing while I was living with these people. While I was living with the Moultons, my grandfather [William Thacker] on my father’s side was living there with the Moultons. His daughter had taken the responsibility [of] looking after him. He was well along in years. I would like to tell an incident that happened while I was living there. I was on my way home 00:11:00from school one day. I was somewhere between eight and nine years old. My grandfather was ninety [years old]. I came upon him walking down the sidewalk on his way home. I bantered him for a race. He outran me for a half a block!. [Laughter] This is an incident that, in later years, meant a lot to me and to my family. 00:12:00[When] he was converted to the church [as] a young man, [he] was told in his patriarchal blessing that if he would live The Word of Wisdom he would never taste of death. When he was ninety-two years old, by living The Word of Wisdom strictly, he 00:13:00passed away in his sleep during the night and never moved a blanket. That is why he was able to outrun me at that age — because he lived The Word of Wisdom strictly.

At nine years old I was taken away from this family, [the Moulton’s], and moved to . My older brothers and sisters decided they wanted to take care of me. I was moved out to . 00:14:00I spent five years of my life out there at a time when they were homesteading in that particular area. It was new country. It was not a very pleasant five years. I had quite a hard life at that time.

FH:Was this a frontier life?

CT:Yes. It was a frontier life. [Laughter] It was a hard struggle because it was hard for my people to make a living at that time.

FH:Did this mean you had to do a lot of work and help them?

CT:Yes. That is really what I 00:15:00had to do, toe the mark, as far as work was concerned. After I had spent five years in , I left there and went to Vernal [ ] . I spent a little time in and around Vernal. Two of my brothers, [Frederick] Lamar and Leslie [Price Thacker] had moved over into that area 00:16:00[with] a sister [Sarah Louise] just older than I. I moved [to] the Vernal country in about 1916. I finished out one year of high school along with about three years in the grade school at Vernal.

During this period, the influenza epidemic hit the for the first time in 1917. I remember 00:17:00an older friend of ours and I used to go out and take care of the sick people in the community [who] were affected with this disease. There were a lot of people [the] first year that lost their lives. I remember putting a disinfected cloth over my mouth and nose to prevent me from catching the influenza. I would take care of the outside chores and my friend would go in and look after the people [who] were down with the sickness. We spent a lot of time that winter. They shut the schools down and I had plenty of time and 00:18:00so did he. It seemed like we spent about half of the winter administering to the sick.

FH:That was wonderful. Not many people would be willing [to do that]. They would be afraid.

CT:They were and it was very difficult for people [who] were sick [with] this flu to get help. With this cloth over our mouth and nose we found it was a preventative so we were not afraid to go and help them. 00:19:00I had quite a hard time at that time. One of my brothers, [who] was helping to support me and my sister, was taken into the [military] service. It about wrecked my and my sister’s [education]. It cut off [my education] because World War I came on and I was too young to go into the service, but I was old enough if I had had a little backing, a little help, I could have gone on with [my] education. 00:20:00It seems like times were just hard enough for people of [my] age [so] that it was hard to make enough money during the summer to keep us in school.

FH:Did you enjoy school?

CT:Yes, I enjoyed school. I was quite talented with arithmetic and spelling. We used to have spelling contests often in school. It seemed like most of the time I was among the last of them, in my class, to go down in the spelling contests. Quite often, I was the last to stand in my seat and spell. 00:21:00FH:Was your early life an adventure all the way through?

CT:Yes. My whole life has been pretty much of an adventure. After I moved from Vernal I moved over to what they call at the present time Altamont []. That was in the . I spent several years there living with my oldest brother, LeRoy Thacker. He was farming at the time. Then I met my wife [Hilda Grace (Fullmer) Thacker] and we were married [October 27, 1924 in] what 00:22:00was called at that time, [] . We settled down at .

FH:Tell about your courtship.

CT:It was a good deal on the order of what my wife told you yesterday. We used to go out 00:23:00to the dances with my brother, LeRoy, and his wife, Wealtha, who played for the dances. My brother played the violin and his wife played a guitar or a piano. We would go along with them to the dances. We used to enjoy dancing. It seemed about the only kind of recreation there was in that part of the country at that time. There was [the Uintah and Ouray] Indian Reservation in that area and they had opened up access ground for homesteading. 00:24:00It was really pioneering. It was a pioneering period that I fell into, about like what I had gone through out in . Our main amusement was dancing. We both took part in the church activities and sang with the choir. 00:25:00FH:Were you active in [the] church in your growing up years?

