Reid Shelley Melville 2 3 Memoirs of Reid Shelley Melville
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MEMOIRS OF REID SHELLEY MELVILLE 2 3 MEMOIRS OF REID SHELLEY MELVILLE In the following pages I’ll be writing about various matters which were told to be buy Dad or Mother regarding my forebears, and things I remember about my life with my parents, brothers and sister; also, happenings in my own life and life with my wife, Ted, and our two sons. Section 1 Memoirs Regarding My Great Grandparents And Grandparents Section 2 Remembrances During My Life With Father And Mother Section 3 Happenings From The Time I Left Home Until I Was Married Section 4 Remembrances Of My Life From The Time I Was Married Until The Boys Both Left Home Section 5 Life With Ted And Myself Since Our Boys Left Home Section 6 Epilogue by Reid Tommie Melville and remembrances of Reid Shelley Melville by his Grandchildren Appendix A Homes Appendix B Jobs Appendix C Clothing Sales Trips (1932 – 1950) Appendix D (Mostly) Leisure Travel in Later Years (1966 – 1987) Contributors There are many people to thank for the preparation of the memoirs. First and foremost, Reid Shelley Melville, who obviously spent quite a bit of time working on this summary of his life. Janette Sakellariou , his long-time secretary, typed the original transcript of the memoirs. Some of the final pages were typed by Julie Hite, his granddaughter. Alan Melville, a grandson, took on the task of scanning the original document and transcribing it into electronic format and various extracting lists of things (travel, jobs, houses, etc). Julie Hite provided the final proof-read, contribut ing countless corrections and confirming dates and events. Tom Melville the Epilogue and provided the family photographs. And finally, each of the grandchildren (that chose to contribute) provided their memories “Grandpa Melville”. Editor’s Notes For the most part, the text is as it was originally written. Minor corrections have been made to correct inaccuracies in spelling, some grammar, chronological inconsistencies and in rare cases, to improve readability. The exception to this is items in square brackets (e.g. [1947] ) were added during editing for clarification and were not part of the original manuscript. Copyright 2003 All Rights Reserved 4 5 SECTION I - GREAT GRANDPARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS The first Melville to leave Europe and cross the ocean to the U.S.A. was my great grandfather, Alexander Melville. He was born in Feb 15, 1821, in Pittenweem, Scotland, and grew up in this small fishing village on Scotland’s east coast on the North Sea, about 50 miles north of Edinburgh, Scotland. As a young man, he learned the trades of baker, blacksmith, and a cooper (barrel maker). When Alexander Melville was 22 years old, he signed on with one of the whaling vessels, which was home based in Pittenweem for a one-year tour of the north Seas hunting and catching whales. He was assigned the job of a harpooner. He had to go out in a rowboat from the mother ship after they had spotted a whale, and when close enough to the whale he would throw the spear-like harpoon into its side. The harpoon had a rope attached to it, and to the front of the boat. He and other harpooners would throw several harpoons into the whale until they wounded it. After a whale has been stuck with a harpoon or two, it usually takes off in a frantic attempt to get away, towing the small boat on a high speed run through the water. This was a dangerous and precarious operation. In the event the whale would dive, it would take the boat and harpooners with it. They had to be ready to swiftly cut the ropes towing the boat. After the whale had exhausted himself, they then towed the whale back to the side of the boat where they cut out the parts of the whale that were commercially valuable, and then dropped the carcass into the sea. At one point on this trip, their boat was frozen in an ice jam in the Arctic for several weeks. After returning to the home port of Pittenweem great grandfather Alexander quit the whaling business and married Elizabeth Adamson in the fall of 1843. They joined the Mormon Church one month later. In the spring of 1844, they sailed to America via New Orleans, took a riverboat up to St. Louis and stayed there for a while. They later moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, and then to Winter Quarters where his wife, Elizabeth, died. He then married Jane Ann Dutson, who is our great grandmother Melville (see historical note). Our grandfather, James Andrew Melville, was born on March 3, 1852, on