Interview with Charles "Charley" Richard Sullivan

Charles “Charley” Richard Sullivan was interviewed on May 15, 1969 in St. George, Washington County, Utah by Fielding H. Harris, a representative of Voices of Remembrance Foundation. He related his personal history of living in various parts of Utah. His daughter, Blanche Sullivan, also participated.

FH:What is your full name?

CS:[My name is] Charles [“Charley”] Richard Sullivan. That is what they call me.

FH:What is your birth date?

CS:I was born on December 12, 1875.

FH:That makes you ninety-three [years old].

CS:Yes.

FH:Where 00:01:00were you born?

CS:I was born here in St. George.

FH:[What was] your father’s name?

CS:His name was Joseph John Sullivan. We called him John.

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

CS:My mother’s [name was] Mary Ann (Worthen) [Sullivan].

FH:Can you remember anything that happened when you were a [young] boy?

CS:I will tell you something that they tell me happened. I do not know how old I was — I was a little shaver, anyway. 00:02:00I knew some of my relatives. They seemed to think a lot of me for some reason. They liked to be around me, talk with me and tell me [stories]. They tell me I was in town. They asked me where I was going. I said, “I am going up to Aunt Nannie’s.” They said, “Who is Aunt Nannie?” I said, “I do not know. Aunt Nannie is all I know.” They said, “Whose boy are you?” They said that I told them I was my ma’s boy. 00:03:00They said, “What is your mother’s name?” I said, “She is named mama.” They kept asking me questions. This is what they have told me I said.

I had an aunt, my father’s sister, [who] lived [in] the upper end of town. We lived down here. 00:04:00They tried to find out whose boy I was. I was my mama’s boy and my papa’s boy. That is about all I could tell them. I do not know how old I was, but that is what they told me. I was lost there in town and that is [all] they [could] find out. I do not know how they finally found out whose boy I was. I was my mother’s boy and my papa’s boy. I had an Aunt Nannie and Uncle Charley. That [information] was about all they could get out of me. They never did tell me how they 00:05:00found out where I belonged and whose boy I was. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] FH:Tell about your [education]. Is there something else you want to tell first? [That] is alright.

CS:I do not know of anything else.

CS:We were living down in a place called Price City [Bloomington, Washington County, Utah]. You know where that is?

CS:Do you? My father had a farm down there right on the bank of the river. I was going down to the Virgin [River] with [some] boys. She [my mother] said, “Do not go 00:06:00in the deep water. It is pretty deep, [so] do not get your clothes all dirty and mussed up.” The other [boys] all rolled up their pants and they waded out in the water and I did the same. I happened to step in a place where [the water] was a little deeper and my pants got wet up above where I had rolled them up. I did not know what to do 00:07:00about that. I felt pretty bad. I thought my mother will surely give me a scorching for this. She [had] told me not to go in the deep water. [Laughter] The boys [were] tired [and] went home [and] I was down there alone. I had my pants all wet up above the knees [where] I walked in [the] deep water. It was dry and sandy there. I thought I will get some of this dry sand and put on these pants and it will help dry 00:08:00them. I [took] sand and [put] it on my clothes. [Where] it was wet, I put sand on it to help dry them. They would not dry. It was time for me to go home and I did not know what to do. Anyway, I went home. I thought I will just have to go and take it. I went home and mother gave me a jawing 00:09:00for going in the water.

FH:[Laughter] Did she spank you?

CS:My folks did not believe in spanking, much. She gave me a talking to about what I did wrong.

FH:Did you go to school in St. George when you were growing up?

CS:Yes.

FH:What kind of a school was it?

CS:I said to the folks, “I am not going to school anymore.” They asked me a lot of questions I did not know anything about. I said, “I do not know anything about the things.” They asked me a lot of questions 00:10:00and I did not know what they were talking about. I told my folks there was no need of me going to school. I did not know the questions they asked me and I did not know the answers to them. I was not learning anything in school. 00:11:00FH:What did you do when you left school?

CS:We had horses to ride and I could ride a horse. We would get out and get on a horse and go places and do things any [children would] do on horseback.

FH:Did you like to ride horses?

