THE SOLDIER

Kathy:  Inspired by Rupert Brooke’s poem “The Soldier” and paraphrasing a line from it I’ve crafted this tribute.

     They never came Home but there is a spot in a Foreign Land that is forever North Sanpete.

Glen Brady

ID: 39835618
Entered the Service From: Utah
Rank: Staff Sergeant

Service: U.S. Army Air Forces, 527th Bomber Squadron, 379th Bomber Group, Heavy

Died: Monday, December 20, 1943
Buried at: Netherlands American Cemetery
Location: Margraten, Netherlands
Plot: M Row: 3 Grave: 6

Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clyde W. Rigby                              

ID: O-743208
Entered the Service From: Utah
Rank: Second Lieutenant

Service: U.S. Army Air Forces, 577th Bomber Squadron, 392nd Bomber Group, Heavy

Died: Tuesday, January 04, 1944
Memorialized at: Cambridge American Cemetery
Location: Cambridge, England

Awards: Air Medal, Purple Heart

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Russell S. Jensen

ID: 39675224
Entered the Service From: Utah   
Rank: Private

Service: U.S. Army Air Forces, Headquarters Squadron, 5th Air Base Group

Died: Thursday, September 07, 1944
Memorialized at: Manila American Cemetery
Location: Fort Bonifacio, Manila, Philippines

Awards: Purple Heart

From Moroni

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Charles Rutishauser

ID: 39835671
Entered the Service From: Utah
Rank: Technical Sergeant

Service: U.S. Army Air Forces, 526th Bomber Squadron, 379th Bomber Group, Heavy

Died: Sunday, June 18, 1944
Buried at: Ardennes American Cemetery
Location: Neupre (Neuville-en-Condroz), Belgium
Plot: D Row: 16 Grave: 4

Awards: Air Medal with 2 Oak Leaf Clusters, Purple Heart

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wallace W. Candland

ID: 39918059
Entered the Service From: Utah
Rank: Corporal

Service: U.S. Army Air Forces, Army Air Corps

Died: Thursday, January 04, 1945
Memorialized at: East Coast Memorial
Location: New York, NY, USA

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dee A. Johnson

ID: O-730509
Entered the Service From: Utah
Rank: First Lieutenant

Service: U.S. Army Air Forces, 94th Fighter Squadron, 1st Fighter Group

Died: Sunday, July 11, 1943
Memorialized at: Sicily-Rome American Cemetery
Location: Nettuno, Italy

Awards: Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with 6 Oak Leaf Clusters, Purple Heart

Wasatch Academy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

James K. Sorensen

ID: 03684611
Entered the Service From: Utah
Rank: Ship's Cook, Third Class

Service: U.S. Navy, United States Navy

Died: Friday, December 11, 1942
Memorialized at: Manila American Cemetery
Location: Fort Bonifacio, Manila, Philippines

Awards: Purple Heart

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harold Q. Graham

ID: 39914895
Entered the Service From: Utah
Rank: Private First Class

Service: U.S. Army, 275th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division

Died: Saturday, May 12, 1945
Buried at: Netherlands American Cemetery
Location: Margraten, Netherlands
Plot: K Row: 17 Grave: 3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ferris Ivory

ID: 06604538
Entered the Service From: Utah
Rank: Aviation Radioman, Second Class

Service: U.S. Navy, United States Naval Reserve

Died: Saturday, February 23, 1946
Memorialized at: Honolulu Memorial
Location: Honolulu, HI, USA

Awards: Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal with 4 Gold Stars 

Wasatch Academy

The Soldier

by Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blessed by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Wasatch Academy Football Wins 9 Games over North Sanpete's 1 ~ 1924-1933 ~

In the ten years 1924 thru 1933 the North Sanpete  Rams beat the Wasatch Tigers just once – 1929.  That year a  team quarterbacked by Eugene (Ganny) Peterson and starring Neil Hafen, end and Vernon Christensen, fullback,  out scored Wasatch  for the first time in coach Brunger’s tenure.  They were not to do  it again for another five years. 

 The Wasatch team was quarterbacked by Johnny Becker though not from Mt Pleasant he did marry a Mt Pleasanter. The Wasatch line was anchored by two local boys, Dee Keusseff and Dick Candland and I would guess sitting on the bench, Glen Williams and Fremont Draper.     

   Both quarterbacks returned to their  high schools as teachers, Ganny to coach and Johnny to teach social studies;   where he made freshmen girls giggle with his risqué stories. 

The football game between the Wasatch Tigers and the North Sanpete Rams, played in early November, was among the five top events of the year in the  Mt Pleasant ‘30s, ranking just behind the Junior Prom and just ahead of the opening of deer hunting.  The climatic event preceding the game was a torch light parade that started on the North Sanpete campus. There nearly 200 students would  each pick up a flaming torch and in unison all march down Main street and on   to the corner of 1^st West and 2^nd South where they would throw their torch onto a flaming bon fire mid street. . Wasatch students would be circled around their fire.   For the next 30 – 40 minutes students from both schools sang, shouted, rang bells, tooted horns and banged drums hoping to make enough noise to carry thru to  next day’s game.      All the games were memorable but the game played 11 November 1938 unforgettable.  There was not even a threat of snow during the torch light festivities but during the night 10 inches of snow fell.   The game was to be played at North Sanpete so they called on the hiway graders to scrape the field.  Coach Brunger sensing Wasatch players had to stay warm bought long johns for the team... .... .... .... (Cleaned out J C Penny’s)

.      Wasatch scored first just before the half with a play that brought smiles to the rooters of both teams.    Wasatch had driven from mid field to the 3 yard line.  From there Dewey Fills, a running back, was given the ball to charge into and thru the line for the score.  Five yards into the end zone he was met head on and tackled by his younger brother, Elmer, North Sanpete’s safety.  The referee whistled loud and long and charged Elmer with a penalty only to be told by Dewey “don’t penalize him Ref, I’ll take care of the kid tonight at home’”.  Final score: Wasatch Academy 19 -   North Sanpete  0,    Fillis Family  tied. 

