I can remember my dad talking about the Goates Family - since my dad grew up in Lehi, Utah. This is an absolute favorite story of mine.
I
have a great friend, Brother Les Goates, a great and gifted writer, and
I asked him if I could lift a part of a story. He told how welfare
first came into his home:
“But ‘as for me and my house,’ the welfare program
began in the Old Field west of Lehi on the Saratoga Road in the autumn
of 1918, that terribly climactic year of World War I during which more
than 14 million people died of that awful scourge ‘the black plague,’ or
Spanish influenza.
“Winter
came early that year and froze much of the sugar beet crop in the
ground. My dad and brother Francis were desperately trying to get out of
the frosty ground one load of beets each day which they would plow out
of the ground, cut off the tops, and toss the beets, one at a time, into
the huge red beet wagon and then haul the load off to the sugar
factory. It was slow and tedious work due to the frost and the lack of
farm help, since my brother Floyd and I were in the army and Francis, or
Franz, as everybody called him, was too young for the military service.
“While they were thusly engaged in harvesting the family’s
only cash crop and were having their evening meal one day, a phone call
came through from our eldest brother, George Albert, superintendent of
the State Industrial School in Ogden, bearing the tragic news that
Kenneth, nine-year-old son of our brother Charles, the school farm
manager, had been stricken with the dread ‘flu,’ and after only a few
hours of violent sickness, had died on his father’s lap; and would dad
please come to Ogden and bring the boy home and lay him away in the
family plot in the Lehi Cemetery.
“My
father cranked up his old flap-curtained Chevrolet and headed for Five
Points in Ogden to bring his little grandson home for burial. When he
arrived at the home he found ‘Charl’ sprawled across the cold form of
his dear one, the ugly brown discharge of the black plague oozing from
his ears and nose and virtually burning up with fever.
“‘Take my boy home,’ muttered the stricken young father, ‘and lay him away in the family lot and come back for me tomorrow.’
“Father
brought Kenneth home, made a coffin in his carpenter shop, and mother
and our sisters, Jennie, Emma, and Hazel, placed a cushion and a lining
in it, and then dad went with Franz and two kind neighbors to dig the
grave. So many were dying the families had to do the grave digging. A
brief graveside service was all that was permitted.
“The
folks had scarcely returned from the cemetery when the telephone rang
again and George Albert (Bert) was on the line with another terrifying
message: Charl had died and two of his beautiful little girls—Vesta, 7,
and Elaine, 5—were critically ill, and two babies—Raeldon, 4, and
Pauline, 3—had been stricken.
“Our
good cousins, the Larkin undertaking people, were able to get a casket
for Charl and they sent him home in a railroad baggage car. Father and
young Franz brought the body from the railroad station and placed it on
the front porch of our old country home for an impromptu neighborhood
viewing but folks were afraid to come near the body of a black plague
victim. Father and Francis meanwhile had gone with neighbors to get the
grave ready and arrange a short service in which the great, noble spirit
of Charles Hyrum Goates was commended into the keeping of his Maker.
“Next
day my sturdy, unconquerable old dad was called on still another of his
grim missions—this time to bring home Vesta, the smiling one with the
raven hair and big blue eyes.
“When
he arrived at the home he found Juliett, the grief-crazed mother,
kneeling at the crib of darling little Elaine, the blue-eyed baby angel
with the golden curls. Juliett was sobbing wearily and praying: ‘Oh,
Father in heaven, not this one, please! Let me keep my baby! Do not take
any more of my darlings from me!’
“Before
father arrived home with Vesta the dread word had come again. Elaine
had gone to join her daddy, brother Kenneth, and Sister Vesta. And so it
was that father made another heartbreaking journey to bring home and
lay away a fourth member of his family, all within the week.
“The
telephone did not ring the evening of the day they laid away Elaine nor
were there any more sad tidings of death the next morning. It was
assumed that George A. and his courageous companion Della, although
afflicted, had been able to save the little ones Raeldon and Pauline;
and it was such a relief that Cousin Reba Munns, a nurse, had been able
to come in and help.
“After
breakfast dad said to Franz, ‘Well, son, we had better get down to the
field and see if we can get another load of beets out of the ground
before they get frozen in any tighter. Hitch up and let’s be on our
way.’
“Francis
drove the four-horse outfit down the driveway and dad climbed aboard.
As they drove along the Saratoga Road, they passed wagon after
wagon-load of beets being hauled to the factory and driven by
neighborhood farmers. As they passed by, each driver would wave a
greeting: ‘Hi ya, Uncle George,’ ‘Sure sorry, George,’ ‘Tough break,
George,’ ‘You’ve got a lot of friends, George.’
“On
the last wagon was the town comedian, freckled-faced Jasper Rolfe. He
waved a cheery greeting and called out: ‘That’s all of ‘em, Uncle
George.’
“My dad turned to Francis and said: ‘I wish it was all of ours.’
“When
they arrived at the farm gate, Francis jumped down off the big red beet
wagon and opened the gate as we drove onto the field. He pulled up,
stopped the team, paused a moment and scanned the field, from left to
right and back and forth—and lo and behold, there wasn’t a sugar beet on
the whole field. Then it dawned upon him what Jasper Rolfe meant when
he called out: ‘That’s all of ‘em, Uncle George!’
“Then
dad got down off the wagon, picked up a handful of the rich, brown soil
he loved so much, and then in his thumbless left hand a beet top, and
he looked for a moment at these symbols of his labor, as if he couldn’t
believe his eyes.
“Then
father sat down on a pile of beet tops—this man who brought four of his
loved ones home for burial in the course of only six days; made
caskets, dug graves, and even helped with the burial clothing—this
amazing man who never faltered, nor finched, nor wavered throughout this
agonizing ordeal—sat down on a pile of beet tops and sobbed like a
little child.
“Then
he arose, wiped his eyes with his big, red bandanna handkerchief,
looked up at the sky, and said: ‘Thanks, Father, for the elders of our
ward."
President Lee probably said it more beautifully in our day than any I have read. In 1946 in the October conference, he said:
“I
know there are powers that can draw close to one who fills his heart
with … love. … I came to a night, some years ago, when on my bed, I
realized that before I could be worthy of the high place to which I had
been called, I must love and forgive every soul that walked the earth,
and in that time I came to know and I received a peace and a direction,
and a comfort, and an inspiration, that told me things to come and gave
me impressions that I knew were from a divine source.” (Conference Report, October 1946, p. 146.)