CT:Pretty much.

FH:Did you attend all the organizations?

CT:Yes. It seemed like it took everybody [who] belonged to the church to carry on the church responsibilities because it was a hard struggle at that time to build buildings to carry on the church work and provide a place to hold meetings. In our family we were all active 00:26:00in the church.

FH:Were you active in your Priesthood Quorums?

CT:Yes. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] FH:What do you remember about your father?

CT:In his early years before he was married, my father was a blacksmith. That is the trade that he was taught. He was a pioneer in the []. He was born and raised there. His father, [William Thacker, moved] there and was actually a pioneer from when he was a young man. 00:27:00He was a nail maker. He made a lot of the nails that went into the temples, the [] and I suppose the St. George Temple as well. That was his profession and he spent a lot of his time with the church, in that capacity, making square nails. My father more or less took up this trade and it developed as times changed into what they called a general blacksmith. He did a good deal of welding and shoeing [of] horses and that kind of work. 00:28:00His shoulder went bad on him due to this heavy work. He diverted his occupation over to carpenter work which he felt would be easier physically with his health. In this period of [his] life, while he was raising his family, he fell from a scaffold about twenty feet high and lit on the back of his neck. 00:29:00It wrecked a nerve that had some control over the brain in some way. He used to take spells [of] wandering due to the effects of this [fall]. It affected him very much with his work and [in] his family affairs.

Later on, he developed sugar diabetes. He lived with my wife and me for several years. He lived in our house by himself. We tried to help him, look after him and take care of him. 00:30:00From the results of sugar diabetes, he lost a leg which they had to take off due to gangrene setting in. He did not live long after this happened 00:31:00and passed away. In his earlier life, his mind was in such a condition that he was actually quite a responsibility [for] his family to look after him. As far as training is concerned [from] my parents, I did not receive much. I had to get a lot of my [education] from other sources. I did help him and he helped me a little with a few jobs in the carpenter line. That gave me a little training that helped to start me off 00:32:00in that capacity.

FH:Do you remember your mother?

CT:No. I do not even remember what she looked like or anything.

FH:Do you remember her mother and father?

CT:Yes. I remember her mother and her father. Their name was Price. His name was George [James] Price. He was a very fleshy man at the time I knew him [and] quite old. He lived in [ ] . He was a very religious man. On a Sunday morning his wife [Ann (Powell) Price] would prepare the bread for the sacrament. He would take this bread 00:33:00up to the Sunday school or church. He worked as [a] bishop in the work that he did in other organizations of the church for about fifty years as I recall. [END OF RECORDING ONE.] CT:He packed this bread for sacrament every Sunday. I thought that was quite a revelation because, at that time, the bread that [was used] for sacrament 00:34:00had to be made in the home. They always managed to prepare bread for the sacrament on a Sunday in that way.

FH:How many children did your father and mother have?

CT:My father and mother had eight [nine children] including myself. There were four girls and four boys.

FH:Would you name them?

CT:The oldest boy was LeRoy [Thacker]. The oldest girl, [Thacker], was the oldest [child] in the family. Lily was the second [child]. Rachel [Ann Thacker] was the third [child]. 00:35:00Charlotte [Hazel Thacker]azel Thacker] was the fourth one [in] the family. Then there were two boys, [Frederick] Lamar and Leslie [Price Thacker]. A sister just older than me was Sarah [Louise Thacker].

FH:Were you the youngest?

CT:I was the youngest.

FH:What has happened to those eight children? Are any of them still alive?

CT:Rachel married a man from by the name of Hurdsman. She passed away about five years ago. The rest of the family is still alive. We have one, my oldest sister, [who] is past eighty [years of age].

FH:This is quite remarkable for them all to be alive this long.