Dear Hal (Harold Graham Christensen, a cousin to Lee.)

May 20, 1996

Dear Hal,

Of all the Christensens I know, I’m the one most prone to reminisce about family history
so I very much enjoyed your letter to Bruce. Over the years I’ve corresponded with Ruby
Cox Smith, a cousin of our fathers, and I’ve shared your letter with her. She has been my
reminiscing correspondence, though I’ve never met her. It was her father, Bruce Cox, who
built the three big lambing barns at the Oak Creek farm/ranch.

While I’m calling the barns “lambing barns,” I don’t know that that is what they were built
for. I do remember a winter or two when J.W. did not sell his lambs in the fall, but kept
them and perhaps bought others to feed into the winter - a feedlot operation. What I remember
most vividly about the barns is how immense they were to a small boy and how
my mother considered the lamb manure to be pure flower growing gold.

Bruce may have lived for a time at Oak Creek place. During the early days of the Depression,
A.D., Tobey Candland, and Harold Swan all worked for J.W. Steve and Elsie lived at
Oak Creek, but either Alice/Tobey or Maud/Harold may also have lived there. I doubt the
Swans stayed in Fairview for more than a year before returning to California. A.D. and
family left the area for Nevada about 1937. J.W. lost the Oak Creek place about 1935-36.
You were very young so you probably do not remember when all of J.W.’s boys homesteaded
in the Sunnyside area of East Carbon County. I don’t know that any of them but
L.R. bought sheep. They built at least two cabins, Bill’s and L.R.’s. Because Tracy and
L.R. were WWI veterans, they had some advantages over the others. I think all but L.R.
dropped out early. L.R. was challenged when he came to “prove up” and he lost his place.
This forced him to buy in the Schofield area. He may have been there ahead of J.W. It also
forced him to merge his herd, six or seven hundred head, with J.W.’s.

I once asked L.R. how J.W. managed to hold onto his herd while so many big spreads went
under during the Depression. He said the banks could have foreclosed on J.W. and most
other herds in Sanpete County, but that J.W. owned some unmortgaged pasture land that
made his less insolvent, if that’s a description, than others. The banks, of course, had more
sheep than they knew what to do with so were not pressing foreclosures. There was always
the hope and the promise that Roosevelt and the Democrats would turn the economy
around. Which they did, of course, with a big assist from WWII.

Lee

The following is taken from "Utah History To Go" and written by John H.S. Smith.

With its high, dry climate, abundance of bunch grass, excellent breeding program, and "near-perfect transhumance cycle," Sanpete County had proved an ideal place to raise sheep. Unfortunately, the worldwide depression that began in 1929 sent wool prices tumbling. On May 31, 1929, the Manti Messenger had reported that wool was selling at the highest price ever--about a dollar a pound. Then things suddenly changed. Rudolph Hope "related a story of two men who were dickering with a commission man after the peak of the season. Not content with a dollar they were trying for more, but during the bargaining a telegram arrived for the commission man who promptly refused to buy at any price and left. This was the start of the slump and soon wool was fetching as little as five cents a pound, irrespective of quality." The industry would never fully recover.
At the turn of the century Utah had some 2.7 million sheep, and Sanpete was the heart of sheep country. By 1994 the state had only 445,000 sheep and lambs and a wool clip of only 3.8 million pounds. Sheep remain an important element in the state's and Sanpete County's agricultural economy, but the glory days of the 1920s are gone forever.

Sources: John S. H. Smith, "Localized Aspects of the Urban-Rural Conflict in the United States: Sanpete County, Utah, 1919-1929" (M.A. thesis, University of Utah, 1972); History of Sanpete and Emery Counties, Utah (Ogden: W. H. Lever, 1896); Wayne L. Wahlquist, ed., Atlas of Utah (Provo: Weber State College and Brigham Young University Press, 1981).

The entire article will post tomorrow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hal was Harold Graham Christensen, a cousin of Lee R. Christensen

Harold Graham Christensen

(Hal)

http://www.starksfuneral.com/obituary?o=670-I8vXQ0aER6

Lee's Memories

The Following comes from Lee R. Christensen's book: "You Knew Me As Buddy and other Tales"
His book is a compilation of letters he has sent to friends over the years.  His memories of going to school at Hamilton Elementary, North Sanpete and Wasatch Academy are filled with his wonderful humor.

Recreational activity sponsored by the Lions Club summer 1929. Instructors, not pictured, were Vernal Christensen and Dee Keusseff Picture taken by Arthur Childs on steps of Johns Gym, Wasatch Academy First row lf to rt: rex matson, buddy christensen, robert christensen, gordon brunger, unk, ray freston, phil squires, dale christensen, leon holman, dewey fillis, allen olsen, shirly madsen 2nd row lf to rt: jake johnson, bob rasmussen, unk, r w christensen, ferd nelson, bry christensen, unk, unk 3rd row lf to rt: unk, doyle draper, don anderson, bry jacobs (white shirt), fred rasmussen, rex syndergarrd, arron jones, emil lund, joe matson 4th row lf to rt: jean brunger, ruth christensen (blurred), leone larsen, beth lund, unk, leslie candland, unk, beth hansen, unk, unk Top row lf to rt: Dr Holman, unk, unk, unk camille holman, miriam candland, unk, unk, Coach Brunger holding tommie brunger, LR Christensen, Joseph Matson,
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