CS:I liked to ride horses when I was [young]. I had an uncle [who] was a [inaudible] butcher. 00:12:00He killed critters for people. He had a butcher shop somewhere east of town. I said, “Uncle Charley, let me ride the horse.” We had a horse and he would follow the wagon wherever we went. I said, “The horse will follow the wagon. I can ride him.” He said, “You have to wait a little while.” I kept teasing him. Finally he said, “Well, I will let you ride him, I guess. I will put a surcingle on him and tighten it up good around your legs. You cannot fall off of him.” 00:13:00When my mother and my Aunt Nannie heard that he let me ride that horse and follow the wagon, they gave him a going over [for] letting me ride that horse when I was so [young]. “He is not big enough to handle that horse.” He said, “All he has to do is just sit up there. He had the lines. He could guide him which ever way he wanted him to go. I do not see anything bad about it. He could not fall off.” 00:14:00But he [received] a scorching for letting me ride the horse that day. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] FH:[Did] your father have cattle?

CS:He had cattle out on the Arizona Strip. They used to go out there and ride.

FH:After you left school, did you go out there to herd cattle with your father?

FH:Did you go out on the Arizona Strip with your father?

CS:Yes. He would let me go out there with him. I went out there with him when I could not ride a horse alone. It was about twenty-five miles out there. When we went out to ride, brand calves or look for cows, 00:15:00we would take a wagon and take some food along with us. We might stay out there for a week or ten days sometimes. I was not big enough to ride a horse so I stayed in camp and was a camp tender. I had to stay in camp.

CS:I learned how to cook a little out there. One time I thought I did not know what to cook. [I thought] I will cook a little rice. We had tin [pans] to take out there with us. I thought 00:16:00I would cook a little rice. So I put on a pot and put some water in it and some rice in it. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] CS:I put some rice on to cook. Before long, I had more rice in the kettle than I had water. So I took some rice out and cooked some more rice. Anyway, by the time a little rice [was] cooked, 00:17:00I had everything around there with rice in it. [Laughter] I learned you did not need much rice when you were going to boil some rice. It took mostly water. I learned how to cook rice, potatoes and onions.

FH:Later, did you ride horses with your father and handle the cattle?

CS:Yes. I have told this story to the boys. 00:18:00When I was twelve years old they ordained me a deacon. It took twelve deacons to make a quorum. We had a quorum. I was in the first or second or third quorum. We were down in the [Virgin] River one day having a little fun. They were building a dam across the river to turn the water out so it could water the crops. Before this, I had been going out with my father occasionally and I was just a camp tender. 00:19:00My father said to me one day, “I think maybe this trip out we will take a horse and saddle for you.” I said, “That will be fine. I would like to be a good cowboy.” In the meantime, I had been going out with him [and] just sitting around. At night, as a rule, the cowboys would have to get their horses hobbled. They would sit around the campfire and tell about experiences they had had. One night, [one] of the men [who] was 00:20:00a good Latter-day Saint said, “Today, fellows, I was so mad that I just did not know what to do about it. If I had sworn at those cattle I was afraid you would laugh at me because [of] the way I handle swear words. I am not used to swearing. If I had been a little more used to swearing I would have sure sworn today. We had those cattle in a bunch of oaks and I could not get them out.” I thought to be a good cowboy you had to learn to swear. We had some cowboys [who] were pretty good cowboys and they knew how to swear. 00:21:00I thought if I am going to be a cowboy, I have to learn how to swear dramatically.

We were down swimming at the [Virgin] River one day. Every time the fellows would come around — I was about the [youngest] one there — they would splash water on me and I would swear at them. It happened this day that the president of our Deacons’ Quorum was there swimming with us. He was a few years older than most of us were. He [took] me off to one side and said, “Charley”, I was surprised at you today. Here you 00:22:00have just been ordained a deacon and you hold the Priesthood. To hear you swear like you were doing does not become a deacon very well.” So there I was between two hot waters. If I was going to be a good cowboy I had to learn to swear. If I was going to be a good deacon I must not learn how to swear. My family did not swear much. So there it was. I either had to be a good cowboy or a good deacon. I was twelve years old. 00:23:00FH:What did you decide to do about that swearing?