CT:Yes, it is. 00:36:00As far as our health is concerned, I am in the worst condition of any of them. That is peculiar being the youngest one of the family. A year ago I spent ten days in the LDS [Latter Day Saints] Hospital [in , ] with an illness. The [doctor] was a chest and throat specialist and he said that my ailment was caused by dust. [Because of] the conditions that I worked under 00:37:00in my every-day work, I was taking too much dust into my system. Then, along with that, I smoked cigarettes. The tar from the paper [of] the cigarettes and from the tobacco seemed like it helped to seal dust into my lung cells to the extent that it wrecked the cells in my lungs and the oxygen valves. That is 00:38:00why I am in the condition I am today. I have worked with cement a good deal [and getting] a lot of the dust from the cement. My work is with power tools which throw off a lot of dust. Even with farming I ate a considerable amount of dust. Everything that I turned my hand to, I [inhaled] the dust from it.

FH:It would not have been so serious if it had not been for that tar from the cigarettes.

CT:If I had not used the cigarettes I probably would have lasted years longer before my health broke down. 00:39:00It is possible that if I had not used the cigarettes I never would have had this ailment. It is possible that the tar from the cigarettes was just the thing needed to seal this dust in my cells of my lungs and hold it there so it would not release.

FH:You stand as a living testimony to your descendants about what to do concerning this.

CT:That is right.

FH:Have you had times in your life when you have had prayers answered or administrations [that] have been effective? Do you have a lot of faith in the church?

CT:Yes. 00:40:00About two years before this ailment came on, I contracted the influenza which I have had every year since 1918. I have never missed a year that I did not have the flu. This year it was quite severe. I felt like I had to throw away this cigarette habit. I do not know why this 00:41:00premonition came on. I went to bed Friday night and Saturday I was so ill that I did not feel like getting out of bed. I had my wife call the doctor. He told her to bring me over to the office which was just a short way [from our house]. We went over to his office [and] he examined me. He said, “You go back home. You have pneumonia.” I had been working out in Antelope [ , ] constructing a big building for one of my nephews. It was 00:42:00[during] the cold weather which brought this [illness] on. I went back home and went to bed. I decided, that inasmuch as I had tried to quit smoking so many times, it seemed like I could not quit without some help. I called one of my sons-in-law [Brent Spaulding] who was an elder in the church. [He] had spent two years on a [LDS] mission. At the time he was going to BYU [ ] in []. 00:43:00I asked my wife to call him and have him come — that I needed him. So he came up. He asked the bishop’s counselor, who was a very good friend of mine who had helped me administer previous, to help him. My youngest son [] was sixteen [years old] at the time. I invited him to 00:44:00stand in with him while they administered to me. He did [and] from that time on I have never craved a cigarette. [Emotional] FH:The Lord must have removed the desire. Had you tried to quit [earlier]?

CT:Yes. I had tried many times to quit. I just did not have the guts to quit. I decided that 00:45:00the Priesthood was my last resort. I knew that if I asked him to come in and help me that I could quit. I felt that way.

FH:That was a wonderful blessing. 00:46:00When you were growing up did you ever do anything just for fun?

CT:I used to dance when I was [very] young. We started dancing in the church. The church encouraged dancing when we were little [children]. I followed it on through. I always did enjoy dancing very much. We had good instructors who would have to teach us the proper way to conduct 00:47:00ourselves while we were dancing. It has been a joy to me up until recent years. I am not able to dance anymore. It surely was a lot of enjoyment to be able to take part in this way. The singing activity is the same [way]. I have really enjoyed music all my life 00:48:00and the activities I performed through music.

I took a part in wrestling and boxing [for] athletic activity. I was light for that kind of performance, but I seemed to be of an athletic build which, when properly trained, I was able to take care of myself with older and larger boys. 00:49:00During my younger years [in] grade school, I had the experience of these workouts with the boys of my grade. I did not mind it. I really enjoyed it to a certain extent. The people I lived with did not enjoy it much because I lost part of my clothes. [Laughter]. But I really got quite a kick out of it myself. It was hard on the clothing. [Laughter] 00:50:00[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] FH:Did you like to read?

CT:I liked to read when I was younger — especially [when I was about] twelve [years old]. After we were married, I did quite a lot of reading.

FH:What type of reading [do you enjoy]?

CT:Mostly books [by] Zane Grey, good clean novels. My wife and I never 00:51:00did go much for novels which were of a foul nature. We tried to keep them out of our home as much as we could. We did enjoy good books along with religious works and religious books.

