They were just friends all through grade school. When Hatti was 12, Grandpa Willard Richard Guymon took the family to Salt Lake. He was a janitor in an apartment building so they got the apartment for free. When they enrolled Hatti in school, the administrators thought she wouldn't be able to keep up because she was from Blanding, so they moved her back a year. They stayed in Salt Lake for only a year before returning to Blanding, but when they returned, Hatti was a year behind.
Hatti once told me about a school field trip to what is now the Natural Bridges National Monument. They drove the school bus down into the canyons and stopped right by one of the bridges. Then they took a big ladder that they'd strapped to the side of the bus, and setting the ladder on top of the bus, they leaned it on the natural bridge and all the kids climbed up onto the bus, then onto the bridge. She said she was petrified to climb up there but she did so the other kids wouldn't tease her.
When all of Hatti's friends graduated from high school, she just stopped going to school. Hatti didn't graduate high school until she was in her 60s when the local school started a seniors education program.
After high school Cardon and Hatti started dating. Hatti lived in what we think of as Uncle Erve's house. Cardon lived in a house South of the Parley Red store.
One night after a date, Cardon dropped Hatti off at home and headed to his own home by cutting straight through the fields. As he was walking through a grove of cedar trees in the rain, he had his hands in his pockets and his head down fighting through the wind and rain when he stumbled over some burros that were bedded down under the trees. He stepped on one burro that instantly jumped up from under him and Cardon wound up laying across that burro as it took off.
He had his hands stuck in his pockets and couldn't get his hands out. He rode that way until he eventually bounced off and rolled to a stop. He continued dating Hatti anyway.
They were married in February of 1933.
In April Grandma headed for Midvale to help with Aunt Nelda's delivery. On the journey there, the ride was so rough that Hatti arrived and was in labor, 3 months early. They went to a doctor to try to stop the delivery but after a day of trying to stop it, they couldn't. So Mildred Nelson was the doctor and she helped to deliver De. He was 1 pound 4 ounces. They named him De Nelson, after her. She was the great aunt of Russel M Nelson who operated on Uncle Rusty, so it all tied together.
De was so tiny that they were sure he would die. They wrapped him in cotton and put him in Unle Joe's shoe box and set him on the oven door. They fed him whey with brandy mixed in it.
Cardon had left to go sheering sheep at the end of February and wouldn't get home until the end of May. He was paid 10 cents per sheep to sheer.
When De and Rusty were little, they moved to Pagosa Springs and worked for Uncle Melvin (Cardon's brother in law maried to Maime). He was caring for sheep. They lived there several years. They lived down on the river.
After Pagosa, they moved back to Blanding by the time Aunt Betty was born and stayed until Donna was 1 year old. Grandpa went into business with his dad Tom Jones to raise Hereford cattle. They raised the cattle on a ranch they bought from Tom Kelly out behind Ache and Mac. The railroad once had a station in Ache and the ranch was right beside the station.
They lived at the highline in New Liberty in the winter, and Ache in the summer until the 1950s. New Liberty is West of Mac, up in the book cliffs. It was a small valley full of farms and an elementary school.
At Ache, house, which they called the Brown House, the bucks (male sheep) had gotten into the house and been stuck in there for several days. Nelson and Rusty had to shovel several inches of manuer out before they could move in.
It was in New Liberty that Nelson enlisted in the Air Force. He had gone to town for some groceries and decided to pick up the mail. When the postmaster saw him, he told Nelson not to get the mail and that it would be delivered in a few days.. Then he told him to just stand there while he sorted some mail.
As Nelson watched, the post master laid down several letters and one of them was for him, it was a draft notice. Nelson excused himself and went straight to the Air Force enlistment office and enlisted.
There is a picture of the whole family that I've always seen. Donna told me it was the day that dad reported to the Air Force. The whole family drove to Grand Junction to see him off, but before he left, they posed for the family photo.
The whole family on the day De Nelson reported to the Air Force
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