HISTORY OF HERBERT LAVAR NORMAN 1894-1986

HISTORY OF HERBERT LAVAR NORMAN 1894-1986 

I was born April 13,1894, in Mt. Pleasant, Utah to Mons Anderson Norman and Julia Charlotta Johanson, immigrants from Sweden. I was the ninth child of a family of twelve. 

At the age of six years, I was stricken with Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria, missing a full year of school. During the summer of 1902. I earned the first dollar I can remember working for - weeding potatoes for Rasmus Frandsen. I continued to work on farms during the summer. In 1907 and 1908 my father leased the Larsen Coal mine, which he operated each summer. My young brother and I worked in the mine. My older brother had charge of the road leading to the mine (which was called the Toll Road) collecting a fee from all who traveled on it. 

In 1909, I worked for Hans Neilson stacking hay, for which I was paid a salary of three dollars a day. This was the highest rate paid for any farm hand. 

In 1910, I graduated from eighth grade and went to work for A. C. Madsen and Company in Schofield, Utah. It was a large farm comprising the area where the Schofield Reservoir now stands. I was the cook and also worked in the hay. When I returned home that fall, I worked for the Sanpete County Co-op as a deliveryman for the store. 

In 1911 (early spring) Andrew Neilson persuaded me to go to work for him - breaking up new land for farming in Indianola, Utah. After I finished that, I went to work for Hans Nielson and worked for a short time. 

In June 1911 Charlie Nielson (who was working at the railroad depot) went to Mammoth, Utah. Mr. Fred Rasmussen, our local station agent to the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, talked me into working at the station learning railroading and telegraphy. I did not get much pay, but I was learning a trade. 

In December of that year a Mr. Abram Johnson, who was manager of a dry-goods store, asked Mr. Rasmussen to mark a shipment of shoes short which he claimed he never had received. Mr. Rasmusen had a very careless young youth working for him who refused to mark a shipment of 

shoes short so he could file a claim for them. He suggested for the good of the people of Mt. Pleasant, I should be discharged from my work at the depot. 

The superintendent got the letter and mailed it back to Fred Rasmussen. Mr. Rasmussen didn’t show me the letter nor did he say anything until the next day when he told me he would go to the bank that day. (I would always go to the bank in the afternoons.) He told me to take care of the office and clean up. He would be back as soon as he could. He was gone three hours, and I got through with all of the work. It was after closing time, but I didn't dare close up the depot until he got back. 

Finally I saw him coming down the street - almost on a run. He came in the door, sat down to the typewriter and wrote a letter. He tore it up, and then he wrote another one. After he got the letter written like he wanted it, he showed me the letter Mr. Johnson had written to the superintendent. I said to him, “I guess I don’t need to come to work in the morning.” Mr. Rasmussen replied that I did need to come because this is what he had written in reply:

“I have this day inspected the warehouse at the Wasatch Mercantile Company and after a three hour search, I found the shipment of shoes in question stored away in the warehouse. I suggest that Mr. Johnson be required to apologize to my helper.” 

We later got a telegram from the superintendent, and he said to retain Norman on the job and as soon as I was capable, Mr. Rasmussen was to advise him. He would then place me on a job paying more money. 

On December 19, 1911 we got another message from the superintendent asking me to go to Helper. I didn’t feel that I was ready for a new job, and I didn’t have much money to live on. I didn’t know how it would be to get along away from home. Fred finally talked me into taking it. I told my mother about it, and she gave me $10 to help out. Mr. Rasmussen gave me a letter that I was to open that night when I arrived in Helper. I was to follow the instructions and everything would work out fine. 

I arrived in Helper and found out I could make arrangements for board and room and have it deducted from my payroll. I felt better. When I went to my room. I remembered the letter and opened it. To my astonishment there was a check for $65 which Mr. Rasmussen said I had earned. And it would help me out at this time. Ever since then, I have admired that man. I thought he was one of the finest fellows that there ever was in Mt. Pleasant. 

After I worked for a while in Helper I ran into the same thing again when a fellow stole a shipment away from the warehouse, and I discovered it was gone. I knew this fellow was the last person in that warehouse so I went up to his store. I went in there, and the first thing I saw on the floor was this bale of buckets nested together with a “Broken Dollar” name on it. 

I asked him where he got that shipment of buckets, and he said he bought them from the Broken Dollar Store. I told him he was a liar. And that he had stolen them out of the warehouse at the railroad when he took his freight that morning. We got into a rumpus. 

Finally the marshal came in, and I told him what happened. He, in turn, called the superintendent of the railroad and told him. The superintendent called me and said it was fine to be honest and protect the company but I was not to take any chances getting hurt. The marshal and I went to the Broken Dollar Store and found out the fellow had not purchased the buckets there so they were returned to the railroad warehouse. 

In the fall of 1912 I was sent to Mammoth, Utah to relieve a fellow there because he was going to Milford, Utah. I stayed there for a short time, and then decided to return to Mt. Pleasant to learn more telegraphy and railroading work. 

In the spring of 1913 I went to Richfield to work with C. A. Storrs, an agent for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company. I was staying at the home of Thomas Ogden, Sr. with three other fellows (Arthur McGregor, who worked for the Forest Service, Gus Foulkner, who was with the Telephone Company, and Ike Hays, who was a student going to school). Ike was my roommate.

 

Having been there for a long time, I had still not gone out any place. In fact, it was January 2, 1914, when I told the boys that they were a bunch of deadbeats - not going out with any girls. Arthur spoke up and said, “Bert, where will you find one?” I told them I didn’t know, but I was just going out to see if I could find one. I walked up the road and saw this young lady ahead of me. 

I followed at a distance to see where she went. To my amazement, she went into a picture show. After she had gone inside, she came back into the ticket booth to sell tickets so I knew she worked there. I went back to my rooming house and told the fellows I had found the lady I wanted. They asked who she was. 

I told them I didn’t know but she worked at the picture show, and I was going up that night to ask her for a date. They told me she was already engaged, and I asked who the fellow was. They said he was in Idaho. I told them if he wasn’t there that night, he would be out of luck because I was going to make a date with her. 

I changed my clothes and was ready to go. The boys went as far as Clayton’s Chili Parlor with me, and then I went on to the show. I tried to talk to her, but she didn’t seem interested. I bought a ticket and went inside. I stopped at the door and talked to the ticket taker, Grover McGee, whom I knew from dealings at the Express Office. 

