*****
MY LIFE
Don Carlos Lindsey, Junior, was born March 5, 1933 in Freeport, Brazoria County, Texas. I was born at home, in what they called a “shot gun” house. It was a house built straight back with one room after another. Why they called them that, I don’t know.
My father and mother were Don Carlos Lindsey, Senior, and Vera Mae Dixon Lindsey. They were married on December 18, 1921, in Gilmer, Upshur County, Texas.
Their children were: Delbert Byron Lindsey, born January 13, 1923; Willard Travis Lindsey (born January 25, 1925); Myrlene Lindsey (born January 21, 1927); Darrell Eugene Lindsey (born February 9, 1929); Howard Everett Lindsey (born February 19, 1932); Don Carlos Lindsey, Junior (born March 5, 1933) and Vera Mae Lindsey (born February 14, 1935).
I believe my dad worked then for a sulphur company that was located between Freeport and Angleton, Texas.
My mother wrote back and forth to my grandmother, Minnie Bell Luna Dixon, and in one letter said; D.C. was one of the most mischievous kids she had ever seen. After, I was big enough to walk, I was told I got mad and told them I was going to leave home. I packed up several diapers and put them in a sack and took off walking down the street. They found me later, sitting on the back steps.
My dear mother died on February 14, 1935 on Valentine’s Day. She died of bleeding ulcers and she threw up so much blood it killed her. My doctor (later in life) told me me they probably could have saved her with techniques of today. My brother Delbert was holding a kerosene lamp while they were helping her and he fainted. He could never take the sight of blood again.
After momma died, someone told my dad about a good woman who he could maybe get to take care of us. He wrote to her and she said she would. Her name was Redie Byrd and she had a daughter the same age as my sister, Myrlene.
Dad eventually married her and we moved back to east Texas and lived in a “Mormon” community called Kelsey, Texas.
In the early days, missionaries from all over sent members of the church there to avoid persecution. There were 1,500 (?) members there at the time. The church in Salt Lake City, Utah sent church officials there and they set the community up in streets and blocks. They also built a school and a gymnasium, with classrooms all around it, too. We were the only ones in the county who had a gymnasium and kids from all around came to play their games there.
They had a railroad running through there and people could catch the train there to travel and also ship their produce and other goods to areas to sell.
The people in this community were like one big family. Everyone loved each other and helped each other with their needs.
We had a big, white, country church and on the 24th of July we had a big picnic for the church celebration (Pioneer Day). We had a lot of food, watermelon, homemade ice cream and played a lot of games. They also had dances where they had poured a cement dance floor. We had people come from all around. We also had politicians come to speak for the elections. In our gymnasium we held dances all of the time and “Green and Gold” balls were held there. We also had parties there at Halloween and other occasions.
I went to school there in the first grade and after that they transferred me to a public school in Gilmer, Texas. We then rode a bus to school.
My dad and Redie got a divorce and we moved from Kelsey and then moved to another Mormon community, not far from Kelsey, called Enoch.
We moved east of the Cobb place and they had a daughter named Ruthie. Dad hired a woman named Mrs. Callie to take care of us kids, while he was working in the oil fields roughnecking. It was the largest oil field in the world, at that time, and there were oil derricks in people’s backyards and everywhere. They called the oil “Black Gold”. Some people became really rich.
While working in the oil fields, Dad was working on an oil derrick and a big pipe came falling down from the top and just missed dad’s head and cut off his right big toe. He had to go the rest of his life with no big toe, but he was lucky it didn’t kill him.
Dad met and married a woman named Dovie Lindsey (not related) and we moved back to Freeport, Texas area (between Freeport and Angleton, Texas). The Second World War was on and dad got a job with the Dow Chemical Company.
Dad bought some cows and we started a dairy. We sold milk, butter and eggs and delivered them to people in the area. We had quart, pint and half-pint bottles which were made out of glass. We had to wash those bottles in hot, soapy water and then rinse them in water with a disinfectant in it.
The cows were milked by hand. The milk was poured through a cloth strainer, to get whatever might have fallen into the bucket out. We then poured the milk into this vat which released it into the bottles. Then we had this metal tube which we put the caps in and it would release the cap on the bottle and then we could pull a handle to seal the cap to the bottle.
