My Life History - J. Ralph Thompson
My life has been an interesting one. As I look back over the 70 years of it. I was born Joseph Ralph Thompson, August 1, 1914, in a small suburb of Cedar City, (called Hamilton Fort), Utah. This little community has quite a history connected with the early settling of it. My mother, Grace B. Bleak, told me that right after I was born Grandma Bleak spatted me on the bare bottom and remarked; “Ah! Child you’ve come into a cruel, cruel world!” Yes, this is probably the worse of times and the best of times. Life is a lot what we make of it and our attitudes. I am sure those early “pioneers” did live thru some hard times that we have not seen.
Growing up at Hamilton Fort brought a lot of hard work and a lot of pleasures. The neighbors were closely knit in those days, and often in the evening Father and Mother would sit on the porch and play the mandolin and guitar and sing, as the neighbors and friends came over to join in with us. These were friendly times. For a few years as I was a child these times strengthened family ties.
I remember in these early years school was held at Hamilton Fort, although soon it was moved to Cedar City. We were then going to the Cedar Schools which were about 4 miles away. When I was about 12 one of my jobs was to drive the old Model T Ford with our milk to the creamery at Cedar City. I felt it was a real responsibility that was entrusted to me. This made me fell older than my years. On one trip, however, I had a wreck, spilt the milk and broke my nose. Growing up experiences are painful.
When I was 17 I went in town and lived with uncle Eza, and worked with him in his brick plant. He became ill and I had to take over the responsibilities of making the brick for the Jr. High School. I still get some pride and satisfaction every time I pass that building.
Time has a way of passing and it was time to go off to college. Our family was not wealthy, which meant I had to work to help support myself in school. For some time I lived with my brother Howard and his wife Ann, who were there at Logan also going to school. After three years of College I obtained a job on the Boulder Dam Power lines. For a while I lived in Nevada in a trailer house I had purchased. One of my visits home my sweet mother – always ready to teach me the principles of the gospel – mentioned now that I was earning my own money she thought I should pay my tithing as she knew I would be blessed – and I was. It was not very long after this my Dad and my Bishop came out to Nevada and asked me to go on a mission. I was given five minutes to make up my mind. The thoughts flashed across my mind that about two weeks before I had had a strong feeling and thirst for knowing more about the church, and had gone to the library and found LDS books and started to study. The spirit seems to whisper to us to prepare for things that will come in our lives if we will be prayerful and stay in tune. This opened a new phase in my life, a calling to the German Mission. This was a surprise to me, but also interesting to be able to go learn about other people and places. My serving wasn’t to be long in this foreign land. It was the time of great change and unrest there. Hitler had come into power and I witnessed great build up in war power. After four months we were summonsed by the Church Mission President to leave for Denmark. The feeling at the time was that we would be only a short time and be able to return to finish our missions. Soon Northern Denmark was bombed and we were sent back to America. I did work on Genealogy while in Denmark for about two months before the word came to go to America to finish our mission there. I was assigned to the Central States Mission, and it was here I met my wife to be. (One interesting ting – 13 years and 8 children later I received my release from the Danish Mission). My testimony of the gospel grew in these two years as I bore testimony to others and explained the eternal principles of salvation to then. Upon returning home I was given a job in the Sunday School Stake Presidency. I enjoyed this very much as it required my travel between the different wards from Paragonah on the North to New Harmony on the South. I have always loved to be around people, and this gave me the opportunity to meet and mingle with some very choice people.
On occasions when I would be in Salt Lake City, I would get in touch with Dorothy Wood, who I had met in the mission field. We spent a few enjoyable times together before I was called into the army. I was stationed at Paine Field, in Washington. November 1942, I obtained a furlough prior to overseas duty and again found my way back to Salt Lake City where Dorothy and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple. The days we had together were too few and too short until I had to leave for overseas duty. But those memories, however short, were a highlight in my life to carry me through 27 months, but there were good things too. We build memories that help make up what we become – how we feel about things and gives us strength. So many exciting things like visiting the great Taj Mahal in India – the Jungles of Chabus, the elephants, monkeys by the hundreds, bright feathered birds like the peacock and parrots. Flying into Burma to pick up advanced radio crew displaced by the Japanese, the flight over the “Hump” into Kuming China. The experience of a big earthquake and the tall bamboo trees swaying as if they were thin blades of grass. How frightened the men were – their faith and religion gone from fright, and they knelt in front of me and wanted me to pray for them. They had seen me carry out a goal I had made to read the Bible of Book of Mormon every night. They seemed to feel the strength that comes from religion and the power of the priesthood. Seeing the different cultures was also interesting in the extreme, but seeing the human suffering and deprivation of Heavenly Fathers children was very depressing. I saw great famine hit that land – long rice lines where people would stay and all day to get a small bowl of rice, because as soon as they got some they would be near starvation again (they were given so little) so they just stayed in line. We think we are poor in this country but we have not seen poverty until you go to India. Human life goes very cheap.