CS:I thought that over quite a bit. What has helped me all my life is what that president of that Deacons’ Quorum told me about deacons. Deacons held the Priesthood and Priesthood holders [should not] swear. I had to study about that. I went to my Priesthood meetings and tried to learn what deacons had to do. We had to work differently than what they do now. We had coal oil lamps. It was the deacon’s chore to keep those coal oil lamps filled with oil and the chimneys clean. We would 00:24:00have to do that every Saturday to get ready for Sunday. I was getting a little older and a little wiser all the time. I finally decided 00:25:00that I would rather be a good deacon than a good cowboy.

I have been a good cowboy. There was one time when I was growing up that I did not think I had to get off a horse for anybody, that I could do anything on a horse anybody else could do. We had a lot of cattle there. My father was a pretty good cattle man. He handled them [well]. It took a lot of good judgment to handle a lot of cattle. I have worked all my life with cattle, but for the last 00:26:00two years I have not done much. That president of the Deacons’ Quorum that day did me more good than anyone I ever knew.

FH:Do you know his name?

CS:His name was William Webb. He was a little older than I was.

FH:What do you remember about your father?

CS:I remember a lot of things about my father.

FH:What kind of a character was he?

CS:My father was a good man. 00:27:00He was not what you would call too sanctimonious. He was what they would call a good Latter-day Saint. He went to [The] Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints] and paid his tithing. He was recognized as a good substantial church member. He was a hard-working man. Any work that he had to do he would get right in and do it. He did not ask anybody any questions about 00:28:00a lot of things. He was a good father.

FH:Was he strict with you?

CS:No, not particularly strict. He just let me go with the rest of the [children].

CS:Yes, he taught me how to handle cattle. He was out after some cattle one day. He said, “There is a mare running down here that has a colt. It is a year old and is not branded. It has not been handled 00:29:00much. If we can get her today [we can] probably take that colt in and get it branded.” My father had two good saddle horses.

I was light, but he was a heavy man. He weighed 200 pounds. He was well and healthy. When we struck this band of horses, they started to run off and run away from where we wanted them to go. 00:30:00He said, “Turn them over this way, “Charley”.” I went out to turn the horses the way my father told me to turn them.

The first thing I knew, all I had [been] chasing was that one animal and it was [the] yearling that we had never branded before. I tried my hardest to get her back to the herd, but I could not do it. When I [was] ready to go, the first thing I knew I was lost. My father said, “If you had stayed 00:31:00back a-ways and let that colt get to its mother again, not chase it off alone, let her get back with the other horses, then we could have handled it, but you just chased it away. You did not do anything to get it around.” We never did get that other one in the corral. So that [taught] me a lesson about how to handle horses. If you cannot head them off where you wanted them to go, just let them take it easy and keep them all together. 00:32:00[END OF RECORDING ONE.] CS:A wild cow or wild yearling, or something like that, that is out on the range and has not been handled, 00:33:00is just as wild as a deer. They do not know what you want to do with them or what you want them to do. You have to teach them so we all learn together, I guess. [Laughter] FH:Was it a real challenge?

CS:It was. The few words that the president of that Deacons’ Quorum said to me that day changed my life. He moved away from here. I heard later on that he did not do very much in the church.

FH:What do you remember about your mother? 00:34:00CS:My mother was one of the best women in the world. She was kind and considerate. She tried to teach us the things that she believed. One day when I was [young], I remembered that she said, ““Charley”, I want you to remember this because there will be times when 00:35:00you have to decide things for yourself. I know that this gospel that we teach is the true gospel of Christ. The gospel was revealed to Joseph Smith and Joseph Smith was a prophet of the Lord. You will have times when you will have to decide some things. You always remember that this is the true gospel and Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. You will have a lot of temptations going through life.” 00:36:00I did not have many temptations growing up that way. I went to church along with the rest of the boys and girls, to Sunday school and Mutual [Improvement Association]. In all my ninety years that I have lived, I have never found anything that would relieve me of the fact that my mother had to tell me about the true gospel. I have had a lot of temptations as far as that is concerned. 00:37:00A lot of them looked like they were true, but I have never found a one yet that has ever changed my notion about the gospel being true. I have always remembered what my mother told me about that gospel.