My sister Myrlene and I would wash and rinse the milk bottles and, after preparing them, put the milk in the bottles. My job was also to put the feed in the trough for each cow and lock their heads in, so they couldn’t move while milking them.
I also took care of the baby calves. We would put them in with the older cows so they could nurse them.
We also had a lot of hogs that Darrell and myself had to feed. We always had a garden that we all had to take care of.
We had to pump water from a well with a hand pump to water all of the cows. One day Darrell and I forgot to pump the water into this half barrel. Myrlene was supposed to make sure we did it. When dad came home from work, Myrlene got a whipping for not making us do it. She never forgave us for that.
Our stepmother, Dovie, was a good cook but she was really lazy. She would lay around all day listening to…you might say…soap operas, on the radio. The one I remember was “Porsha Faces Light”. Myrlene and I had to do most of the work in the house.
We had an outhouse and we used old Sears-Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs for toilet paper. That’s a relief?
Delbert married a really pretty, young lady named Ruthie Cobb, whom he had met when he was younger. I think they were 19-years old. They lived with us for awhile.
One day, Darrell and I were outside playing and for some reason, which I don’t remember, Dovie hit one of us with a stick on the back and it brought blood. Delbert came out and shoved Dovie back, into a bush. When dad came home Dovie told him about it. Delbert was out cutting firewood with an axe. He was still 19, at the time. Dad came out of the house and hit Delbert in the head with his fist. Dad was a strong man and tough, but Delbert worked him over and broke his ribs. Delbert was put in jail in Angleton, Texas. Dad’s brother, Raymond Lindsey, his wife, Kathleen, and daughter, Sherian Ray, lived with us also. Uncle Raymond bailed Delbert out of jail. Uncle Raymond had warned my dad before, that he had better quit picking on Delbert because Delbert was strong for his age.
Due to the war, everything was rationed. We had to use stamps to be able to buy most everything. I was hard on shoes and didn’t have a stamp to buy new shoes, so I went to school barefoot, even when it snowed.
Darrell was four years older than me and he was born with a crippled leg. He had a hard time walking, so I went back a grade in school to help him out. I went to the third grade in Angleton, Texas.
We went to church in Freeport, but we didn’t have a LDS chapel there so they rented a Masonic Hall, that had benches and it slanted down to a pulpit. There were spittoons for those in the Masonic Lodge who chewed tobacco or dipped snuff. It was my job to put the spittoons in a closet before church and put them back by the benches after church.
We then moved back to east Texas and we lived in Dovie’s mother’s place, which was the Simpson place in Enon, Texas. I then went to a school in Rosewood, Texas called Harmony.
Dad opened a fruit and vegetable stand in Gilmer, Texas. I sold buckets of honey on the corner of the block. Dad took orders for butter beans and when they came in I would deliver the butter beans to the people in the stores in Gilmer. I picked up the nickname “Butter Beans” from people in some of the stores.
We then moved to the north of Gilmer, by where my uncle Arthur Lindsey lived, and dad started to be a hog and cattle buyer. We went to church in Gilmer and I would ride my old Schwinn bicycle which I traded a calf for, into Gilmer and cut bermuda grass with a push lawnmower and also clean the church. I also helped cousin Joe Lindsey build a baptismal font underneath the church.
While living there, my dad got a divorce from Dovie. My sister, Myrlene, had already left home and went to Salt Lake City, Utah at 17-years of age.
Delbert and his wife, Ruthie, and some of their children already lived there. My brother, Travis, also lived in Salt Lake City.
Myrlene met and married a good man named William James Rast.
While going to church in Gilmer, our dad met a school teacher that went to church there and who taught school in Mt. Pleasant, Texas. Her name was Gwen. They soon married. We then moved into Gilmer and lived in a big house with a hall going through the middle. My uncle, Raymond Lindsey, his wife, Kathleen, and my Grandmother Lindsey also lived there.
I was thirteen when my dad married Gwendolyn. Dad, Gwen and J.B. Lindsey built a small frame house for us, down the hill and east of Uncle Tom and Aunt Ethel Bradshaw.