a farm near Council Bluffs, Iowa, just three weeks prior to his parents leaving with a wagon train to cross the plains for Utah. The baby was hand carried in a basket most of the trip. After arriving in Salt Lake, they moved to Provo, Utah, and stayed there for about one year. Great grandfather Melville enlisted to fight the Indians during the Walker India n Wars. He fought Indians for several months while on this duty. Chief Walker was finally killed and buried in the foothills above Spring Lake Villa, Utah and Dad never let us forget where Chief Walker was buried. In 1853, Brigham Young called on great grandfather Alexander Melville to move to Fillmore, Utah, and help settle that new town. He worked there as a farmer and at the trades, which he had learned in Scotland. Grandfather James Andrew Melville grew up in Fillmore, and at age 14, he enlisted with many others in Utah to fight in the Black Hawk Indian War. During this time, he helped build the old mud fort at Deseret, Utah, and helped build the Cove Fort down on the highway between Fillmore and Beaver at Cove Fort, Utah. Our grandmother, Imogene Gibbs , was brought to Utah by her parents who crossed the plains with a handcart company. Grandmother was just a small girl and walked most of the way. They also went to Fillmore. In 1869, Grandfather married Imogene Gibbs. He started out his life by making a living on a small farm by Fillmore, and he started up a small logging business east of Fillmore in the mountains. A little later, he tried a mining venture out by Milford, Utah, but had no luck with that. 6 Then he was called by the Church on a special assignment to go into west Millard County and colonize the Delta area. The old towns of Oasis and Deseret had a few people living in them, but there was really nothing at Delta at that time. Grandfather became known as Uncle Jim to everybody in Millard County and was always referred to as Jim Melville by his friends and other people who knew him well. In his job of colonizing west Millard County, he first plotted out a new town. The first settlers named the town Melville, but the U.S. Postal Department wouldn’t accept the name because of its similarity to Millville, Utah, in Cache Valley, which was previously registered. Grandfather then suggested Delta because it looked like a mud flat. Then he organized an irrigation company called Melville Irrigation Company which still exists, and with state aid organized the building of the Yuba Dam south of Juab, Utah, which formed the reservoir to back up the Sevier River and control the water which was then released downstream for use in the irrigation systems which he had built in the Delta area. He also had the dam built west of Delta and then organized the Deseret Irrigation Company, and was instrumental in the organization and original network created by the Abraham Irrigation Company to serve the area northwest of Delta. It was during this period that he got into the real estate promotion business. He started out by buying state school board sections of land. He would then put a 40-acre piece or an 80-acre piece under cultivation and plant it to alfalfa. Then he would sell the surrounding acreage to other people. His general pattern of success was to buy these school sections at $1.25 an acre and then sell them to the other farmers buying the land at $40 an acre. He served one term as district attorney in Fillmore and then served a term in the Utah State Legislature. With all this activity, he apparently was a very busy man. I remember talking to Dad one time when he was telling me about our great grandfather Alexander, who was chiding grandfather Jim about his multiple activities and how busy he was, and he said, “Jim, you’ll probably be too busy to even come to my funeral.” That’s the way it happened. Grandfather didn’t get to his Dad’s funeral. He was busy outside of the area at the time and didn’t learn about his Father’s death until it was too late. Great Grandfather [Alexander] Melville died in Fillmore on December 6, 1911. [Jane Ann Dutson died May 8, 1911] Besides Grandfather’s irrigation project promotions and real estate sales, he entered into some other private adventures. One of his first successful ones was a heavy investment in the Sinclair Oil field in Wyoming that hit it big. In conjunction with some of his real estate ventures and irrigation project developments, he had a partner by the name of Frank Copening. They learned of a potential oil field in Cuba. They first bought up the oil leases, and then Grandfather made a trip to Cuba to look over the oil dome that they had leased.