Charles Mickelson Clark

 My maternal grandfather Charles Clark, was born 26 October 1903 in the small town of Hilliard, Wyoming. Hilliard is just Southeast of Evanston, Wyoming (I don't think it is there any more). He was born the oldest child of Charles Mickelson and Mary Bate. His mother died shortly after giving birth to her third child. Charles father was a rodeo rider and left his three small children with family and went on the road. It was later learned that Charles Mickelson had died in Kansas. Charles and his younger brother were eventually adopted and sealed in the temple to the family that had taken them in, George and Mary Clark. As a young boy the family lived in Orem, Utah where they farmed for several years.
On August 1923 grandpa married Mary Lucille Bulow in Provo, Utah. They made their home in Provo, Utah living with his father in the family home. Charles and Lucille cared for his father until his death and then remained in the home all of their married life. The home was a simple square frame built home divided into four rooms of equal size. Charles made many improvements to the home over the years including an indoor bathroom and added a bedroom on the back of the home. my mother remembers sleeping in the back room with a plastic sheet over her because the roof had not yet been shingled.
Charles and Lucille were the parents of six children. Two of their children died as infants. Marie the day after she was born and Robert died of pneumonia at six months old. Four of their six children lived to adulthood, my mother Carol was their fourth child.
Charles worked most of life for US Steel, first working as a chemist in the Ironton plant in Provo and later and the Geneva works in Orem.
It was from my grandpa that I learned the value of work. As a boy I enjoyed visiting and helping him with various work projects. He never gave me job to do and then left me to work, we always worked side by side. From him I learned the joy of gardening and working in the yard. I once helped him remove all the old shingles off his very steep roof and then we laid tar paper and new wooden shingles. I was about sixteen at the time and I remember him teasing me when a group of girls walked passed the house and made cat calls at me.
Charles lived the last few years of his life with my parents in Spring City, Utah and then In a rest home in Heber, Utah where he died on 1 August 1991. Charles and Lucille are buried in the Provo city cemetery just a few blocks from where they lived their entire married lives.

The Bag Lady and The Sheepherder

This handsome couple (who loved each other dearly) were my grandparents. Pearl Grant and David Lee.
Pearl was actually an educated lady, she went to the Brigham Young Academy and was an elementary school teacher, in Duchesne County until she got married and started a family. David and Pearl had seven children 4 boys and 3 girls.
David had a sixty acre homestead in the Rock Creek area of Duchesne and had a sizable herd of sheep. During the mid to late 1920's David sold his homestead so he could open an auto repair business in town, with his brother. Not long after getting the business up and going the country was hit with the "great depression" and the Lees lost everything they had. David and Pearl moved into a home in Charleston, Utah in an area that is now beneath Deer Creek Reservoir. After a house fire that destroyed their home David moved his family around several times but eventually went to work for US Steel in Orem, Utah, and built a home in the river bottoms area of Provo.
I was eight years old when Grandpa died so I don't remember much about him except that he had a mop of white hair that reminded me of Mark Twain, and it seemed that he smoked a lot.
I remember visiting Grandma in her home in Provo, where she had moved the bed into the living room next to the kitchen so she would not have to heat the whole house. She was always afraid that if the house was too warm it would start on fire (in addition to house fire in Charleston Pearl had been burned badly as a child, when her dress got too close to the stove). Grandma was a bit of an eccentric artistic type. She would walk the streets of Provo gathering "stuff" that she could make crafts with. I remember her making artificial flowers out of cellophane bread wrappers (her sons refused to let her leave them on any graves at the cemetery). She once gave us grand-kids small necklaces that she had made out of old tooth brushes by cutting the handles into small squares and stringing them together. She always had coffee cans full of buttons, broken ceramics or anything else that she found interesting. Just before Grandma died she was moved into a rest home, I remember that my Dad and his sister's husband took their trucks to her house and just loaded everything she had and took it to the dump. I don't think anybody even went through anything to see if there was something of value, either monetary or sentimental. In general I think most of Grandma's family (at least her children) saw her as a bit of a kook or nut case. But I always saw something more. I was captivated by her artistic talents and her ability to see beauty in what others saw as junk.
They are buried side by side in the American Fork cemetery.

Courtney Monroe Lee

Happy birthday, Dad. Today March 5^th is dad’s birthday he would be 99 years old. Born March 5^th 1918 in Duchesne, Utah the third child of David and Pearl Lee. He once told us his name was chosen because he was born the day that the circuit court judge was in town, so it was court day. His childhood was spent in Duchesne as normal as expected for a child of the era. David Grant was homesteading land and keeping sheep. Dad attended school only to the eighth grade; he then went to work with his dad herding sheep on the family land.

When World War II broke Courtney joined the army and served for the duration of the war. His war service included being a driver in the Pacific Theatre, either driving officers back and forth or driving a large tank truck to provide water for other service men.

At the end of the war dad returned to civilian life. By this time his family had moved to Provo, Utah. It was in Provo that dad met Carol Clark. Mom said he kept showing up drunk for their dates but he was nice so she kept going out with him. Dad said as long as she said yes, he was going to keep asking her out.

Dad and mom were married on June 6 1947 in the home of Charles and Lucile Clark, mom’s parents. The newlyweds bought their first home in Provo.

Early in 1949 dad joined with a couple of buddies to make his fortune in Alaska. Jobs were plentiful and paid well, as well as an opportunity to homestead land in the last frontier of America.

Not many weeks after arriving dad called home, told his wife he had quit his job and needed money to get back home. Mom found out years later that he had actually been fired from the job in Alaska. After returning from Alaska dad got a job at the Tooele Army Depot and they lived in an upstairs apartment in Tooele. Mom was pregnant by this time and was having a difficult pregnancy so she went to live with her parents for a few months. Well dad could not live with out the love of his wife so he quit the job in Tooele and moved back to Provo. While dad was in Alaska they had rented their home in Provo and the couple that was living there would not move out. So they started a new home in North Orem and sold the other one.

The new home was supposed to be ready by December but was not ready to move into until early March, The home cost $7,200. And their monthly payment was $37.50. I was born the same month they moved into the new home. I have many memories of growing up in the home. After ten years in the home they moved again to a home in the South end of Orem.

Dad worked at the automotive center at the Sears store in Provo for several years. Money was tight and when they bought a new car dad had to get a part time job to make the payments. He later started work at the Geneva works of US Steel. It was at the Geneva plant that he worked until he retired.

After dad retired Mom and Dad built a home in Spring City, Utah and then a few years later they made their final move to Manti.

Dad worked hard all his life to provide for his family, he always had a positive attitude and a song to sing. Most of his songs were his old drinking songs, so none of us had ever heard them before. As kids we spent most of our vacations camping. The farthest distance we ever went on a vacation was to go camping in Mesa Verde National Monument. Some of my greatest family memories took place on these many camping trips.

Dad died on December 5, 2003 and is buried in the Manti, Utah cemetery.

Mom and dad were married fifty-six years and were the parents of five: Jim, Dan, Allen, Jeff and Linda.