While living there I was going to school in Gilmer. I think I was in the sixth grade at that time. A lot of kids are cruel to handicapped people and I had a lot of fights trying to protect my brother Darrell. This went on clear through the seventh grade. I learned to fight defending Darrell. Not too many boys fooled with me.
One day in junior high, two of the school bullies were teasing Darrell and shoving a desk into him. Their names were Jack Richardson and Jackie Lloyd. I walked up to Jack Richardson and told him to leave Darrell alone. It slowed Jack down and he didn’t see Darrell coming. Then Darrell hit him with three fast lefts and knocked Jack out. They had to wake him in the hospital. Needless to say, he never fooled with Darrell again.
Later on, there was a girl in school I liked (and the first girl I ever kissed). Her name was Dorothy June Seago.
A new boy came to our school named Don Steelman. He took a liking to this girl, also.
My lifelong friend, Gaylon Bradshaw, and myself were down on the football field after school, watching the Gilmer Buckeyes football team practicing. Gaylon’s brother, Maurell, was on the team. Soon Jack Richardson and Jackie Lloyd came down with Don Steelman. I guess they were his bodyguards. Don wanted to fight me over Dorothy. I hit him four or five times and knocked him out. Two football players put him on their shoulders and carried him off to the prinicipal’s office. He came to and passed out three or four times before they got him there. This really scared me, because I thought I hurt him really bad. The principal’s name was Marshall A. Green and he got a 3/4″ board with holes drilled in it to make it sting worse. I didn’t think he would ever quit hitting me. Gaylon was standing out in the hall and said he got tears in his eyes because he (the principal) gave me such a whipping. Gaylon and I missed the bus and we had to walk about three miles to get home. I got home late to do my chores and dad whipped me for getting into a fight and missing the school bus. Such fun!
We then moved to Mt. Pleasant and moved into the first nice house we ever had; which had plumbing, a bathroom, electric lights. That was the first time we eperience the luxuries of life. Wow!
After this house, we moved into a nice home out in the country (close to where Gwen’s mother lived).
While living in Mt. Pleasant, dad would take his hogs and cattle to Mr. Colley’s auction to sell them and also buy more. I sold peanuts, candy and and all different kinds of soda pop to the people that worked there, and also to the people who came to sell or buy livestock.
While living in the country, I bought an old Cushman scooter from a missionary, who was about to finish his mission, for fifty dollars. I was trying to pay it off by mowing lawns for 50 or 75 cents. I would put that lawn mower on the scooter, ride into town and mow lawns. I could’nt get it paid for before the missionary was to go home; so I had to sell it so I could pay him, which broke my heart.
Then we moved to Pittsburg, Texas my sophomore year and Darrell and myself started at Pittsburg High School.
While there, Darrel and I got a job at the Pittsburg bowling alley, setting pins for 5-cents a lane, to make some spending money. One day, dad was plowing and had Darrell picking up roots that he had plowed up and throwing them out of the garden. He wasn’t picking them up fast enough to suit dad and they ended up in a wrestling and fist fight, when Darrell bloodied dad’s nose. Darrell came to a field where I was plowing cotton. He told me he was leaving and he went down to the bowling alley and slept on a hard bench, until one of our brother’s sent him money to go to Salt Lake.
One day when I was plowing cotton, while dad was at an auction, our old mule balked on me and I couldn’t get him to go. So I put the plow lines on the plow and I went around him and hit him as hard as I could, upside his head, with my fist. Then he turned and went sideways across the rows, tearing them up. When dad came home, I believe he gave me a whipping for that.
Before my junior year of high school started, we moved back to Kelsey and lived in a little rock-sided house which, again, had no plumbing. But, we did have a two-seater outhouse.