I asked him to introduce me to his ticket seller. He didn't say if he would or it wouldn’t. I thought I would stick around and introduce myself. A little later she came to the door and asked Grover if it was time to check out. 

He called her over and introduced her as his sister. I was sure surprised. I didn’t know what to say. After they checked out, she came back and sat down to watch the show. I asked her if she had a date to take her home, and she told me she didn’t. She consented to go home with me, and her brother and his girl came with us to the chili parlor. 

I bought a box of candy for her which the boys I roomed with saw me do. One of them told me there was a nicer one in the case. I told him, “I’ll match you to see if I buy it or you do.” So we matched, and I beat him, so she had two boxes of candy. I kept dating her every night for a week or so. One night she asked me down to dinner on Sunday. I went to dinner and met her folks and had quite a visit with them. 

One night when I went down to her place for dinner, we were sitting there talking when a lady called for Louella to come outside. She went to the door to see who it was. This lady told her she wanted to talk to her. She knew the lady, but she didn’t know there was another fellow out there. After she had been out there for about ten minutes, she came in the house with her hand behind her back. 

I asked to see what was in her hand, and it was a bouquet of flowers the fellow had brought her. The fellow’s name was Frank Johnson. He told her the lady who had called her out of the house was his cousin. He said if it weren’t for that fellow at the depot, he would have a chance with her. He didn’t get any more chances. Each night, if I was free so I could, I would go and take her to the show after she sold tickets or I would walk her home, and we would visit for a while.

One night when I went to the show to get her, I found out she wasn’t there because she had stayed home with her mother who was ill. I hotfooted it down there. This was in June, and I sat and talked to her. Her mother was in the bedroom, and she later came out. I said to her “Mother, when are you going to give me this girl?” She said, “Bert, I don’t know of anybody I would rather see get her than you if she wants you.” I turned to Louella and asked what she thought. Her reply was, “It’s okay with me.” 

She asked when I said September 2nd. Her mother told the family what had happened, and I told Louella that I guessed I would have to ask her Dad for her hand. She said, “No, Dad said anybody that would have me, I wouldn’t have to ask him for permission.” One of her brothers 

said he didn’t like it because he thought she should get somebody who had a little religion about themselves. I was pretty lax on religion. 

Shortly thereafter Grover asked me to move down there and live with him which I did. When Philo Farnsworth came down from Idaho again, her sister brought him out to the house after the show to see Louella. I was already there, and he found out I was living there. 

The next day he came and took her for a buggy ride. He looked in her locket and saw his picture in the locket which she had put in on purpose to make me jealous (at least that is what she told me). The next day when he took her for a buggy ride, she told him about us, and he knew he was beaten out by me. 

Each day I would go to work in the morning, and Louella would get up and walk a couple of blocks with me, then go back home. At other times she would come and meet me on the road coming home. It was a beautiful arrangement, and we just thought the world of one another. 

We were busy arranging for our wedding. I went and bought her a little furniture and put it in a room in her mother’s place. I looked around and found a house that was only two rooms, but we could rent it. 

We were married on September 2, 1914 at her home. Bishop G. W. Coons performed the ceremony in the presence of our mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers. We moved into the two room home we rented from a Mr. Peterson and lived there during our stay in Richfield. 

About the time we were married her folks talked about selling the picture show to Mr. Storrs and a Mr. Hansen. Mr. Storrs asked me if I would operate the picture show for them. I got a little extra money out of that. 

We continued our relationship with this bunch of boys and girls that we chummed around with. They all got married about the same time. They said it wouldn’t be long until we all would be wheeling baby buggies. We were the last ones to do it. 

Our first child and first boy was born on August 31, 1915. We named him Herbert Rex. Had he waited two more days, he could have been an anniversary present. We went to Mt. Pleasant to show him off and visited with the folks. When we got on the train to go home (it was winter) Rex got the ear ache. We didn’t know what it was, but he cried and cried all the way home.

The doctor’s wife was on the train, and she told us he had the ear ache. Her Husband was at the depot to meet her, and she told him so he fixed us up with a prescription to put in his ear. That really helped him. 

In the spring of 1916, I was offered a job as station agent for the Ogden, Logan, and Idaho Railroad which I accepted in April. We moved to Layton, Utah. I was only there a short time when they transferred me to Wellsville, Utah. When the auditors were checking me in, the express auditor told the railroad auditor they were making a big mistake that day. 

They should have checked me in at Brigham City and Miller at Wellsville. He said I was in line for it now. We lived in the depot at Wellsville, and there was a newsstand in the waiting room. I used to have a lot of trouble with the people in there because they would make so much noise the baby couldn’t sleep. I had to correct them four or five times to tell them to cut it out or we 

would close them up. 

The express auditor called me on the phone a short time after being there and asked me to have everything ready to be checked out the next morning because they were taking me to Brigham City to work. I told him I had all my furniture and stuff in the house in the depot. He said to load it up in a railroad car, and they would take it down for me. I got everything all ready, and the next morning they came and checked me out. 

They took the car to Brigham City, and when I got there they checked me in as agent and took Miller up to Wellsville. He was just a young fellow, but he did not know anything about the work. 

I found a house to rent. We didn’t have time to move our furniture in so we just went there and stayed. That night we could look through the ceiling and see the stars on the outside. I knew then I wanted to get out of there. I finally found a place the next day which we rented from Norman Wright. We stayed there for about two years. While we lived at Wright’s place, Rex was always getting into the fruit trees that were along the fence. The Wrights didn’t like that very well because he would pick the fruit. 

It was in the spring of the year 1917. We were expecting another baby, and we had engaged Dr. Brown. The basketball tournament games were going on in Logan. Dr. Brown came up to the house and checked for Mother and said everything was fine. She wouldn’t be sick for a few days. 

He went to Logan on the train, and Mother called me and said she had to have the doctor. I called Dr. Brown, and I couldn’t find him anyplace - Logan or anywhere. She got excited, and I tried to get her another doctor in Brigham City. One of them was in Ogden, and another was in Salt Lake or someplace. 

There was one old man there who was a doctor so I sent him up to our place. Mother called me and said she wouldn’t have him for a doctor (I don’t think the man had ever gotten out of the house when she called). I told her that was all right, and we would find someone someplace. I was working until 8:00 that night and on the way home, I saw Dr. Pierce come in from Ogden where he had been on a case.

I went over to the hospital and asked him if he could help us out when we needed him because Dr. Brown was in Logan and we couldn’t find him. I asked if he had a nurse and he said he did. I got back home and told Mother what had happened. She felt better about it. 