FH:When you decided this girl was the right one, how did you finally get this worked out together?

CT:We went together for about two and a half years. We finally decided that 00:52:00we were meant for each other, that we should take a chance on getting married. It seems to me, at that time, that our livelihood was our biggest problem. We [came] to the point where we felt like we could do better [for] ourselves if we were married and living by ourselves in that respect. That is how this came about.

I rented some Indian [land] leases at at the time. 00:53:00I bought two twenty-acre places from various sources and I [also] leased Indian property. The [Great] Depression came on just about the time we commenced [to] getting on our feet a little bit. It flattened us out financially. I had to go to work with my hands to keep the farm going to provide for my family. It was getting to where my family was starting to grow and it was costing us more to live every 00:54:00year. I went to work as a carpenter. I [had] jobs around the neighborhood there. I built up a trade [from] what experience I could get on the job. I built myself up a trade in house construction. General contracting is where it finally wound up [to be and] I gradually worked into it. 00:55:00FH:Where did you live when you married? How long was it before your children started coming?

CT:It was four and a half years from the time we were married until our first child was born, a girl.

FH:How many children did you have altogether?

CT:We had eleven [children]. About this time we had [become] financially [secure] to where we were able to start the construction of a home. It was a small home with two rooms. It was a good warm 00:56:00home and it answered for our [inaudible]. We had five children born at , five girls. Then we decided to move from that area to another state, the State of , [for] a little more adventure. We sold out what [land] we owned in Altamont and put it into a home and farm up in . 00:57:00We bought a dry-land farm up there in Colville [] which was about ninety miles north of [] on the . It was in a timber area [that had been] cleared off [for] dry-land farming. I had 320 acres of dry-land farm there. [It was] very productive soil.

The construction business was so alluring to me that I was able to make more money in the construction 00:58:00business than I was on the farm. We still lived on the farm and hired the farming done and I went after the construction business. [Laughter] That is the way our [inaudible] turned out up in . However, we did enjoy an association with a few Latter-day Saints. We had five families in this area [that] were Latter-day Saints. There were about thirty of us in all. We did not have a place 00:59:00to worship so we took turns holding our Sunday school and meetings in our own homes.

Through the [LDS] missionary program they organized a branch and a Sunday school up in that area. I was the superintendent for several years. We enjoyed a lot of associations with missionaries [who] came to that area. Spokane knew where we lived and we left word with the branch 01:00:00what we desired. The missionaries [who] came up that way tracting would look us up. They used to stop in very often. Sometimes they would stay with us [for] several nights. They would go out tracting usually [on] bicycles. They would tract in different directions from our home.

I remember one time we had two missionaries stop in for the evening. They had been with us two or three evenings previous to this. This evening we 01:01:00had just [finished] the evening meal and a car pulled up in front of our home. I walked out and met the man [who] was driving. He asked if a certain missionary, calling him by name, would happen to be at my home. I told him yes. Lo and behold, this was the missionary’s father. They had come from back east somewhere. [Inaudible] There were twelve of them that [stepped] out of 01:02:00that car. They were on a trip. They were taking a little excursion and [had] stopped in at the office. They told them where they would find their boy. [Laughter] They spent the night with us and had a very enjoyable evening with the two missionary companions. Then [they] went on their way. They said they were headed for the [in ] up that way to look over that area.

FH:Was your life there in closely mixed up with the church?

CT:Very 01:03:00much, even though there were few people [who] were Latter-day Saints there. It seemed to be an area where the Catholics were pretty much in control as far as church was concerned. We mixed with the neighbors and the people of the community. Our family enjoyed the friendship of neighbors. 01:04:00FH:Tell about your children. [END OF RECORDING TWO.] FH:Would you tell the names of your children and tell about each one’s personality.

