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quick." But you can imagine her going to sleep!
"With the ground being frozen, you could hear that wagon rattling for a long ways off. When she heard the wagon, she got on her wraps and came out to the gate where I always stopped. When I drove up to the gate, the horses stopped. I was tucked in these quilts to keep warm. Mother said, 'Lyle, Lyle!'
"I didn't answer right away, and of course she knew I was frozen to death. She started to cry, and I answered her. I got off the wagon and she almost squeezed the life out of me. Father came out to take care of the horses. He took me in the house and fed me and put me to bed. Father would always say, 'I told you, Mother, he'd be here, no problem.'"
Temple Here We Come
Lyle's father had joined the church the year before he was born. In 1918 they took their family to be sealed in the St. George Temple. Lyle describes the preparation and journey:
"We spent, as I remember it, three years saving up money and supplies, and making new quilts, preparing to go to the St. George Temple and have all of the family sealed together. That was accomplished. We went by team and wagon, and there was a place called Central, about halfway between Enterprise and St. George; we drove there the first day, after starting at daylight in the morning.
"Those days were a lot different that they are now. When we arrived, we were just like part of the family. We were put up, and we were all invited into the house and fed. We had beds made up all over the house, because there was a large family of us. The next morning we got up early and went on to St. George. There we went through the temple and the family was all sealed together."
"Our trip back home took two days, and we stopped at the same place on the way back."
Moving to Delta
"In the year 1915 ( it was really 1918), the family moved by wagon and team to Delta, Utah, a distance of about 375 miles, where my father and two brothers, Lawrence and Vendon worked in the sugar factory."
""We saved our money and the things that we needed, and we drove from Enterprise to Delta with a wagon and team. At that time I was 12 years old, almost 13. We'd stop along the way and hunt rabbits, and one or two nights we had to camp, but most of the time we found a ranch or a town someplace where we could stay and feed our horses and have a place to sleep."
Working for Francis Henry
"The following year, after school was out, I went to work in Southland, Utah, for a man by the name of Francis Henry. He was a returned missionary from New Zealand with a family of three children." "I think I was 14 /2 (he was nearly 16) when I went to work for him." "While employed on the ranch…we grew sugar beets and hay."
He credits his time with Mr. Henry as one of gospel training.
Frightening Trip Home
Lyle had worked for Mr. Henry for two years when Lyle's family moved back to Enterprise. They decided to leave Lyle there one more year to help with the family income. So, in 1921, Lyle had to make the trip home alone. Thirty years later he described the journey on a saddle horse:
"The first day I rode 52 miles from Delta to Black Rock and I didn't get in there until midnight that night. It's 52 miles from there to Lund. Now I rode from Black Rock to Milford the next day, that's two days. Then I rode from Milford to Lund. That's three days. And the next day I rode from there home. It took me four days. I can remember one night I was late getting into the town I wanted to go to, and the horse I was riding was thirsty, and she came to a river. It was so dark that I couldn't see where she was going. When she went down the bank to get a drink, she slipped in the water, and the water was really deep. She had to swim, and I had to depend on her to get out by herself, which she did, but that was really a scary experience. " (In different accounts Lyle insisted the journey took either 5 days, a week, or 11 days.)
Perfect Attendance
"During that three years my training in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued as it had been at home. I well remember the Bible I received for a perfect attendance at Sunday School for one year. It was six miles round trip to the chapel and back to the ranch during the winter sometimes the snow would be 2 feet deep and it would be 20 below zero."
Moapa: Meeting Dallas
"From Enterprise I went to Moapa, Nevada, went to work for the White Star Plaster Company, making plaster. While there I met a beautiful young lady by the name of Dallas Woodbury. She was born and raised in Mesquite, Nevada. Her father ran the post office and a store at the mining camp, which was in a place named Hupton."
They met on a late Friday evening, when Lyle, without a date, decided to stay home and read. But, alas, he was out of kerosene for his lamp, so he decided to see if the mercantile was still open. It was closed, but he ran into Dallas. She, noting his can, asked if he needed kerosene. Her Daddy's store was closed, she said.
"Well, I guess I'll have to sit in the dark," Lyle said.
She got him the kerosene. Lyle and Dallas were brought together again by fate on June 13, 1923, when friends arranged a blind date for them. As Lyle always said, "I've been blind ever since."
Their most memorable date was the day Lyle brought over his new Model T Ford Sedan, the one he and his brother had bought together, to show Dallas. At the time, Dallas was baby-sitting the schoolteacher's two children, but she decided to take them along for the ride. Several miles out of town, the car gave out. They had no choice but to walk the miles back. Lyle remembered the walk as only 3 or 4 miles, while Dallas remembered it as at least 10 miles.
During part of their courtship, they were separated, and wrote many love letters.
Marriage: A New Car and No Home
They were married the second of June, 1924, in Las Vegas, Nevada. On the 18th of March 1925, they were sealed in the St. George Temple.
As Lyle said, "When we went to get married, her father was in Hinckley, Utah, but he was home when we came back. Right after our marriage we bought a new car, and when we drove up to the store which he operated (he also operated the post office), the first thing he said to us was, 'A new car and no home.'
"So Dallas and I put up a tent under a big mesquite tree and parked our car out under the shade. I got her a job at the mill. We were about the same size, so we both wore a blue shirt and striped overalls, and company caps, and it was hard for people from very much of a distance to tell us apart."
1925, Parenthood, Temple Sealing
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