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Richard P. MoffatPRIVATE I was born the fourth child and the second son of Herbert Rees Moffat and Ida Parker Moffat in Salt Lake City, Utah. My earth life began on a stormy, cold, January 12, 1920, in the Holy Cross Hospital; M.D. Stevenson presided over the event. It was the custom by now in our house that Dad be out of town on this important family date. Uncle Tom Higgs got Mother to the hospital on time. Mother reported nothing unusual about the event and I was an ordinary curly haired baby that was special only to his Mom and Dad. We lived in 9th South and 12th East, in the area known as Sugarhouse. LeGrand Richards was the Bishop of the ward. Nine months later the family moved to Los Angeles and we lived in Boyle Heights on Record Street. My father, Herbert R. Moffat, was the third son of David James Archibald Moffat and Hannah Griffith Moffat. He was born in Park City, Utah and was raised in Salt Lake City. His mother died of complication during the birth of the sixth daughter, Afton Broberg. Aunt Afton died in the Spring of 1986 she was the last of Dad's family to take up residence in paradise.When the Moffat family financial fortunes turned down, Dad helped support the family by dropping out of High School during his tenth year (in 1898) and went to work for a contractor (Mr. Dean). He began learning the trade of a carpenter. He never followed this trade very long but he did build our house in Salt Lake and later he built the house on 3437 Glenhurst in Los Angeles and still later 624 Woodbury Rd. in Glendale, California.Dad went to work for the Post Office Department in 1909 and worked part-time in the recorder's office in S.L.C.. He could do a beautiful handwriting and was hired to do copy work. Competitive exams allowed Dad to upgrade his employment to a Railway Postal Clerk. He was transferred to Los Angeles and was assigned the train run from Los Angeles to S.L.C. and later from L.A. to Caliente, Nevada. Herb and Ida had a hard time adjusting to L.A. and they returned to S.L.C. where I was born and then moved the second time to L.A. where Gordon was born. That was the final move from Utah.My mother was the fourth of six daughters and one son of Richard Parker and Betsy Ann Burke Parker in Virgin City, Utah. My great grandfather John Parker was called to settle the rugged county of Southern Utah near St. George (Dixie). He was part of Brigham Young's "cotton project." John was the First Bishop of Virgin Ward. The Parkers (including my Grandpa Richard) participated in building the St. George Temple and they lived for a period under the United Order.My Grandfather, Richard Parker, may have had parts of two years of formal education and he made a good living for his family in cattle, sheep, and farming. He went on a mission to the Southern States when my mother was only a few months old. He later moved his family to Abraham, Utah for health reasons and spent the last several years of his life in Hinckley, Utah. He wrote his autobiography when he was in his 70's. He raised sheep while in Abraham and Hinckley. The farm in Abraham was discontinued, after two very successful crops, because the irrigation system and poor drainage brought alkali to the surface.Soon after my folks (Ida and Herb) moved to L.A. they were blessed with twins--Max and Maxine on January 17, 1915. They were very small and Maxine lived only a few days. Southern California was a long way from their beloved Salt Lake and friends and on the first opportunity they transferred back to Salt Lake City. It was during this time that I was born. My younger brother, Gordon, was born in Los Angeles on August 12, 1924. Gordon had a rocky time of it for his first year of life. His little body couldn't assimilate food properly and when they learned to feed him buttermilk he thrived. The original buttermilk kid.Dad built the home at 3437 Glenhurst Ave in Los Angeles in 1924. The house cost $4600 to build, $850 for the lot, and a $2000 mortgage. Payments were $35.70 per month and he paid it off in 1931. (You can guess from the vital trivia that I've been talking to Max.)My grandfather James Archibald Young Moffat was from Glasgow, Scotland. He was converted in Scotland as a young man by the early missionaries there. He immigrated to Salt Lake at the first opportunity. He served as secretary when the M.I.A. was first organized by Brigham Young in 1871. He was not always faithful in the church--he smoked a pipe and enjoyed his schnapps too much. He made and lost a fortune in the silver mines in Park City, Utah. He had a stiff elbow from a mine accident. He is reported to have been able to take shorthand and did some court reporting in those pioneer days. He was, for a time, an officer in Utah Power and Light. He traded his considerable stock in the company for mine claims. I like the story told that he played checkers for days at a time and could play more than one opponent at a time. He gained recognition in his Scottish parochial school for adding large columns of three and four digit numbers in his head as fast as he could read them. He is reported to have taken shorthand phonetically. There were many visitors to the home who spoke Welch to his wife (my grandmother). He would sit in the room and take down the words said about him in Welch; later he had his transcription translated. That's the hard way to learn the gossip. It is even harder to believe a person can take down in short-hand a language he didn't understand. I remember vaguely his visit to our home in L.A. and he died in 1932. Dad borrowed $100 to bury his father in S.L.C..Grandpa Moffat called my mother Ida-"Tide." Max perpetuated the name.I'm told Ida was glad to move to L.A. because she wasn't happy in the Moffat commune. Dad built the family home near the old time Moffat homestead in S.L.C. in Sugarhouse. Dad's sisters enjoyed borrowing Ida's things and generally made her feel that the move to L.A. was a good idea.Dad was a steady, stable, reliable man. He served as president of his work union. His grade in government ratings was the highest it could be unless he became