CS:[I went to] North Carolina.

FH:Who was your mission president?

FH:Were you there when President [Charles Albert] Callis came?

CS:I do not remember President Callis. 00:38:00CS:Maybe so.

CS:Yes, we had some fair experiences.

FH:Would you tell about some of them? [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] FH:Did you have someone run you out of town or threaten your life?

CS:Yes. When we talk about the mission field, we talk about something that is 00:39:00a little different than what we had here. What we tried to do, mostly, when I was there was to get people together to stop and listen to us. We had meetings, for instance. We went around in one neighborhood where there were quite a lot of people. They nearly all [had] heard about the Mormons. 00:40:00We went where we had this meeting scheduled. When we [arrived] there, there was a big placard pasted over the door: You Mormon Elders, you are not going to hold any meeting here. They wanted us to know that. We waited around awhile and nobody came. We decided that the people knew more about it than we did. [Laughter] So we did not have any meetings. We had a few [situations] like that. 00:41:00I had one experience. They called me the cowboy missionary. I had worked with cattle about all my life up to the time I went on my mission. We were in a neighborhood that was tough. Mormons were not taken very well. We came across an opening where they had a corral and a bunch of cattle. They had a long stick. 00:42:00They would get some of these oak sticks, ones they could handle, and they were trying to hook this rope over some of the cows’ necks. I watched them for a few minutes. 00:43:00I asked the [men], “What are they trying to do with that stick?” They said, “What we want to do is get these cattle and blindfold them so that they cannot see where they are going and then see if we can 00:44:00drive them off to where we can sell them.” I said, “You get me one of your lines that you [inaudible].” They had a big rope as big as your wrist and tried to hook it over the horns of these cattle. I had been sick for a little while. I was not feeling very well. Someone said, “Is that the cowboy missionary?” I said, “I do not know. We will see.” So they brought] me a line. They had snubbing posts in the corral. I said, “I have been 00:45:00under the weather. I am not very strong right now. When I get the rope on this critter I would like some of you men to come and get a hold of it so you can hold him.” I went out in the corral. “Which one do you want?” There was a big fat bull there. They said, “Catch that bull. Put the rope on that bull.” We [put] the rope on the bull and snubbed him up close to the snubbing post. Then they came after him. They went on with a double rope. They slashed him over 00:46:00one side and down the other. I said, “What is that beating up the animal like that?” They said, “We want to get some of that life out of him so we can handle him.” I said, “What do you want to do with him?” They said, “We want to get him down. We have some boards here.” They were about like this, maybe a little bit bigger. He said, “We have some holes bored in there so that we can put that over the bull’s face and all he can do is see down by his feet.” I said, 00:47:00“You better get me another rope.” [Laughter] I [tied] the rope on the hind legs of this bull. I said, “Now you [men] get a hold of this rope and tighten it up and keep that leg off the ground.” So they did that. We [took] the old bull down. Then they put the rope on both of his feet. They kept him snubbed up there. Then they tied the blindfold around the bull’s head, over his head. 00:48:00I showed them how the cowboys do it.

I had been under the weather for a little while and I could not do much. They finished their job and they [put] a blindfold on the cattle. The next day they turned them out to drive them and the cattle did not know where they wanted them to go. They did not know what they were doing. 00:49:00Finally, they did not have any cattle. They came after me then to go get the blindfolds off the cattle. [Laughter] All they had were old farm horses that you could not do much with. I helped them get the blindfolds off a few of them. That was my experience as a cowboy in the south.

They irrigated [and] cultivated land down there then. [When] talking about the land, they might say, “Well, I just have a one-horse crop this year.” [Laughter] That is the way they regulated their farmland was by the number of horses they had. For every horse they had, they had a driver. They used rope lines FH:Did you have any baptisms while you were in the mission field?

CS:We had one or two.

FH:Was it hard work to finally get some? 00:50:00CS:It took quite a bit of talking with people and arguing with a lot of them. We had to show them where they were wrong and where we were right. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] 00:51:00FH:Have you had some prayers answered?