Along about 10:00 p.m. I called him. He came up and brought the nurse with him. They were sitting and talking while Mother was walking around. The nurse was getting the clothes ready, and I was tending Rex. Mother called and said she wanted some chloroform. 

The doctor went over to his satchel to get it and found that the bottle had tipped over and spilled. He told me to go down to Dr. Cooley’s. He said he would phone him, and he would have a bottle ready for me to pick up. I sat Rex down, and I broke and run for where I had to go. It was only three blocks. I wasn’t long getting there, and the doctor met me on the porch and said I didn’t need it because it was all over with. I told him I was just at home two minutes ago. 

He said alright and went in and got the bottle to give me. I was afraid something had happened. I ran back, and when I got there I could hear the baby crying and Rex was crying too. I got in the house, gave the doctor the chloroform, and he said he didn’t need it because the baby was already born. The nurse was fixing Mother up, then she took the baby and fixed him up, I got in there and took care of Rex. 

This was March 10, 1917 and we named our second boy, Clarence Gordon. It was about 3:00 a.m. in the morning when the doctor finished all his work. I asked him how much I owed him, and he said $15.00. I paid him, and he was on his way. The nurse stayed with us for ten days. One day Mother said to me that Mrs. Tiney is going home. I asked her how much I owed her. She said just the same as the doctor charged - $15.00. 

A short time later, I rented a house from Bishop Watkins. He was right near the depot. We moved into the home, and after living there for a while we were going to have Dr. Brown take out Rex’s tonsils. He operated on him at home, but instead of taking his tonsils he took out his adenoids. I was awfully sorry about that because I think it changed his voice and everything. 

On April 18, 1918 I joined the Odd Fellow’s Lodge in Brigham City. After I was affiliated, I was transferred to Elko, Nevada. There was more money in it. We arrived there just before the first of July 1918. That fall, along in November, I took the flu. There was a terrible amount of flu then. There were many, many people dying with it. 

They took me home from work. The doctor got there and told the fellow who took me home to get me to bed and take care of me. They fixed me up and asked me if we had any liquor in the house. Mother said she didn’t know what it was, but I had just purchased a case of something 

for Fred Rasmussen. He got part of that, and he rubbed me with it. He then made a “hot toddy” for me. 

I wrote out a check for a lady to get us some groceries. When the fellow came with the groceries, she gave him the check. He asked if I was an Odd Fellow. She said she thought so, but she would check and see. She then told him I had an Odd Fellow’s button on my coat. He told her not to leave until he got back. He went and got the Noble Grand of the Lodge, and they came back to the house.

The Noble Grand went and got a nurse who stayed for three hours. He got another one, and she stayed for a couple of hours. That is the way it was for two or three days. At least they had someone there to take care of me night and day. I went unconscious, and the doctor asked Mother if we had any relatives around. She said the nearest was in Mt. Pleasant, Utah. He said she had better get them because I couldn’t live. That was an awful thing to tell her. 

The girl that was at the depot came and got the two boys and took them down to her house to take care of them. They were homesick and lonesome so she brought them back the next morning, and they had the flu. Mother was still up and going. 

I was unconscious for thirteen days, and when I became conscious I had a hemorrhage. I bled the wash basin nearly full of blood. They got the doctor to our home, and he packed my head in snow, (There was snow on the ground because it was just a little before Thanksgiving. I had won turkeys and had them in back room.) He finally got it stopped. 

Mother asked what she should do if I had another one. He said to get him and get him fast. About an hour and a half later I had another one. They finally got hold of him, and I was still bleeding when he got there. He finally got it stopped and shook his head. He told Mother she had better get the folks because I could not make it. She asked what she should do if I had another hemorrhage. He said I couldn’t survive another one. 

That made Mother feel awful bad. I could hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t say anything. An hour or two later I had a third hemorrhage. They got the doctor, and he came in a hurry. When he came in and took care of me, he said to Mother, “Mrs. Norman, if he can make blood as fast as he has been making it lately, he will be well.” He said I was in better shape than when he first came down. It had turned red instead of black. 

That was the last hemorrhage I had, but I laid there and couldn’t do anything. I got to feeling better so was able to sit up in a chair. We still had the nurses there, and Mother came down with the flu. She was expecting another baby, and it was quite a turmoil. 

When I got so I could go out, I went to pay the nurses because I felt they were the first ones who should be paid. I asked each nurse how much we owed them, and each one replied, “Nothing”. The Odd Fellow’s Lodge had taken care of all the expenses including the coal we had to buy from the lumber yard. ON meeting night, I went to Lodge and asked how come they had paid all my bills. 

They gave me a letter the lodge in Brigham City had sent telling them to spare nothing, give him the attention he needs and draw on them for the full amount”. I always maintained if it hadn’t been for the Lodge, I wouldn’t be here today. 

I paid them back. I couldn’t do it all at once, but I did it as fast as I could. I figured if they could do that much good for me, they could do that much good for someone else. 

The agent at Elko got the flu and was in terrible shape, and the girl didn’t know straight up about the accounts. I went to work before I should to get them all straightened out. After I got them all straightened out, they asked me to go to Lovelock, Nevada. I decided that is what I would do. That is the place I had in mind in the first place. Mother and the kiddies went to visit her folks.

Two Mormon missionaries moved in with me. I told them they could stay there, but they had to keep the house clean, do the cooking, and I would buy the groceries. When Mother came home, we gave them one room to themselves and fed them. 

Miriam was born July 4, 1919. I wrote to Louella’s father to tell him about our little girl. He wrote back and said surely her name would be Emily (Louella’s mother’s name was Emily and she had died in May) so we gave Miriam the middle name of Emily. Elder Fisher blessed Miriam and gave her a name. She had been named before in the Methodist Church because that was the only church in Lovelock and the missionaries were not in town. When the missionaries came back to visit, we had her named again. 

We then moved to a house owned by a Mr. Young. He was an attorney there. We lived there for quite a while, and the kids played with the neighbors. The Methodist Church was just across the street. Mother joined the Rebekah Lodge, and one night we were up to the lodge hall at a party when the fire siren blew. 

Mother ran to the window to see what it was. She didn’t say a word, but she just ran down the road with me following. I couldn’t catch her. The fire was at the Church House across the street from our home. The boy we had taking care of the children had them all out on the sidewalk watching the fire so we didn’t get back to the Lodge Hall. We went into the house and Mother was quite upset. 