I started school at Harmony High School my junior year and started playing football for the Harmony Eagles. My first game was coming up and my stepmother had me cutting down small trees with an axe, clearing land for plowing. I finally went in and told her I had to catch my ride to play football that night. I was riding with my friend, Jennings Means. She insisted I go cut down some more trees and I told her, again, I had to go. She threw my clothes in the yard in the dirt. I started to leave. She started throwing rocks at me. I picked up my two pairs of pants and two shirts and went on to play the game. I had just started making the team and I didn’t get to start. Our big center got hurt and Coach Houston said, “Lindsey, go in and play center”. I weighed about 130 pounds. I said, “Coach, I can’t play center, I have never done that before”. Still, he said go on in. “They will tell you which number to center the ball on.” I went in and soon as the quarterback said “ready, set”, I centered the ball and we lost ten yards. I finally settled down and ended up playing three positions that night. I played center, guard and linebacker. We played both offensive and defensive. I also ran down on kickoffs to help tackle the runners. I got in on most every tackle that night. We beat a team called Maud 37-0.
My dad wasn’t at the game but our cousin Leroy Lindsey was there, because his son, Douglas, was playing and he told people I was the best player on the field that night. That make me fell like “Superman”. (Ha ha.)
My cousin who was also playing for Harmony, asked me after the game to come stay at his house. That was my cousin Curtis Henderson and his mother was my Aunt Clara, my mother’s sister. For them, I am forever grateful. We played Hawkins the next week and we got beat as bad as we had beat the team the week before.
My dad came over and asked me to come come back home and I said “maybe”, but I never did.
My dad came over about a week later and told me they were going to Salt Lake for a visit and asked me if I wanted go go. I said YES, because I thought it would get me out of the situation I was in.
We came out to Salt Lake city and the day before they were to leave my sister Myrlene called me at my brother Delbert’s house (in Sugarhouse) and told me she and dad had talked it over, and asked if I wanted to stay with her and her husband, Bill Rast. I said YES and it was the best thing that had happened in my life.
My cousin, Clarence Lindsey, paid for my guardianship papers so I could go to West High School, because I was living with Myrlene and Bill.
Integration had not started in the South, when I came here from Texas. I had never gone to a school with a black person. And the only Asians I had ever seen were on a news reel at theater during World War II, so it was a big change for me to go to West High. I think most every race there was, went to West High.
I didn’t have any trouble adjusting. They also required 16-credits here and Texas required only 12, so I had to take every required subject every period, with no study period.
I had never seen TV and I don’t remember ever having a telephone or talking on one. What a change for a country boy!
We lived in an apartment house, owned by Bob Barnes. He had a daughter named Mary Alice. She became my friend and couple weeks or so later, she told me that her friend, LuRae Pierce wanted to meet me. I had seen LuRae at church and she was a pretty girl. She lived around the corner, so I told Mary Alice to call her and tell her to come over. We waited on the front door steps and she soon came over. She stood by the rail on the porch for awhile and I told her to come sit down by me. We hit it off right away and I asked her for a date. Her best friend was Joan Hinckley Willes and years later I found out she was President Gordon B. Hinkcley’s niece. Her mother was President Hinckley’s sister. Her family were really nice and they were so nice to me. They lived straight through the block from us at 167 C Street, in the avenues. We lived at 167 B Street.
We went to North 18th Ward and I found out later that is was the first ward out of the fort in the early days. Brigham Young and other early-church officials went there.
While I was in high school, I worked for a while at Constellation Shoe Store on State Street, for 50-cents an hour to make some spending money. I went to West High my junior and senior years. I was the only one in my family to graduate from high school, thanks to my sister Myrlene and her husband, Bill Rast. When I got out of high school I went to work for Sears in the shoe department. I found out later they only hired me for the Christmas season. I then went to work for Gene Harris Ford in Magna, Utah.
One day while riding back to Salt Lake with the Japanese mechanic, my brother Travis flagged us down and came over to our car. He said I had received a letter from my uncle. I said, “Uncle who?” and he said, “Uncle Sam”.
I had gone with my girlfriend LuRae for over 2-1/2 years and had fallen deeply in love with her.
The letter Travis gave me was my orders to report to Fort Douglas, Utah to enter the Army on March 27, 1953. My girlfriend and my family went with me to take my first step (as they called it) in the U.S. Army Infantry. They also saw me off that evening at the railroad station. It was very sad for me to leave my girlfriend and my family.
They put us on a troop train which took us to Ford Ord, California. We stayed there for a couple weeks while we got our uniforms and numerous shots. They shot us in both arms at once. They put me on duty making dog tags for the troops. They only put a “P” for Protestant and a “C” for Catholic, so I made two sets and put LDS on one set.