I was out here [inaudible] along the side of the sidewalk out here. There was a man by the name of James L. Bundy. I do not know if you have ever heard of him or not. He was a good Mormon. Some people liked him well and some did not like him very well because he would come in here from out around Kanab [Kane County, Utah]. He [bought] some of the land 00:52:00below town here. When we went to our fields here, we just struck out. We had roads every which way. When he came in, he [took] some of the pieces of land that [he] had title to and put a fence around it. That fenced off some of the roads. The people did not like that much because then we could go any which way and go to the field. Now, we had to go out to the corner and make a square turn and had to stay on the street. 00:53:00[One day] James L. Bundy came up the street. I do not know whether he had been to the temple or where he had been. He came up the street, stopped for a minute and passed the time of day. He said, “Brother Sullivan, I have been asked to come and administer to this sick lady [who] is in this house. Would you come and help me?” I said, “Sure. I will wash up and will be out in a minute and go with you.” I went in the house. I do not think I changed any clothes. I just washed the dirt 00:54:00off of me. We went over and a lady came to the door. He said, “We have been asked to come and administer to this sick lady.” She motioned for us to come in and said, “She is in that room.” We went in and there lay this sick woman. I would say she was unconscious. I did not know what the matter was. She never made any move to let us know 00:55:00that we were administering to her. She just lay there like she was unconscious. I anointed her with oil and Brother Bundy [inaudible]. I knew all about this sick woman. She came from Salt Lake [City, Salt Lake County, Utah]. The times were poor. She was a working girl. They did not have money to send her to the hospital so they sent her down here for her sister to take care of her. She had been here for quite awhile. She seemed to get worse all the time. 00:56:00Finally, the doctors said they could not do any more for that girl. They had tried everything.

FH:How old a girl was she?

CS:She must have been twenty or twenty-two [years old]. I do not know how old she was. But I knew all about the case. I knew [inaudible] case. We expected every minute to hear of her death. We expected her to die. I knew that when I went to administer to her that she was going to die. I thought we will give her a comfort blessing and ask the Lord to relieve her of [the] pain and trouble. 00:57:00I anointed her with the oil [and] then Brother Bundy put his hands on her head, sealed the anointing and was giving her a blessing. All at once, he hesitated for just a second or so. When he started out again he called her by name and said, “Dear Sister, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by virtue of the holy Priesthood that we hold, we promise you that you will recover from this illness.” That shocked me as I expected her to die. I did not know but [what] she would die before we finished administering to her. When he said that, it was a shock to me because I expected 00:58:00her to die any minute. When we were through, there was nobody else in the house. I do not know if her sister was there when we left or not. Anyway, we left. Brother Bundy went up the street. I do not know where he went to or what he was doing, but I came back over here. 00:59:00My wife said, “What is the matter? You act like something is bothering you.” I said, “There is something bothering me. Brother Bundy promised that girl that she would get well. I think that Brother Bundy made a mistake.” That is the way I felt even after we had administered to her. I felt like that shock was so severe to me that I did not know 01:00:00what to do or think. I was a hard-working young man then. I had not been married very long. The next morning this sister [who] was taking care of this girl was outside. I said, “How is Theresa today?” She said, “She seemed better this morning. She 01:01:00slept a little last night and this morning she asked for something to eat. That is something she has not done for months.” Lo and behold, there it was. Brother Bundy had just promised her that she would get well. He promised her that in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ by virtue and authority of the holy Priesthood which he held. 01:02:00She did not die right then; she kind of improved. The doctor said, “If you take good care of this girl and give her some nourishing foods, she might get better.” They took great care of her. She [became] strong enough so that she could ride out one day in a Studebaker buggy. They took her to Salt Lake [City]. One of her cheeks had a big hole 01:03:00in it where that disease [inaudible]. The disease began to clear up a little. It was not very long. I had a family to raise and [was] working every day. I could hardly keep track of them.