They had a change in the County and a fellow by the name of James Goodin had been appointed County Commissioner on the Democratic side. A fellow wanted a job there, and he gave him a job as a janitor. He couldn’t even take care of the house they had for the courthouse so he put his man at the back in as janitor. He was a foreigner, and the people were pretty mad about it. They were trying to oust him. They had a recall election. All the democrats met during the election, and we beat them. They didn’t recall him. 

The people accused him of being the one who started the fire in the Church and all the baloney they could. I suggested we get a detective to investigate the fire to see who did start it. They did, and we all paid on it. One day a fellow came to the depot and wondered how our typewriters were working - if we needed any repairs on them or anything. I told him, “No, I didn’t think so”. 

He asked if he could look at them, and I told him, “Yes.” He looked at them, typed on them, and said we were in good shape. He examined all of the typewriters, and that is the first I knew he was the detective that was investigating the fire. He investigated all the typewriters in town, and he called a meeting of the committee. He said the man who had written the letters accusing Goodin of burning the Church was the minister of the Church. We had quite a set-to with the Methodist Church, and they took him out. It wasn’t long until Goodin died. They just killed him, that is all they did. He was just a wreck. 

One day the Eagles Lodge had their convention in Lovelock, and they went in the hole with their finances. They didn’t make enough money to clear themselves out of it so they had to put on a home dramatic play. “Too Many Parents” was the name of it. One of the fellows they had in the play couldn’t do his part so they came and asked me if I would take the part of the aristocratic old southern gentleman. I did just to help them out.

We practiced and practiced on it, and finally we put it on. Miriam was just a little girl, but she was pretty smart. When I came on the stage for my part (just when I stepped out) she said, “There’s my Daddy, there’s my Daddy.” No one else could tell it was me. There was a lot of travelers that night, and they got quite a bang out of it. They kidded me at the depot when I went out on the train. They said you might fool the people, but you can’t fool your kids. 

We would go to the movie picture shows occasionally. The kiddies would go to sleep, and when the show was out, I would rub their faces. They would squirm a little bit and get up to walk home. One lady said I was mean to those kids. I told her I wasn’t mean because she didn’t hear them bawling. I told her they were happy, and they would walk all the way home. That is exactly what the kids did. 

Mother would go down to the depot quite often. She had the baby in the baby buggy, and the two boys (one on each side of her) all dressed in white. They would wait for me, and I would go home with them. We had to take our drinking water from the depot. The drinking water was hauled into a cistern there. The town water wasn’t fit to drink. 

While we were in Lovelock, I had my experience at hunting. I went out in the mountains and hunted deer, but I didn’t get any. We would see lots of them but they were too far away. We went duck hunting and boy, for the ducks. I killed more ducks then than I ever saw afterwards. 

We had a lot of good fun in Nevada, but finally I decided I was through. I was going to go home. That was in 1924. I quit and went to Mt. Pleasant, Utah. We moved in with Mother and Dad for a week or two until we got a house to rent. 

After I rented one home, we didn’t like it because it was too small so I got another house just across from where I now live. We lived there one winter. It was terrible. We would like to have frozen to death in it. The man who was collecting the rent told me he would sell me the house across the street which is the one I now have. I said we would take it. It was nothing but a shell, but Mother said I could fix it up which I did. 

I worked for the lumbar yard and was farming. I had a team of horses. I worked for the lumber yard hauling lumber and never took any pay for it. I just let them credit me on the books, then I would get material to fix the house. The man who sold me the house gave me all his farm work, and I never took pay for that. That would give me credit on the house. I worked on the side enough to keep us going. 

A man came to me one day and wanted to trade a cow for some hay. He was the marshal in Mt. Pleasant. I traded him the hay for the cow. That is the first time the kids had ever had all the milk they wanted. The cow would give thirteen quarts at a milking, but they could drink it all. I had to get up the second morning to milk before they could have breakfast so there would be milk. 

I had saved the calves for heifers, and we would butcher the male calves. We had our pigs and chickens. The fact of the matter is my Dad wanted Mother to hatch some chickens for him. He was going into the chicken business. He got three incubators - one that held 500 eggs, one that held 300 eggs, and one that held 200 eggs. Mother put them in the one room and hatched the chickens for Dad, and then we had some for ourselves.

I got a little ahead of my story. On April 27, 1925 we had another baby boy. We named him Rowland Leland. He was a very fine young man, and we had lots of fun with him, but had a lot of worry too on account of his condition when he was born. (He was not breathing at birth, and the doctor had to work on him for quite a while to get him breathing.) After he grew up (around six or seven) he said to his mother one day, “When Dad’s away, Rex is the boss and after that I am the boss.” 

Uncle Henry (Louella’s older brother) came one day. He was on his way to Draper and wanted me to go with him. On the way to Draper, he told me he was going to try and get a job at the Draper Feed Plant. When he got there, he went down and talked to Jum Washburn, our brother-in-law, and they gave him a job as a night miller. He worked night shifts. 

Jim asked me why I didn’t come up to work there too, I told him I have to be asked first. I went home and then got word from him to come and go to work. I talked it over with mother. We decided I should go up and try it out. I stayed with Jum and Sally (she was Mother’s older sister). I stayed there and helped them build a home at nights after work. I did several little things around there to help them out. I worked as a miller for five years at the Draper Feed Plant. 

It was during this time that I served as Grand Master of the Odd Fellows Lodge. I bought a 1929 Ford touring car which I traveled around in. I had something I could come home in and not ride the train. I had a trailer that I hauled the feed down from Draper, and I would get down there on weekends. We would go on the mountain for a picnic, take the trailer with us, cut the wood, fill the trailer up and bring it home. 

The boys would cut the wood up after school, and they helped keep things going. Each had their chores to do. I had four cows. The two older boys each had two cows to milk. One would take care of the hogs, one would feed the calves, and Rowland would help feed the chickens. Mother took care of the eggs and milk. She would sell the extra milk to the cheese factory and send the extra eggs up to Draper. 

On October 31, 1931 I had a meeting with the Odd Fellows in Salt Lake City. I was going home that night, but first I had to attend this meeting. I left Salt Lake a little before midnight and drove home. When I got within two blocks of home, I could see cars parked in front of the house. I was all excited. It was after 2:00 a.m. in the morning (November 1, 1931). I went into the house and there was Dr. Holman. Mother had been confined with our last baby girl, Bonnie Lou. I asked her why she didn’t call me and tell me about it so I could have gotten home earlier. 