CT:Commencing with the oldest girl [Clauda Grace Thacker], she was a very talented girl with music. She loved pets and animals. She would take little chickens, play with them, take care of them and feed them. While we were in she took over the job of taking care of the baby chicks that were born on the place [and] running loose. She asked me one day if 01:05:00I would mind if she took these baby chicks and put them in a brooder house we had and looked after them. She had an idea that she wanted to take piano lessons. I told her I was [very] busy and to help herself. Anything she could do to help, she was welcome to it. I furnished the feed for her and helped her look after that part of it. After I came home from work one day, she asked me to come and see what she had. I went over to this brooder house and looked in there and she had about sixty head of little baby chicks from the 01:06:00age of about two weeks on down. [Laughter] The old hens that had hatched [inaudible] their nests out. I looked in there and they were [very] happy. [Laughter] When these chickens were old enough to sell, she said, “I am going to have to look for a market for these chickens because they are getting old enough. We need to sell the oldest of them. What would you suggest?” I said, “I think 01:07:00inasmuch as you have put [as] much feed as you have into them and [your] time, why don’t we just use them right here at home and I will pay you for them? When your time comes to get your music lessons I will see that you get them.” She said, “Okay, that would be swell.” I said, “That way we can kill two birds with one stone.” [Laughter] I made her a proposition.

FH:She had a lot of ingenuity. [Laughter] CT:Yes. When school started that winter, she went to work and took lessons [from] 01:08:00some Catholic sisters [who] were at a Catholic ministry there. They gave her piano [and] vocal lessons. The vocal lessons did not cost her anything, but the piano lessons [were] $1.00 a lesson or something like that. She got to where she could really play the piano. She loved to sing and had a pretty voice.

Going back to the birds and animals: one time we were setting an incubator with turkey eggs. We planned on raising some turkeys on the farm to sell. We had some geese running loose. She came along one day while we were setting this incubator with turkey eggs and asked if we would mind if she put a few goose eggs in it. [Laughter] I took out enough turkey eggs. 01:09:00I think she brought in about ten or twelve geese eggs and put them in. She said, “This little goose out here has more eggs than she can cover so I thought I would like to make use of them instead of letting them spoil.” [Laughter] When the hatching came off, 01:10:00lo and behold, she had about a half a dozen little geese. They would not mix with the turkeys and [the turkeys] would not mix with the geese. They would run out in the yard. The geese out in the yard did not care anything about them and did not want anything to do with them.

We had a little pond a short distance from the house. One day when they were two or three days old, she took them down by this water on the grass and was playing around with them. All at once I heard [her] scream 01:11:00and I ran out of the house. She said, “Come quick, daddy. My geese are going to drown.” [Laughter] I ran down to the pond and they had found the water and were out swimming around on the pond — really having a time. I told her, “Geese do not drown. They are natural born swimmers. All they have to do is find the water.” [Laughter] She liked the outside. When I was around home doing my chores and work on the farm, 01:12:00if she was not busy in the house, she was with me. She was with me constantly. One time I had to go out in the timbers [that were] close by to cut some pine and make some fence with; she wanted to know if she could go with me. I said, “You can, yes, but I do not think you should.” She said, “Why?” I said, “There are some hornets up here that are in an awful nasty mood and you might get stung.” I was cutting these trees down where these hornet nests were. “I will take a chance on that.” 01:13:00So she went out with me. First thing I knew one of them hit her right between the eyes. I [took] some mud and put [it] on her face. After it quit hurting quite so bad, I coaxed her to go [back] to the house [and she did]. It was not very long until here she was back up on the hill. [Laughter] She could not resist the temptation to be up there in the wilds. [Laughter] 01:14:00[TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] CT:Our next girl was more or less of a different disposition. She was the type [who] liked her own way. Sometimes [we] had to use some pretty rough persuasion to convince her that our way was the best.

FH:What was her name?

CT:Her name was Sarah Joyce [Thacker]. She was a very ambitious girl. She [had] the other little girls go with her one day 01:15:00to play out by a haystack. It was some hay that had been left over from the winter before. It was in the early summer. She was making a house. She decided to do a little cooking. The first thing we knew, we woke up to the fact that we had a haystack on fire. Our neighbor came running over. [Inaudible] came over. He said, “People around this area are very hostile to 01:16:00people building fires at this time of the year. It is restricted. You let me handle this and I will get you cleared.” Here came the fire chief from the forest department shortly after that. This old fellow made up some kind of a story. I forget what it was, I do not know whether it was lightning or what had happened, but anyway he saved us from having difficulty with the forest department. [Laughter] We were in a timber area there.