I know they took her to Salt Lake [City] and the doctors up there grafted a patch on her cheek and she [recovered]. I do not know whether it was Zanny or one of 01:04:00the [other] girls [who] moved up north after that. The folks that owned that place moved away. They went to California. We did not have any way of keeping track of her. Afterwards, I asked one of my girls, “Did you ever hear anything of Theresa Westover?” She said, “Yes. She is up here. She lives in a different ward than we do, but I understood she was teaching one of the classes there now.” [END OF RECORDING TWO.] FH:How many brothers and sisters do you have?

CS:Yes. I think Hettie 01:05:00[Sullivan] was the oldest. Then I do not know whether it was Gordon or Leah [Sullivan who was next].

CS:He [lived] up north and died up there. I do not remember much about him. Then there was Gordon, Victor, 01:06:00Leah and I.

BS:There was Clifford [Sullivan].

FH:Did you ever go to any dances?

CS:Sure.

FH:Do you like to dance?

CS:Yes.

FH:What kind of music did you dance to?

CS:When we first started to dance, 01:07:00I had an uncle [who] played the violin. Sometimes the Relief Society or the Primary would decide they wanted to have a dance. They would get these violinists, or whoever happened to be there, to come and play for them. We learned how to dance quadrilles. [Inaudible] Those were the days of polygamy. 01:08:00When we went to a dance, we did not know if we were asking a polygamist wife to dance with us or not. [Laughter] We did not learn to waltz much, but we used to dance quadrilles all the time. The dances were about the biggest problems we had because we had good musicians. Those violinists were some of the old timers [and] could turn Turkey in the Straw and a few other little tunes we danced by. Dancing was our biggest 01:09:00recreation. FH:Did you have any parties or candy pulls?

CS:Yes, we had parties all the time.

FH:Did you make your own recreation?

CS:Yes. We made our own. We had parties and had real candy pullings. We would put a bunch of sorghum on. When it [came] to a certain stage, we knew then it was ready to pull. Two or three of us would get a hold of a bunch of candy and we would keep pulling. By pulling it and putting a little flour or something on to keep it from sticking 01:10:00to our hands we had real candy pullings.

FH:Was it pretty good candy?

CS:Yes, we ate it.

CS:Yes, I have enjoyed music all my life. I never learned to play any of it. I enjoyed good music and I do now. I can understand good music now.

FH:Did you like to read?

CS:I was not so much on reading, but I got so I could read pretty good.

FH:Tell about your courtship 01:11:00and marriage.

CS:My wife and I grew up together. I had a sister about her age. I was four years older than she was. I was in love with her from the time I ever saw her until I married her.

CS:The money question was a problem in our lives. 01:12:00I could get a job, most anytime, as a cow man, but they only paid about a $1.00 a day. When you get a $1.00 a day and have to pay for all your extras, you do not have much left. So that is the way it was. They preached about us [boys] going out into mining camps. A lot of us did not go and some did. 01:13:00Those [who] went out would come back with a little money. When I [was] around twenty years old I began to think about getting married.

I persuaded my folks to let me go out to Delamar [Nevada].

FH:Did you go out there to work in the mines?

FH:You were very much blessed if you did not. 01:14:00CS:Yes, I was blessed because I tried [very] hard to get in that dusty mill. I finally [had] a job in what they called [the] April Fool Mine. There was not much dust in there. I worked there as a mucker [for] about two years. That is about the time they began dying off out there. I decided, maybe, with what money I had saved up and what little I could get, 01:15:00maybe we would have enough to get married on. I quit the mines, came back here and started cowboying again. I [earned] $35.00 a month.

We talked it over. She said that she would like to be married on her twentieth birthday. That is what we did. Her father was then president of the Manti Temple. We told him that we would like to get married and would like him 01:16:00to come and marry us. When it came about the time in January 1900, I went to Modena [Iron County, Utah] and picked up my father-in-law [John Daniel Thompson McAllister] and his second wife [Angeline Sophronia (Goforth) McAllister]. He had taken one wife and gone to Manti [Sanpete County, Utah]. My wife’s mother [Grace (Lenzi) McAllister] stayed here. They made all the arrangements. On my wife’s twentieth birthday, 01:17:00January 2, 1900, we were married in the St. George Temple. He came down here and married us.