She said she was afraid I would drive too fast and get hurt. She always worried about things like that. After the doctor had things fixed up, he said for us to call the kiddies so they could see their new baby sister. When I finished the term as Grand Master, I was elected to be the representative to the Sovereign Grand Lodge in Springfield, Illinois. We were there in 1933. We were in Springfield for one week, and the brother I was with went over to Chicago with me to see the World’s Fair before coming home. 

I came home and went back to work in Draper, helping Jim and Sally build chicken coops and their house besides working for the feed plant. The next year I was elected to the Sovereign Grand Lodge in Toronto, Canada. We went up around the Niagara Falls and had quite a trip into Canada. We again visited the World’s Fair on our way home. I bought a used truck (1932 Chevrolet), took it home and had Rex and my nephew hauling hay and other stuff around here to make a living. I quit the Draper Feed Plant in 1935 and returned to Mt. Pleasant. 

I traded the truck in and bought a new 1936 Chevrolet Truck and began to haul coal, hay and anything I could. I was on the mountain with my second boy, Gordon, after a load of coal. Boy, was it raining. It was a very narrow road and was slick from the rain. We slipped off the road and rolled over five times and smashed in the top of the truck. We had to get a ride home. Then I got a fellow to go over the next morning to pull me back onto the road. We got it on the road, and I drove it home. I got it repaired and went back to hauling coal. 

That fall (1939) I was down to my brother’s place butchering a pig for him, and Rex called me on the phone (November 18th) and wanted me to go over and work with Young and Smith Construction Company in Emery, Utah. He was working for them as a bookkeeper, and they had an opening for a carpenter. 

I had all my trucking up to date so Mother and I decided I should go over for two months. I stayed with Rex and Zada, sleeping in a tent. I finished up in January and told them I was going home. They said they wanted me to take a truck to Springdale (they had a job at Zion’s Park) so I told them I would. 

There was a compressor to go so they said I had better ride with them to Salt Lake, and I rode in with Joe Young. The next day I went to American Fork and picked up the truck and compressor. I stopped off at Mt. Pleasant and picked up Loren Hamilton of Fairview the next morning. 

We started for Zion’s Park. We couldn’t pass a service station without stopping for water, oil, gas or something. It was an old truck that had been used by an oil company. It took an awful long time getting down to Zion’s Park. When I got there, I took the radiator cap off and took it into Dup. I told him, “Here is your cockeyed Dodge. It dodges everything but a service station.” 

I told him I was on my way back home, and he said he had a job for me that started the next morning. I didn’t want to stay, but he felt like I needed to talk it over with Rex which I did. Rex called Mother to see if it was all right for me to stay down there and work. She finally decided it would be all right. This was the beginning of many years with Young and Smith Construction Company. 

We finished the job in Zion’s Park, and they had some trees in Rockdale that had to be removed. I was the foreman with the bunch who went into remove the trees. We got to one tree in front of a lady’s home (we had cut down all the trees except in front of her home), and she came out of her house with a gun. She said the first one who touched her trees (there were three of them) would be shot. I told the boys to come away, and we would get them another time. 

We waited a few days, and finally the sheriff came up and asked me if I was ready to take those trees. I said I was ready as I ever would be. He said he would go and entertain her while we cut them down. The house was right opposite the trees. The sheriff entertained her and talked to her while we were out there pushing the trees over and cutting them up. Afterwards, I never saw a woman so mad in all my life. I was almost afraid to go around the place for fear she would shoot me. 

After we completed that job, I went to Ogden and started working on a bridge up there. I worked in Ogden, Temonton, and other places for a good long time. I can’t remember all the dates, but I know there were plenty of them. 

I built a canal along by the railroad track that went over to the Sugar Factory, and we had to lay off the Japanese they had at the Sugar Factory. They couldn’t work because the train couldn’t get through. They asked me if I couldn’t put them to work. I said, “Yes, if you have a good pick handle so I can work you over. I have a son over there fighting you Japs, and I am not about to give you a job here.” 

They finally took care of the Japanese, and we continued on until we finished the canal. The bridge for the railroad to go across was built, and we went on the south side of Ogden to what is called ‘death curve’ and built a bridge there. It was 80 X 25 X 20. After building that, I went to Helper where they were changing the road, and I had to put in a box culvert. 

In the spring of 1951 I went to Salina Canyon. Mother was with me there. We had Bud (Gordon’s boy) with us, and he had a great time catching chipmunks. It seems like he could catch them bare-handed. It didn’t make a bit of difference to him. Mother went out arrowhead hunting, and Bud would go with all the time. I built one bridge (had it up to just put the deck on) and a flood came and took it all out. I had to go down along the creek to salvage all the lumber and build it all over again. 

In September of 1951 I had finished the job in Salina Canyon and was sent to do some work between St. George and Littlefield, Arizona. There was a bridge to be torn out, and a new bridge built on the new road. I couldn’t do all the work at once at Littlefield so I put in some box culverts on the road going towards California from Las Vegas. I also did some work in Comstock building some bridges, new roads and several things which took some time. 

In the fall of 1952 Mother was elected to go to Dallas, Texas as a representative for the Rebekah Lodge IOOF. I laid off work, and went down with her. When we got back home, I left the next day for Caliente, Nevada. They had a hot springs there. Once you get in those springs, you get weak as ‘all outside’. It is just like you were worn out. We built two or three bow culverts there. 

After I left Caliente, I took the little trailer home and got ready to go to Yuma, Arizona for the winter. Mother and I loaded all of our personal belongings into the pick-up truck and started for Yuma (by way of Las Vegas, Nevada). We met Bill Engle and his wife in Las Vegas, and they were going with us to Arizona. 

Before we left Las Vegas, Mother and I went to look for trailer houses. The first one we looked at was the one Mother wanted. It was a nice one. I asked them what the price was, and he said $3,200 cash. We decided to look around a little more, but nothing took Mother’s eye like the first trailer house we looked at. We went back, and I told the fellow I could give him $2,000 down and the balance in thirty days. He said that was good enough.

They got it all fixed up for us, attached it to the pick-up and we were on our way. We drove as far as Needles and spent the night there. We arrived in Yuma the next day and needed to look around for a spot to park our trailer. We detached the trailer and left it on a vacant lot while we looked for a trailer court, but they didn’t allow children. 

Bill and Vera Engle had a baby, and we wanted to be in the same court as they were. We kept looking until we found one that allowed children and paid our deposit. When we went back to the vacant lot where we had left the trailer, we found a ticket on it. We had parked illegally. When we explained the situation to the fellow, he did not charge us a fine. 