After all this took place, they put us on a troop train to Fort Lewis, Washington. I did well at the start because I took ROTC at West High. There, I learned to disassemble and assemble the .45 pistol and the M-1 rifle. Also, I learned how to drill, dress and other military protocols.
I left Utah with some missionaries and others who had been in the National Guard. One missionary had been in the National Guard was made my squad leader in basic training. I later became his squad leader. After basic training we were put in some new barracks which were really nice.
I was put in the mortar and .57 recoilless rifle platoon, where I was made acting corporal in about 9-months (which wasn’t easy to do stateside). After I made corporal I was given my own room, shared with another corporal, where we had privacy and could lock our door. We didn’t have to sleep with the rest of the troops and that made it nice.
I was a squad leader and I had to make sure our men had their weapons clean and everybody was ready for duty. I sometimes had to be in charge of getting the latrines clean and spotless. I would sometimes assist as acting section sergeant and march our troops. I had a loud voice and could really sound off.
After awhile, the second division joined up with us, just back from Korea. We went on maneuvers to Yakima, Washington, where we were taught combat training. They had built a bunker on the side of a hill. My section sergeant, who was from southern Utah and just back from Korea, came down from the mortar section and asked me how far I thought it was to the bunker. The .57 recoilless would fire over a mile and would knock out a tank during the second World War (when the armor wasn’t as thick). I told him I thought it was 900-yards. He said the lieutenant said the mortar section thought it was 1,800-yards. He bet the sergeant a fifth of whiskey they could hit it and we wouldn’t. I fired 8 rounds and the target 7 out of 8 rounds, direct center, and blew the bunker off the side of the hill. I had judged the distance by the length of a football field by 100-yards until I reached the target. I made a lot of points by doing that and some of the officers I didn’t know began talking to me and calling me by name. We were given orders to go to Korea, but two weeks before we were to go they called us in formation and told us the Korean War had ended. We were really happy. We were put on alert most of the time after that, having to sign in and out and where we were going, so they could find us as fast as possible. About six months before I was to get out, I had to get an emergency leave because my dad had a bad case of ulcers and they had to take out 3/4 of his stomach.
Everything went well with my girlfriend while I was home and she told me she really loved me. She gave me a framed picture of her and when I got back to the base, I told my friends that this was the girl I was going to marry. About six weeks later, I got a very cold letter from her. She said she had met this guy at a basketball game and it was all over between she and I. I started bashing my fist against a steel locker. It literally broke my heart. When I got out of the Army on March 25, 1955; I rode home with one of the missionaries I went in the Army with, who had a car. He took me right to my home in the avenues.
I had saved $900.00 to buy a car, so that I would have transportation to get a job and get started in life. It wasn’t easy to save money we because we didn’t make very much. I put the money in my sister’s name, in case I went to Korea and got killed. When I got home, I learned she had spent my money. I had not lost only my money, but my girlfriend also. My sister never paid me back.
I quit going to church and I started partying. I went with at least 25 or 30 girls, in the five years after I got home. I came close to marrying two of those. Both of the girls grew up in Idaho. One of the girls lived across the street from my sister’s home on B Street. She worked for First Security Bank and had cattle on the ranch in Idaho, that her dad owned. She started raising them when she was a small girl. The other girl taught school at White Pines High School in Ely, Nevada. She offered to let me come to Ely and that I wouldn’t have to work and that she would take care of me. I told her I could’nt do that, because it just wouldn’t be right.