chief clerk of an area. He had opportunity to become chief clerk in Hawaii but he and Mother thought it a poor place to bring up their children.I attended grade school at Atwater Avenue School in Los Angeles. My memories there include playing marbles constantly, having a paper route, selling vegetables to the neighbors, and gathering old newspapers which we sold. I can remember the ice man delivering block-ice to our refrigerator that was on our back porch. The ice was put in at the top of the round shaped refrigerator. I walked or rode my bike to school. Softball was the game we played most and I was usually the pitcher and team captain. The P.E. Teacher (Mrs. Jordan) used to get me out of class to play her hand ball (single wall type game). My closest friend was Herbert (Lefty) Bingham. His father died when we were in the third or fourth grade (pneumonia). Lefty was a good (friend) that went with me to scout meeting (M.I.A.). He wasn't a member of the church but went along as if he were. We attended church in the Glendale Ward at the Stauffer Auditorium on Broadway in Glendale. We would catch the street car to go to scout meeting--Mother (Ida) never drove the family car. Lefty married a good Mormon girl. He sent his children to BYU and his wife died of cancer when two of their children were at the "Y." I never have heard from him. We send him a Christmas card every year and he often returns a card to us with never a note. "He's a bum."The Moffat boys (Max, Dick, and Gordon) were 5 years apart in age. Gordon and I were never very close. He was a very popular youngster--the "Y" leader and student body president in Junior High School and also in Glendale High.I was close to Max. We had a lot of projects together, ie. delivering papers together. We had a Christmas tree lot and sold Christmas trees together for several years. I always saved my money and Max always arranged for me to finance the Christmas tree project and several other losing projects. When he was in school at BYU he borrowed my savings and invested in the penny mining stocks at the Utah Exchange. I remember he bought the Moscow Mine stocks. I don't remember if I was ever paid back--off hand I would guess I wasn't.I attended Los Angeles Thomas Star King Jr. High School for the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades and Glendale High School. Thomas Star King was out of our school district but mother thought this was a good school so I rode my bike up the Hyperian Bridge and five miles to school. This was the experimental school for L.A.. They didn't give any grades and classes were loosely structured. I have happy memories of the school--mostly about my efforts to excel in athletics. We played on intra-mural sports teams. In ninth grade my team won the basketball and football school championship. I graduated here the same year Merle graduated from UCLA, in 1935.These were depression days and maybe it’s worthy to discuss it a little here. The Moffat home of Herb and Ida was not involved as much as our neighbors in unemployment because Dad was employed with the U.S. Postal Department and work and paychecks were always there. Ida was an excellent money manager. The folks managed to build their new home in 1936 and send Merle to College (UCLA). She graduated from UCLA in 1935. Most of the neighbors on our street (Glenhurst) lost their jobs and were working on the PWA (Public Works Act) projects--federal welfare work projects that paid them according to the needs of their families. Those jobs locally consisted of work on the Los Angeles River to secure the banks of the river with wire and rock to prevent flooding. Many projects related to school needs, ie. improving playgrounds, repairs to schools, the first cross walk attendants, and painting the street cross walk lines by hand. It was better than the direct dole system. There were many government programs NRA (National Recovery Act); The CCC took teenagers and unmarried men and put them in camps and paid them for working in the mountains building roads and trails and camping facilities. Twenty five to thirty percent of the men were unemployed in the U.S.A. and thousands were on the road moving from place to place to find work. Men would come to our home (we lived near the railroad tracks) and ask for food for which they were willing to do some chores to pay for it. Mother always found them a good meal and a chore or two and gave them something for the road. I watched men walk down the street and pass every house until they came to our house and then they would ask for help. There was some type of code or communication system among them. Franklin D. Roosevelt (President of the U.S.A.) was responsible for this social experiment. He bent the US Constitution in many directions and was very popular in the country. (He died in office during his fourth term as president.) But the plasticity of the Constitution was established and it has never been the same since. When World War II came in 1941 we were already involved in war products manufacturing and sending guns and tanks to our friends in Europe. Only when we were put on a full time war footing in 1941 were the unemployment problems finally solved. The depression was never solved by social engineering by the Federal Government. I was on a bus in an industrial area of Gary, Indiana during my mission and women factory workers on the bus bragged how good it was to have a good pay check and hoped the war would not end too soon. Another woman heard this that had lost two sons in the War and did not like that idea. They fought and pulled hair and knocked each other down the isle of the bus-- screaming and yelling profanity at each other. The bus stopped, put the women off, and drove on. This went on right in front of me.Our complex type of economy gets out of balance and has a tendency to self correct but when the government made efforts to help it apparently also helped keep the imbalance going and never corrected the depression and unemployment. Obviously the psychology of government will get involved if an other economic emergency occurs and it will result in the perpetuation