This girl 01:17:00grew up with her other sisters. She grew up to be a very nice girl as luck would have it. We had a lot of difficulty directing her in the right ways. She now has a family of four, two boys and two girls. Her husband [Courtney Eugene Maughan] is in the [] Air Force. He is flying at the present time to and back. He is making a career of the Air Force. 01:18:00They live back in . She gets so homesick that she can hardly stand it. She is so far away from her family. It seems like she can hardly resist coming home ever so often. She has managed to get back home on an average of every two or three years. While her family is growing up, we have been able to partly keep up with them in that way. She is so far away [that] we have not been able to go and visit with her because we have had too many other things to 01:19:00look after in raising the rest of our family.

The next girl [Fay Thacker] is a very talented person in music. She has a very beautiful voice. She likes to perform in church activities and other performances that come up. She married a man [Ted Allen Taylor] [who] does not belong to the church, 01:20:00which is very unfortunate. He does not interfere with the family’s church activities, which is a blessing. We are in hopes maybe some day he will join the church, go through the temple, do the things that will help to seal his family to him and be a part of the family in the hereafter. [Their] children are very active in the church. Their oldest child was just 01:21:00ordained a deacon recently. The bishop in the area where they live, [], comes around and picks him up and takes him to church with him. He takes him to Sunday school and Priesthood meeting and sees that he gets there. If he cannot get him there, the mother sees that he makes it somehow. They have quite a distance to go, but they do not mind that too much. Last year he took a temple excursion with the 01:22:00Sunday school or Priesthood and to the which is quite a distance from []. [They went] with a group of little folks and were baptized for the dead which was quite an experience for him.

FH:That was quite a trip. She is helping her children this way.

CT:It is for little [children]. It is quite an effort to go through. She is doing 01:23:00everything she can to bring him up [in] the church activities. Living in the church herself, she realized how valuable it was to gain experiences with the church activities and grow up in the church.

The next girl [Myrle Thacker] is the [one who] had a very bad misfortune at the time she was four years old. We were living in on our ranch. Her little dress caught afire. She was burned very badly before her mother could get to her to take her dress off 01:24:00and put the flames out. She spent considerable time in the hospital and finally had to have some skin grafting done on the side of her face and under her arm. [This] was more or less a new [procedure] at that time, but it was very successful. She is a very talented woman in different ways. She has developed into a person [who] 01:25:00enjoys instructing and working with little [children]. She has a college education. She teaches school part-time whenever she can spare the time from her family.

FH:How many children does she have?

CT:She has four [children], three girls and a boy. Her husband [Carl Lee Jensen] is a very religious man. He is an elder. He spent two years in the [United States Army]. They were married in the temple. He 01:26:00has had five years of college training. He works in [the] guided missile area program with the [] Civil Service. He is very talented in mathematics and had considerable training in this missile work. 01:27:00He is a very responsible person. At the present time, he is in charge of four bases in the Northwest. The government makes him responsible to keep these bases ready to go at any time. He has to go from one to another. He flies as it is quite a distance he has to travel. They provide the transportation for him and 01:28:00his assistant. That is his work at the present time. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] CT:We have another girl. Her name is [Clora] Ann [(Thacker)] Stokes. At the present time she lives in . She has had very 01:29:00poor luck in trying to raise a family. They [Clora Ann and Edwin Jackson Stokes] have had one child of their own [who] is seventeen years old, a girl, Peggy Stokes. They adopted two children, a little girl and a boy. The girl is about four years old now and the boy is about two [years old]. She is an active person in the church 01:30:00[and served] for several years [as] the president of the Primary in []. She loves that kind of work. She has a desire to work with the church and [has] a strong testimony of the gospel.

The next [child] is a boy, [Merlin] Don [Thacker]. Don is the 01:31:00type of a person [who] has always liked to have things his own way and do things his own way. [His decisions] have not turned out to [be] the best too much, as far as [his] education is concerned. He quit school when he was in his second year of high school. He joined the [] Navy. I do not know whether he helped Uncle Sam much or not as it was peace time. [Laughter] 01:32:00He spent four years in the Navy. When he [was discharged from] the Navy he found a girl [Carolyn Durkee] that he liked and they were married. She is a nice Latter-day Saint girl. She is a nurse. They have two children, a boy and a girl. She still works part-time in the hospital. 01:33:00The next boy spent most of his time working with me. From the time he was old enough to pack scrap boards and pile them up, until he was old enough to go on a [LDS] mission, he worked with me driving nails and building homes. He spent a two-year mission in . When he came back from his mission the [] Army grabbed him. 01:34:00He had to spend two years in the Army.