We hooked the trailer to the truck and drive to the court and got it all hooked up to the lights, water and sewer. We were ready for work on the Mohawk Walton Canal. 

It was about Christmas time. It rained and rained and the temperature was 85 degrees. It was different than being in Utah in the snow. 

I drove over the canal and met the engineer. He showed me what had to be done. The canal had leaks in it. The clay had slipped away making it necessary to clean it out and reline it with gravel and cement. He showed me where I had to get the gravel to. I told him it wouldn't work. I told him it was too round. There was no ‘slit’ in it to help hold the gravel. 

He still thought it would work and asked if I would try it. I said I would. I made a form, put it up, filled the inside of the form with rock and gravel and then used a machine to blow the concrete on. The engineer thought it would work so he stepped down in the canal and stepped on a little rock right to the edge of the job. 

Bingo, it all slipped down in the wash. He sure felt foolish. He said he never would have believed it. I told him the only thing we could do was get some gravel that had dirt in it so we could make it pack. He showed me a place where I could get some. From then on we put this in the spaces and put concrete over it. 

When I came home one night from work, I told Mother there was a party down to the Oddfellows’ and Rebekahs’ Lodge Hall. We decided we would go to it. When we got there it was open, and we went up to the door. I told the people in there who we were and showed them our cards and receipts. They invited us in. A little while later the superintendent for the government on the canal project came in. 

He looked at me and asked why I hadn’t told him I was a member of the Lodge. When the Lodge opened, he had Mother and I go to the middle of the floor and he introduced us as a Past Grand Master and Past President of Utah. We were certainly honored. From that day on anything I wanted to do on the job, all I had to do was suggest it. He was ‘johnny on the spot’. After we finished the job, we returned home and went to Colton, Utah. 

Going back to the Littlefield, Arizona job, there was a service station to be moved because of the change in the road. The fellow from the State would not help the owner at all. Bill Walters was the owner of the station so he asked me what could be done. I told him to show me where

 

the land was to move it to. The land needed fixing up so I told him I would take the dirt out and put it on the road. 

He was happy as a lark when I got it all leveled off nicely, and then he wanted to put in a well. He didn’t have electricity so he couldn’t put the pump on it. I took my electric power up there and hooked it up. I drank the first glass of water from that well, and it was good water. Bill hired my boys to work for him on Sundays because we took that day off. They put his cement in and got his blocks laid. He was awful good to us. He would mix us up lemonade and stuff like that to bring over for us to drink. 

We built a house for the engineer to live in, and when I got started on the bridge (was driving the piling) he had me up four feet too high. I kept telling him we would never get enough seal to take care of that, and there was a mistake some place. I called Dug about it, and he called the engineer’s office in Phoenix. 

They came over and asked me what was wrong, and I showed them. I told them the engineer wanted me to cut the piling off down below, and it wouldn’t work that way. He agreed with me, so he said he would send us out a new engineer which he did. Everything went ‘rosy’, and we built the bridge. 

We lived right in the trailer court and Littlefield was to the side of it. We used to go there to gather vegetables (radishes, onions, and what have you). I had all of Littlefield working for me. In fact they were about the only people around there. One man didn’t want to get his social security card, and I told him he couldn’t work for me unless he had one. 

He went and got an attorney who said he didn’t have to have one. I maintained he had to if he was going to work for me. He didn’t work until he got his social security card. I gave him a little work, but he wasn’t any good. 

One of the boys working for me had a boy and a girl at home. The boy accidentally shot the girl and killed her. They didn’t have anything - nothing to bury her with or anything of the kind. I got all the boys who worked for me and asked them to donate a day’s pay to help this family. I gave them an extra day’s work on Sunday so they could make it up. 

We went to the funeral in Mesquite. The Bishop was talking about it, and you would have thought he was burying me instead of the little girl. He was telling what I had done for them and what a wonderful fellow I was. It almost ‘plagued’ me to death. 

A fellow by the name of Mackelroy came out to Littlefield to build the road. He was a bachelor, and every Saturday he would go into Las Vegas just to gamble. One night we were there, and I asked him why he didn’t take the card I had filled out and try it. He said it was just like all the rest of them. I didn’t use it myself. I just sat there and watched. 

After he played the game with his card, I looked at mine. He would have made $8,000 if he had used mine. We used to go into Las Vegas for our dinners once in a while at the Thunderbird Hotel. They had a good rate on buffets (all you could eat and as many helpings as you wanted).

 

It is hard to remember dates of all the jobs I was on so I will try and recall a few of the jobs and what they involved. 

I worked in Helper. They were changing the road there, and I had to put in a box culvert. 

I went down to Moab and did a small job there. We used to go over to a swimming pool (hot water) and get our baths each night in as much as they didn’t have facilities down where we were staying. 

I had a job in Buckhorn Flat. Mother went with me, and we had our trailer house. We worked out on the road there quite a ways - clear down to Paragonah. We then returned and went to Reno to work on a bridge over the Truckee River. Mother went with and stayed in Sparks, Nevada. I came back to American Fork and put in some road work there. 

I was down in Escalante putting in a couple of big box culverts. Morrison Knudson had a job there, and they wanted me to put in a cattle guard for them. I called Doug, and he told me to go ahead and do it. He would settle up later with them. This was the place Mother began having trouble with her eyes. The eye healed itself at that time. It was a rupture of the retina. 

From there we went to Limington to build a bridge over the Sevier River. From there I went to Roosevelt, and then Mother’s eye got worse. I took her to Salt lake. Miriam made an appointment with the eye doctor, and they had to operate on her eye. After she was out of the hospital, she went to Miriam’s to recuperate. One morning she walked into the open stairway and fell down the stairs, rupturing her eye again. I had to take her to San Francisco for another operation. 

We flew down, and I stayed with her, fed her every meal she ate while she was in the hospital. After the doctor pronounced her okay, he said to walk her around a while which I did. While we were walking around the hospital, her other eye went bad. I went in to tell him, and he said, “Thank Goodness it happened where it did. We can do something for this.” They took her and used a coagulator on it and saved the sight, but the other one didn’t have very good vision. 

I then came back and went to Morgan. Mother stayed in Salt Lake while I was up there working. After the Morgan job I went to Round Valley and finished those bridges. After that we went to Bountiful. I had the trailer and Mother came and stayed with me. I had several bridges to build there. I went to North Temple in Salt Lake and built the two great big bridges there (1200 feet long). 

After finishing these jobs, I went to Orem (near the steel plant) and built bridges there. I built four bridges in Orem on the freeway they were building. 