I worked for or managed at least five different gas stations. I started working at Covey’s on Beck Street. While working there, my cousin Duane Leek brought a young lady named Barbara Cleone Drown out to the station one evening. He asked me if I wanted to take a ride with them to Murray, Utah to a drive-in, which we went to a lot. They had the best chicken sandwiches I have ever eaten. I went with them and I met Barbara, who was a very sweet, young lad. Duane left to go back to the Navy. In a couple of weeks, Duane’s mother called me and said Barbara wanted to go out with me. I told her I couldn’t do that because she was Duane’s girl. She told me that Duane was interested in Barbara’s girlfriend. While Barbara was in high school, she never missed a day. She also never missed a day of church seminary. I called Barbara and made a date with her. We had a real good time. I didn’t call her back because I thought she was too good for me. A year later, she called me and said we should celebrate out birthdays. My birthday is on March 5th and hers is on March 6th. I made a date with her because I though if she liked me that much I had better take her out again. We went out and soon I asked her to go steady and we were married on March 18, 1960. Years later I started going back to church and we were married for time and eternity in the West Jordan Temple on March 18, 1998. We have three children: Gary Don, Jerry Michael and Sharon Lindsey. We also have two grandchildren: Kendra Noel Lindsey and Daniel Michael Lindsey.
I had a lot of jobs while working: Service stations, Auerbach’s tire center, Eimco Corp., Filtrol Corp., U.S. Welding and, finally settled down at Sperry Corp., thanks to my cousin, Duane Leek. Sperry sold out so many times, I retired from Unisys Corp., on March 5, 1995, after 27 years of service. I worked for the defense systems the whole time.After I retired, I found out I had prostate cancer in 1997. It had already spread to my backbone before I found out. The doctor that first checked me said that I would probably only live 18 to 24 months. I went to the Veteran’s Administration Hospital and they told me that they wouldn’t take me in at that time, because they were short on government funding. They said come back in about a year and maybe they could take me in. I told them I might be dead by then. I went to the University of Utah Medical Center for a second opinion and just happened to get a doctor that had transferred over from the V.A. He checked me and said that he agreed with the test that had been made. He asked me what the V.A. had told me. I told him and he said that they could be very cold people that had talked to me. He said that he would go over and talk to people at the V.A., and he would let me know the next day. The next day a secretary called me and asked a few questions and told me they would change me from class C to class A…and they would take me in. I thanked God. In the afternoon, the doctor called me and said he had already made appointments for me. What a great man! I will always be thankful for what he did for me. I have been going to the V.A. for ovr eleven years and they have treated me very well. I’m STILL doing well and thankful to be here.
I have been back to church for over eleven years now and I have accomplished so much. I am not a High Priest in the Melchizedek Priesthood. My wife and I will be married 49 years on March 18, 2009. I thank my dear wife, Barbara, for putting up with me for all of these years.
I also have three half-brothers: Orval Tosh Lindsey (born April 5, 1947); William Boyd Lindsey (born June 4, 1948); Timothy Legrande Lindsey (born September 18, 1951); And one step-sister, Mary Martha Lindsey (born October 1, 1949).
While I was growing up, I changed schools at least 13 times. It probably didn’t do much for my brain, but at least I met a lot of people. I am so proud of my heritaged.
God bless our church and God bless America. While in the Army; not long before I was honorably disharged, I got be be in the movie “To Hell and Back”, starring Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier ever, in any war. I thought it was an honor to see him and be in the movie.
I probably left many things out, but after all the years gone by, I did the best I could.
The reason I had three stepmothers in my life was because my mother told my dad of her death bed, she wanted my dad to find a woman that would treat and love us as their own. That didn’t seem to ever happen.
Four out of the seven brothers, that lived, served in the military. Travis served in the Army Air Corps during the second World War. I served during the Korean War. William (Bill) and Timothy (Tim) served during the Vietnam War. Bill made a career of the Army and retired as a Colonel. They wouldn’t take Delbert, because he had a hernia (which doctors didn’t know how to repair). Darrell was handicapped with a bad leg. Orval was married, a school teacher and coach, so he was exempt.
The things I liked to do in my younger life were: Bowling, football, hunting and, most of all, fishing with my boys and friends. When I was about 16-years old, I bowled my highest score ever, which was 279. I had nine strikes to start the game and in the tenth frame the owner of the bowling alley, Mr. Dyer, told me he would give me $300.00 if I bowled a perfect 300 game. That was a lot of money in 1949. In the tenth frame I got nine pins and picked up a spare. I then got another strike. We had a high school bowling team that bowled with a league, with men in Pittsburg, and we did really well. While working for Sperry, I bowled in the Sperry bowling league and held the highest score which was 249 for the first half of the season. I ended up with the highest individual score for a four-game series with a 913 score for a handicap for the year, and received a nice trophy.