FH:That was really nice.

CS:We never had any serious love affairs [or] quarrels before we were married. About two weeks after I was married, the bishop came [with] one of his counselors and said, “We would like to send you on a [LDS] mission.” That was about the first temptation I ever had. To think I [had been] married only two weeks 01:18:00and they wanted me to go on a mission. That was a hard one. I said to the bishop, “I am married now. I will have to consult with somebody before I go on my mission.” I talked to my wife. She had been raised all her life the same as I had; that we should marry in the church and [do] whatever the authorities of the church said. 01:19:00I am reading a book about Ezra Taft Benson. When he was asked if he would accept an appointment as secretary, he said, “There is one man that I will have to consult.” Come to find out that was David O. McKay. He was already an apostle in the church. 01:20:00The first time he saw David O. McKay, he mentioned it to him and David said, “You use your own judgment.” [Laughter] FH:Yes.

CS:I went on a mission to the Southern States.

I did not have a high school education. I did not even have an eighth-grade certificate. Here 01:21:00was another time [like] administering to that lady [who] was sick — I knew all about it from start to finish. But I do not know whether Brother Bundy ever did or not. [That] was a shock to me. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] FH:How many miles 01:22:00did you walk on your mission?

CS:[We walked] 500 miles.

FH:Was it 5,000 [miles]?

CS:No, all we had was our feet.

FH:You filled an honorable mission, were released and came home. How many children do you have? 01:23:00FH:Tell about Annie. Annie was the first [child] and then Elmer. Did Elmer die?

FH:Was Blanche [Sullivan] the next one?

CS:She was the next one.

FH:She is the one here [with you] now. Was Lenzi [Sullivan] next?

CS:Yes, Lenzi was after Blanche. 01:24:00I know now because I was out [at] hauling ore from Pioche [Nevada]. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] FH:[Did] your wife call [you] and she was crying?

CS:She said, “I have to wean Blanche.” [Laughter] I have told her afterwards, a lot of times, she felt so bad that she found that she was pregnant, that she did not want Lenzi. I said, “Lenzi is my boy.” [Laughter] FH:Who came after Lenzi?

BS:Grace [McAllister Sullivan was the next child], then Ruth [Sullivan]. CS:[After] Ruth, 01:25:00then [came John] Richard [Sullivan].

FH:Are they all pretty good [children]?

CS:I think they are wonderful.

FH:I would like you to give counsel and advice to your children and grandchildren. What do you think they ought to do with their lives?

CS:That depends a good deal on their environment and the things they have to put up with. 01:26:00They have different [situations] to confront compared with what I did. I tell the Lord to bless them according to their needs and necessities.

FH:Do you have a testimony of the gospel?

CS:I would say I do. I would say that in my ninety-three years that I have lived, 01:27:00that I have never had a thing in my life that came along to change what my mother told me when I was a [young boy]. I believe I have told you some of my experiences. I have been fortunate [with] my children. They have been [very] good to me.

Yesterday the bishop brought me a wheelchair 01:28:00and told me I could use [it] as long as I lived here in this ward. I have not had a chance to use it very much, but I have some and it [has] helped quite a bit. My children are worth more than a dozen wheelchairs. I appreciate what they have done. They have surely taken good care of me.

FH:Would you like to leave your blessing with them?

CS:I would. Lenzi will be home now in another month. I hope to live to see him back here, but I do not know. The last few days 01:29:00in St. George I have not felt very much like living another month.

FH:You look to me like you can do it.

CS:I tell the Lord it is up to Him. I would like to live until Lenzi gets here, but if not, I will say Thy will be done. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] CS:If the Lord wants me to live longer, that will be His lookout, because as far as I am concerned, I do not think I will be able to do any anymore good. 01:30:00If I could get to see Lenzi I will say from now on it is up to You. [TAPE RECORDER TURNED OFF] CS:My testimony to my children is that the gospel 01:31:00as preached by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. I am sure in my mind that it is. I have that testimony to leave with them that this gospel is the true Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As far as my knowledge is concerned, I do not think there is anything could change that. [END OF RECORDING THREE. END OF INTERVIEW.]