After retiring from Young and Smith Construction Company, I came home and had just signed up for my social security when W. W. Clyde called and asked me to come to Springville to talk to him. I went up there, and he wanted me to go to work for him. I told him I was too old, and they wouldn’t want me.

He made the wages so enticing that I couldn’t turn it down. I went to work for them at Springville and drove back and forth from Mt. Pleasant. I stayed on with W. W. Clyde for about six or seven months, and then I decided I had enough. I called it quits and went home. 

When I got home, I decided I was just going to take it easy. I purchased a truck and a boat and camper. We were going to go fishing and hunting and we had a good time. 

Mother and I used to travel with our camper and go to Camporees with the Odd Fellows which were held in Colorado one year and Utah another year. We were in Colorado three times and in Utah three times. 

We then took Uncle Henry to Arizona to his and Louella’s brother’s anniversary. We were there a week, and came back through Zion’s Park. It was at that time we were contemplating moving Grandpa McGee from the Draper Cemetery to the Springdale cemetery where Grandma McGee was buried, but it was never done. 

When Bonnie and Wally were living in Corvallis, Oregon (Wally was going to school), we decided to go up and see them. We went on the bus to Corvallis. We stayed there a couple of weeks visiting with the kids. 

After a few months we went to Sacramento to see Nelva and Arnold (Rex’s daughter and son-in-law) who were living there. Rex took us to Elko and to Lovelock and then to Sacramento. We stayed there a day, and Blain and Miriam came through and picked us up to take us to Washington to visit Richard and Maggie (their son and his wife). 

On our return home we went through LeGrande, Oregon where Mother used to live. She was going to show us the place where she lived. We had quite a time finding it. We went on into Idaho where she had also lived but couldn’t find the house she lived in then. 

Upon our return to Salt Lake, I told Blain and Miriam that we had been traveling all over and sleeping in queen-size beds - now I was going to the store and buy a queen-size bed for ‘my queen’. That is when we bought our bedroom set. 

A little later Gordon and Norma took us to New Mexico for a family reunion with the McGees. We stayed in a motel in Farmington and visited with Mother’s relatives. There were two days of celebration. 

We returned home to Mt. Pleasant and shortly afterward we decided to divide up part of our property. We gave the two girls and two older boys each a building lot. I told Rowland I would either build him a room on his house, or he could wait and have the home when we died. In as much as he had a large family, he was happy to take the room. I paid for it and helped him build it. 

I was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on July 15, 1972 by my son-in-law, Wallace E. Allred. Another son-in-law, Blain M. Madsen confirmed me. We held a family reunion that day. On August 9, 1973 Mother and I went to the Salt Lake Temple to be sealed. Rex and Zada, Gordon and Norma, Blain and Miriam, and Wally and Bonnie went with us and were sealed to us.

Sally and Henry (Louella’s sister and brother) were also there and were proxies for Mother’s parents while she was sealed to them. I was ordained a High Priest on August 31, 1980 by my son-in-law, Wallace E. Allred. 

For one of our wedding anniversaries, the kids had a nice dinner for us at Oak Crest Inn in Spanish Fork Canyon. We went up there and had a very nice time before returning home. 

In 1977 Mother seemed to be tired and didn’t seem to be herself. I took her to Doctor Harless. After examining her, he treated her for thyroid trouble. He sent us up to Spanish Fork for some more tests. 

We went up and had the tests (there were to be three). When we got there, she had four tests. After we returned home, I called on him. I couldn’t get any response from the doctors who had taken the tests so Dr. Harless said he would get the report to me. I wanted to get another doctor’s opinion. I took the report to Dr. Robero, and he advised us she was taking the wrong medicine. 

He consulted Dr. Harless, and they gave her a different prescription. I was going to change to Dr. Robero as our doctor but before I could do so, his wife found him sitting in a chair in his office dead. I continued on with Dr. Harless. He gave her treatments every three or four months and always pronounced her in good health. 

I then took her to the eye doctor because she was complaining of her eyes. He advised us her eyes were in as good a shape as they had been two and one half years prior to that time. She kept telling me they didn’t know what they were talking about because she was having trouble with them. 

One day Mother said to me, “Let’s go out and buy our burial plot”. I told her okay, and we went out to the cemetery. We met the sexton and told him what we wanted. Mother said she wanted a plot near the road and in the old part of the cemetery so she could have a nice headstone. 

We got each of us a burial plot and went down to pay for them. On the way home, Mother said we should have bought the other two burial plots while we were at it. We went back and bought them, and nothing more was said. That night she mentioned we ought to give those two lots to Rowland and Miriam so they could be buried by us. I told her that was fine, and that is what we did. I had two of the lots deeded to Rowland. 

After a while, Mother wanted to buy our headstone, so we went up to Bert Ruesch. We asked him if he would hold the one we liked until we had the children come down and pass inspection on it. We notified all the children, and they came down and were well pleased with the headstone. 

Then Mother started to arrange for her funeral - the way she wanted it. She just wanted a family funeral. 

After these plans were made, Mother seemed to rest differently. She was failing. We could see she was having troubles. Often she would go in and lie down which she hadn’t done as much before. She wouldn’t even let me go to town without her. If I went to the Post Office, she would ride up there with me. If she wasn’t all spruced up, she would sit in the car while I went in and got the mail. We would sit out in the car and read the mail. 

On the night of January 21, 1980 we went to bed. Mother had a cold and wasn’t feeling very well. The next morning (January 22, 1980) when we awoke, I asked her how she felt. She said she felt fine - better than she had felt for some time. I told her to stay in bed while I turned up the heat. I went into the kitchen and was gone just a couple of minutes. 

When I came back through the door of the kitchen into the living room, I could see Mother in the living room lying on a chain. I could see she was having a problem. I pulled her from the chair onto the floor and commenced to work with her. I thought I was winning when she began moving her legs and her arms. 

She kept looking at me and couldn’t say a word. She got hold of my hands, pulled herself up into a sitting position on the floor and pulled me down to kiss her. She relaxed, and then she was gone. That was within a period of fifteen or so minutes. 

I ran over to the neighbors, and he came over on the dead run. He felt of her pulse, and there wasn’t any. I was so stunned. I couldn’t say or do anything. We took her to the hospital, and Dr. Harless pronounced her dead. He then took her to the mortuary and went home to call the kids. That was a chore that was very hard. 