FH:What is this boy’s name?

CT:His name is Chad Lamar [Thacker]. He spent a year in where he was wounded in the arm. However, it did not leave any bad effects. His arm does not bother him. We were very fortunate [with] this trouble. We have had five sons and sons-in-law [who] have spent a year in . 01:35:00They are all back home safe and sound. The one boy is still in the service. He is in at the present time on the last lap of his three-year term. He will be home again in about two months.

Out of the five [who] have been [stationed] in , we had two wounded, a son and a son-in-law. However, neither one of them have any bad effects from their wounds. The son-in-law, 01:36:00the one that married my youngest daughter, is studying medicine now. He was a medic in the [] Marines. He is following up [the study of] medicine expecting eventually to become a doctor. Our son, , is back from the service. 01:37:00[END OF RECORDING THREE.] 01:38:00CT:This boy [Dallas Ray Thacker] is planning on a wedding [in] June. He is marrying a nice Latter-day Saint girl, [Janet Smith in the ].

Our youngest boy [Claude Nile Thacker] is in . In two months he will be released from the service. He is planning on a medical career. The time he has been in the service has been with medicine. 01:39:00I guess he saw a lot of action over in , but he does not mention things that happened. He is naturally a comedian. He is very active in comedy with his voice. He gets quite a kick out of performing in this respect. He is probably a chip off the old block, maybe a little better. [Laughter] 01:40:00Anyway, we enjoy it as much as he does. He is a very good Latter-day Saint boy. He did a lot of good over in . I guess if the truth is known he did more good as a missionary than he did with the armed services [laughter] thanks to the direction of his leaders over there that he had to help him in that capacity. 01:41:00We [will] love to meet him when he comes back and help assist him along with his education. I cannot think of anything at the present time that the needs more than good doctors and the research they are able to do to save lives. 01:42:00Even if we did not gain anything through the war in , our boys have probably gained something through their educational experiences that will probably prove to be very valuable to them and to our country. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] CT:We have one more daughter whose name is Mary Lou [Thacker]. She married a Spaulding boy [Brent Spaulding]. He is a Latter-day Saint [and served] a two-year mission. 01:43:00He has [a] five-year college [education] in the agricultural field. They have a family of three which they enjoy very much. She is a talented girl in music like the rest. She is musically inclined [and] is an artist on the piano. She is interested in genealogy. 01:44:00She takes a very active part in the family genealogy and is the hub when it comes to genealogy. [Laughter] FH:[Inaudible] CT:It sure does. She has more ambition along that line with his people and with ours. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] 01:45:00CT”The husband of Mary Lou’s is from . His father was a bishop of that ward in Rexburg for several years. He had so much to do with his farming and taking care of his bishop responsibilities [that] he did not have time to spend with genealogy. My daughter went to work on their genealogy and [brought] him a genealogy book. [She] dug out all she could for him and [started] him off in genealogy. [Laughter] He and his 01:46:00wife, since they have been released from the bishopric and their sons have taken over the main responsibility of the farm, spend a lot of time on genealogy. [Laughter] I have another thought I should give you concerning my wife’s genealogy. This girl that spends so much effort in the genealogy field came onto a line in my wife’s history back to the Ninth Century. 01:47:00It started out with a knight in the great forces of court. This fighting quality has carried on down through this particular line to the present time. We did not realize there were any fighting qualities as has been demonstrated in this particular line such as Gene Fullmer and his family. But when we trace it down through genealogy we find that she is related to George Washington, Winston 01:48:00Churchill, several different royalty all on the fighting side from the Ninth Century on down. That is what the girl kicked [found] out with this genealogy. I guess that will be enough [on] her.

FH:That is [very] interesting.

CT:Linda [Lee Thacker] is the youngest of the family. She married a missionary boy. I would like to mention one other thing in regard to missionary work. These two 01:49:00girls, the youngest two of the family, have both spent an active [LDS] mission. Now this girl has married a boy that spent a two-year mission. He has been in in the armed services. He is studying now [to become] a doctor. They have a family of three.