At this present time, I have been retired for 14-years and I have really enjoyed it, except for my cancer. I’m doing fairly good at this time.
I want everyone to know I love all my family, friends and relatives. I wish them all well!
I also must pay tribute to my Father. He was one of the most honest, trustworthy, hard-working men that I know of. He was left with five children to raise, when my mother died, aged from 12 to almost 2-years of age. That was during the Great Depression and Dad had to go wherever he could to find work. We were poor, but we never went hungry. Dad always had a garden and our family would can some of our crops for winter or other hard times. We also raised chickens, hogs and beef for meat. Dad could really make good sausage and people all around would buy some for their family. Dad was a strong disciplinarian and when he told us to do something, he better not have to tell us twice or we were in trouble. Dad never told us he loved us or hugged us. I guess he thought it didn’t show masculinity, but he sometimes showed love in other ways. The only time I remember him hugging me was after I was grown and went with my family to visit him in Kelsey, Texas. When I was leaving he hugged me before I got in the car; and with tears in his eyes, he told me he loved me and wished I would stop drinking and start going back to church. I had a hard time leaving and he kept watching until we were out of sight. It was the last time I saw him alive. Our daughter, Sharon, was born on December 10, 1967. My dad, his wife Gwendolyn, and their family tried to come out to Salt Lake to see our new daughter, but a terrible blizzard hit the western states and they hand to turn around and go back home. After my dad got back home, one of his best friends passed away and dad went to his funeral. After the funeral was over, dad went home and tried to load a big bull by himself into a trailer. He went to the house and he had a stroke and died a short time later on December 29, 1967.
My brother-in-law, Bill Rast, my sister Myrlene, myself and three of our aunts on my dad’s side of the family drove to Texas from Salt Lake City, in their Ford Crown Victoria. Our three aunts (that accompanied us) were Geneva Bennion, Mamie Fox and Blanche Bell, three of my dad’s sisters. There had been another bad snow storm. Bill and myself drove straight to Gilmer, Texas in that bad storm with snow and ice on the road from Salt Lake City to the Texas panhandle. There were times when I was driving that Bill had to roll down his window and tell me how to stay on the road. We got to Gilmer just in time to go to dad’s viewing. After the viewing we went to dad and Gwen’s house and talked for awhile. We got four hours sleep and got up and went to the funeral. There was a black man at dad’s funeral, whom they called “Mr. Tom”. He worked for dad in his small grocery strore and everyone really liked him. He and my dad were really close friends. After the service, as the funeral procession was leaving, Mr. Tom was standing our front, wiping the tears from his eyes with a big white handkerchief. He reminded me of Louis Armstrong, in that moment. The line of cars, as we left Gilmer to Kelsey for dad’s burial had to be at least a mile long. It was a cold dreary day. Dad got around one hundred floral offerings. He was loved by many people. He always tried to help those in need. After the funeral, the Dallas Cowboys were playing the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs for the Superbowl (which they called the “ice bowl”, because there was so much ice and snow on the field and the temperature was very low. We watched the football game, which Dallas lost. We then took off and drove straight through to Salt Lake, because Bill and I had to get back to work. We were so tired that Bill and I had to change drivers quite often. I got so tired at times I thought I saw animals crossing the road that weren’t there. When we got back to Salt Lake, I had a terrible cold and couldn’t go to work for a couple of days. Bill got sick also.
I did not know my dear mother, because she died on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1935, and I was not quite two-years old. I have read a lot about her and found out she was very active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, since the time she was very young. She served as a “secretary” and also went out with missionary groups to do preaching in the streets and selling copies of the “Book of Mormon” of Mormon for 50-cents each. They would have meetings at the church each week and would give a report on how many Book of Mormons they would sell and who did the preaching of the gospel. They also had meetings at the church each week and were assigned scriptures to each person to study and give a report on. Everyone I ever talked to about her said she was very sweet and also a pretty lady.
I also went to the University of Utah for about a year.
Bye for now.
Don Carlos Lindsey, Junior
P.S. Thanks to my niece, Lorraine Lindsey Hipwell, for encouraging me to write this story.
Lindsey: Endure Fort 