Her funeral was just as she wanted it. The family participated on the program as she had planned. She always said there wouldn’t be too many to her funeral, but it was one of the largest funerals ever held in Mt. Pleasant. 

I have tried to take care of the cemetery lot (with the help of Rowland) and keep flowers on it. She always liked nice things. We have tried to keep flowers on it all the time. 

It has been lonely for me, but the kids have been good to come and help out with the cleaning, washing and ironing. Rowland has been good to come out in the evenings and spend time with me. 

During my birthday in April, also Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays of 1980 I spent time with Bonnie, Gordon, Miriam and Rex. We figured up the number of great-grandchildren which I had. They numbered sixty-five with prospects of five more. 

I went to Salt Lake in December of 1981 for a hernia operation at the L.D.S. Hospital. I then spent time at Miriam’s and Rex’s recuperating. It was during this time on January 26, 1982 that I received a call from Bonnie telling me Gordon had suffered a stroke and was in the Utah Valley Hospital. He died January 30th. It is hard for a parent to lose a child. 

I have lived alone since Mother died with the exceptions of the winter months of 1981-1982 and 1982-1983. I spent those months with Miriam and Rex in Salt Lake. It is good to have children. 

End autobiography

The above history was put on tape during the month of January 1981 by Herbert LaVar Norman at the age of 87. He has remembered well. The transcription was completed for his 89th birthday, April 13, 1983 by his youngest daughter, Bonnie N. Allred. 

His posterity in April 1983 numbers five children (one deceased), twenty-two grandchildren (one deceased), and seventy-nine great-grandchildren (four deceased). His total living posterity numbers one hundred. 

Herbert LaVar Norman spent the last two and a half years of his life in the Todhome Care Center in Springville, Utah. He broke his hip March 9, 1986 and was operated on March 10th in the Payson Hospital. He was then transferred to the Timpanogos Care Center in Orem where he died on March 31, 1986, just thirteen days short of his 92nd Birthday. 

His funeral was held in the Mt. Pleasant Fourth Ward Chapel on April 3rd with the program being presented by his family, and he was buried beside his wife in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery on the same date. 

PATRIARCHAL BLESSING OF HERVERT LAVAR NORMAN 

Mt. Pleasant, Sanpete County, Utah - 12 September 1973 

A blessing given by Orson W. Lauritzen, Patriarch, upon the head of Herbert Lavar Nroman, son of Mons Anderson Norman and Julia Charlotta Johansen, born April 13, 1894 at Mt. Pleasant, Sanpete County, Utah. 

Brother Herbert Lavar Nroman, by the authority of the holy Melchizedek Priesthood in me vested and in the office of a patriarch, I lay my hands upon your head and give unto you a patriarchal blessing, and I say unto you Brother Norman, the Lord looks down upon you and wants you to know that He is pleased that you have entered into His kingdom and entered into His temple and been sealed to your wife for time and for all eternity. He is pleased that you have the goal of eternal life in your heart. He wants you to continue to be faithful all the days of your life that you may fill the measure of your creation, that you may be able to be an instrument in His hand in accomplishing good for the remainder of your life. 

Brother Norman, enter into the temple often. Go there and do the work for those who have passed on. Make covenants for them in the temple; and as you do these things that the spirit of the Lord will be with you and give you happiness and joy in temple work; for the Lord has given many things to His children to keep them busy and active throughout their lives, and He has given you the opportunity of, in your older age, of going into the temple and doing work for those who have passed on. Take this opportunity and I promise you happiness. 

As you look back upon your life and see the results of your actions in your life be thankful unto our Father in Heaven for the guidance that He has given you in your life. Love your children. Help them in all the ways that you can. Bear your testimony to them and bear your testimony to your grandchildren that they might know that you know that God lives and that Jesus is the Savior and that they have restored the gospel to the earth in this day through the prophet, Joseph Smith. As you bear your testimony to your descendants in this way, you will help to instill

20 

into their hearts a further your seed; for you have the desire that your descendants might be faithful. 

And our Father in Heaven has promised that the good things and the good teachings that men do will be handed down to their descendants to the third and fourth generation, and as you do these thing you will be able to influence your descendants to grow in their testimonies, to be faithful in keeping the commandments of God; and as you and your wife retire each night and arise each morning, go to your Father in Heaven in prayer together and pour out your heart to Him for guidance in your life; ask Him for protection; thank Him for His influence upon you and for the necessities of life that you have and for the Gospel that you are partakers of. Pray for your descendants, that they might follow in the example of our Savior throughout their lives. 

I bless you with wisdom and understanding; I bless you with knowledge; I bless you with the privilege of receiving the manifestations of the Spirit of the Holy Ghost in your heart and mind at times to let you know things that you should do, to give you understanding and to confirm upon you more fully the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I promise you that if you will study the Gospel faithfully and go to your Father in Heaven in prayer continually that He will give you an increase in knowledge and understanding. He will give you the burning in your bosom that you might be able to know the things that you should do while you are here upon the earth. 

I seal you up to come forth in the morning of the first resurrection to be crowned with immortality and eternal life and to have the privilege of calling forth your wife unto you in righteousness in the resurrection and that together you and she may receive eternal life, this through your faithfulness. And I do it in the name of Jesus Christ. AMEN 

OBITUARY OF HERBERT L. NORMAN 

Services will be held Thursday, April 3rd in the Mt. Pleasant LDS Stake Center for Herbert Lavar Norman, 91 who died March 31, 1986 in Orem. 

Friends may call at the Ursenbach Funeral Home Thursday, two hours prior to services. 

He was born in Mt. Pleasant on April 13, 1894 to Mons A. and Julia Johanson Norman. He married Louella McGee in Richfield on September 2, 1914. The marriage was later solemnized in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. Mrs. Norman died on January 22, 1980. 

He was a farmer, railroad worker, trucker and later a superintendent in road construction. He was a member of the I.O.O.f., Past Grand Master, State of Utah, and delegate to Sovereign Grand Lodge for two years. He was a member of the LDS Church and was a high priest in the Mt. Pleasant LDS Fourth Ward. 

He is survived by two sons and two daughters: H. Rex Norman and Mrs. Blain M. (Miriam) Madsen, both of Salt Lake City; Rowland L. Norman, Mt. Pleasant; Mrs. Wallace E. (Bonnie) Allred, Orem; 21 grandchildren, 86 great-grandchildren; 1 great-great grandchild; sister, Esther N. Nielsen, Payson. He was preceded in death by a son, C. Gordon Norman. 

Burial will be in the Mt. Pleasant City Cemetery.