FH:Where are they located now?

CT:They are in . They are going to school at BYU at the present time. They have two girls and a boy. This girl is an artist on the piano. 01:50:00She has a wonderful voice. She loves to take part in choruses and singing. She seems to get a lot of enjoyment from it. Her husband is the same way. I do not know that he can play any particular instrument, but he has a beautiful voice and he takes an active part in the church activities. 01:51:00I do not recall any more I could say about her. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] CT:Going back to my individual life and activities. Last May I developed an illness that put me back in the hospital. This illness has left me in a condition where I am unable to work. I have 01:52:00about a twenty percent supply of oxygen and just enough supply of oxygen to allow me to walk at a normal speed. I am not good as far as work is concerned. I do not have enough supply of oxygen that I can stand to work.

FH:Is that why you came to St. George?

CT:That is why I came to St. George. You asked me whether I had 01:53:00had physical ailments. Back in 1938, when we were moving to the State of , we had the misfortune of being hit by two different people in their cars that were driving on the highway in a bad fog after dark. Both [drivers were] under the influence of liquor. 01:54:00I found myself in the hospital [for] about six days from this accident. I did not break any bones, but it caused other injuries that I had to go to considerable expense to correct later on.

When I moved to Kamas [], I had the misfortune of getting a piece of steel in my eye and lost the left eye from the infection. 01:55:00The eye I have now is an artificial eye. That was in the year of 1946. Later on, I was working in the Duchesne Tunnel east of Kamas and I crippled my right arm. It broke some cords in the arm. I did not know what the matter was at the time, but it was so badly injured that I had to quit the job. 01:56:00After nine months [of] extensive effort the specialist finally found out what was the matter. I had two cords in my shoulder that were broken. We went to the trouble to correct that through an operation. I have had a very serious hernia operation. All in all, 01:57:00I have made six different trips to the hospital for major operations and illnesses of various kinds.

FH:Was your trip to St. George to get to this altitude and climate?

CT:Yes. I moved to St. George for the winter because I felt like I could not stand the cold weather that we have 01:58:00where my home is in Kamas. Where this is going to lead, I am sure I do not know. [Laughter] FH:You are going to have to be careful and wise in how you live and take care of yourself. Would you give counsel and advice to your descendants and conclude with the bearing of your testimony?

CT:Maybe this 01:59:00life story will help to brighten up my family’s memory [of events which] have happened [in] my life, in various ways, which have helped me in the religious field and also in providing for my family. I have been very fortunate in as much as I have been able to provide for my family. I have always been able 02:00:00to provide for them, not like I would have liked to have done, but I do not think that any of them have ever gone hungry, not to the knowledge of me [or] my wife. We have never wanted for clothing [or] something to cover them up. We have always tried to encourage our family to try [to] obtain all the education they could to help to provide for their own welfare 02:01:00in later years. We have tried to encourage, while they were developing this education, to take part in the church activities. We felt the activities the church offered could not be [had] anywhere else in the world. I think it has had a lot to do with the development of our family in religious affairs, 02:02:00in music and their personal talents.

I have a very strong testimony of the gospel. I know that the gospel is true and if we will heed the teachings of the church that we will be benefited by it. I hope that all of our family 02:03:00will take heed to this testimony and follow it [in] the bringing up of their families. I found that it does not make too much difference what kind of a profession you are working at as long as it is honorable and as long as it provides the things that are necessary in this life. 02:04:00[This] includes the right to worship as we see fit. We are the only nation in the world today [that] has that privilege as a nation. Our ancestors came here to this for that purpose. We should uphold it. In whatever we do we should back up that one thing in particular: that we do have a right to live 02:05:00our religion.

We are having some difficult times at the present time. We are having very trying times at the present time through these demonstrations and [events] of that type. The world seems to be taking a different trend in world affairs and especially the in this respect. I can see it is something very difficult for 02:06:00our leaders to cope with because it is something new to them. I hope that this can be brought to a head and that the people of the can learn to realize that we have to live together with each other. We cannot exist as a nation as long as we are fighting with each other. [END OF RECORDING FOUR. END OF INTERVIEW.]