I made friends over there and as I knew I was leaving to come home I went to tell them goodbye. These people were dear to me and I may not see them again. I borrowed one of the Jeeps and left the motor running as I ran up to the door to tell them I was leaving and goodbye. In just about 5 minutes some poor starving piece of humanity stole two wheels off the jeep. They are expert at that sort of thing. I had to pay for them when I got back to the States. All these things make up the memories of this period in my life. It was good, however, to have experienced these things, and thus softened my heart with compassion and gratitude for the great land of America. Back in the US I was assigned to a unit in Denver, Colorado, because I was married and had one child I could live off the base. Dorothy and I found a little single car garage (housing was short there) which we fixed up to be livable. We were thrilled when we finally found a two bedroom home. It was small but cute and was upon the bench overlooking Denver. It was very beautiful up there. I’ll never forget the curtains Dorothy made and she sewed little puff balls all over them, and fixed the place up very cute. We lived there about a month when we discovered the man who had rented it to us didn’t own it. So we went house hunting again. We found a large house we could buy for $1,800.00. It was just down the street. We borrowed the money from Dad and moved in – excited to own our first home. Dad and the brothers in Cedar City had been raising turkeys (laying hens for hatching pollets). Their talk of success and dad’s invitation to come join them, and with our time in the army over we sold the house. Because we had fixed it up we doubled our money. We moved back to Cedar City. We had fond memories of Denver and our stay there.
I bought the old Urie home and the Mosdell field and for the next several years raised turkeys and farmed. Instead of becoming independently wealthy – as I had supposed – we were so unsuccessful that after 2 or 3 years of my best efforts we accumulated and indebtedness of around $31,000. Finally in 1949 we had an unusually good year with 96% prime turkeys and was able to pay off all our debts and had $8,000. left. At that time it was possible to buy the brick plant from T. D. Little (which originally had been owned by Uncle Eza Thompson). We had many interesting experiences while we owned the plant. The boys often wrote from the mission field to thank us for teaching them to work – and to love work. Getting the Block Plant to run smoothly was work – hard work. I enjoyed it though and took a pride in it all. One never realizes at the time of a fire what the outcome will be. One evening or rather into the night we heard a fire alarm – not realizing it was our Plant, we were quite calm about it until we were called and informed of our fire. The shock wars off gradually, and it takes years to recover – if ever. This experience and disaster ever since has pointed to the importance of listening to the still small voice as the Holy Ghost whispers warning to us of trouble. Our older son took over the plant in 1970.
I became acquainted with a company from Pennsylvania who hired me to come back there to build five block plants in five different states. This was a very interesting assignment as we lived mostly around the Amish and Mennonite people. We visited many very interesting sites of history, and made some good friends. The work was on a much larger scale than I had in Cedar City, but very interesting. We stayed there for the year I was hired to stay. We then came back to Salt Lake City, where we managed a large apartment building for about 9 months, and was then called to go on a mission. This was really a highlight of my experiences. The month in the mission home was a spiritual feast. We left for Canada in 1980, to start our mission on the Vancouver Island in a town called Duncan, among the Indians. As we lived around these people and worked with them – our love grew, and when it came time for us to return home it was hard to leave them. We had had so many spiritual experiences – and some that were not so spiritual. We were so grateful for this calling. On returning home we got as far as Auburn, Washington, about 158 miles from Canada, and got a job here to be around our daughter Susan and her family for a while, as she was at that time having health problems and needed us.
The most important suggestions I could give as I close this account would be to anyone reading this could sense the great importance and blessing would be to follow the great lessons given in the scriptures seeking for truth always, and to live so as the Holy Ghost will be our companion. And always be filled with charity.