of the emergency into war or total socialism. But the "let the government do it" attitude will not correct the emergency.Grandpa Parker lost most of his money in a bank that went "bankrupt in Utah." But he managed until he died without help from the government or his children.Just before the economic depression of 1929 I was sent to Grandpa and Grandma's house in Hinckley to spend the Summer. Maybe Ida wanted me to get acquainted with the grandparents. But I was supposed to help Grandpa with the farm. I listened to stories, tried milking the cow, helped with the weed hoeing rode the neighbor's horses and got in a "demonstration" fight with the sheriff's son. I think I was nine. The farm kids played baseball poorly but I learned to not fight or wrestle because their arms were stronger than mine.When Park and I attended Sunday meeting in Hinckley, during this time I was Bishop of Scottsdale, I was remembered for the fight I got in. It wasn't a "made" fight just a demonstration of how the city boys settled their arguments. I met a man in the High Priest meeting that said he took my mother to the Hinckley dances. The Parkers were stable, respected people in Hinckley. Grandma, Betsy, particularly was the compassionate service person, "naturally."There was much suffering in families during the depression. Many people came to California for employment and lived in tent cities. But during all this Max and I had all the jobs we wanted. We delivered papers and yard work. Merle worked during summers in sales. But the kids up and down the street did not work like we did. Mother baked home made bread on Saturday and we all helped in cleaning the house. I always was assigned to scrub the kitchen floor. Our activities were family centered. We raised rabbits and pigeons and played marbles in the back yard. We had a garden, peach, plumb, and fig trees and mother bought food at the wholesale market and canned every summer.Family night was not a formal program of the Church when I was a boy. Joseph F. Smith published a home evening manual in 1917. There were families that tried to manage a family evening. The LeGrand Richards family was one such family. They had a lot of fun; they played games, ROOK being their favorite. LeGrand himself would tell gospel and missionary stories. The Moffat family often had gospel conversations at the dinner table. Much happened at the dinner table: court was held, arguments were pronounced, gospel questions answered, check ups on books read, school questions were often aired, etc..I remember going to a baptist neighborhood church and watch the "King"(Driggs) sisters play and sing and they passed the plate for them. These were the depression days.There was a vacant lot near our home and it was the center of constant activity for the neighborhood. We flew kites, and played football and baseball there. All the neighborhood kids and adults participated. Griffith Park was within walking distance and we played the equivalent of little league baseball. The baseball and the bat was furnished by the L.A. Parks Department. The kids organized their own neighborhood teams and played the schedule posted by the park director. I always had a team that participated. In fact that is where I learned how to play hard ball. I kept busy with family chores and delivering papers. I always delivered papers for the Hollywood Citizen News, Glendale News Press, L.A. Downtown Shopper News, etc. Mother often borrowed my money to get by until Dad's check came in the mail. I was always repaid. These were depression days. During these years mother was involved in Primary and P.T.A. and my sister Merle was the major mother image in my memory because mother was not often home after school.We moved into our beautiful new home in Glendale (624 Woodbury Road) in 1936. Dad built this home; Max and I helped. He bought the lot for $1450 cash and built the home with a $5300 mortgage. We sold the home in 1953 for $21,000 and it stands today--looks great and in 1977 has an estimated value of $80,000.High school years were filled with active participation in basketball, baseball, and church. I dated only once in high school (Lila Fox). I lettered three years in varsity baseball and basketball and played with a C.I.F. Championship team in baseball in 1938. We played that championship game in the Wrigley Field (the Dodger Stadium of its day) in L.A. against Long Beach High. It was big time. Mike Frankovitch broadcast the game on the radio, etc. Mike was later a movie director and official in the 1984 Olympics.Our team consisted of boys that all later played professional ball. The outstanding kids were Tom Morris (pitcher), Greg Regalado, and Bob Dillinger. Bob after the War was the best batter in the American League with the Chicago White Sox. Regalado was third base for the Cleveland Indians. Parker thinks I should include some of the athletic stories here. Probably the biggest thrill came beating Long Beach in the above game and striking out the last batter--I have kept the very ball for years. I played against Jackie Robinson who attended John Muir High in Pasadena. He was a great one in High School. This is the boy that was later selected to break the color line in professional baseball. I threw him out twice trying to steal second base in one game. (Bob Dillinger was on the other end.) He went to UCLA and I played against him there when I was at Santa Monica J.C. and Occidental College.A few honors came in baseball. My coach (George Sperry) said I was the all C.I.F. catcher in 1938 and I won the Helms Award in 1939 for Jr. Colleges; I received the batting title in 1938 with a 409 average. I was an all conference guard in basketball my senior year.Another athletic event--I played with a semi-professional team, the Detroit Juniors. The scout Monte Krug recruited mehe was also the UCLA coach. These games were played on Sunday during the winter. I played in Ventura, Santa Barbara, Redondo Beach, Burbank (Lockheed's Company team), etc. After 8 or 10 straight weeks I got tired of not having any contact with my friends at church and not able to attend Sunday School or Priesthood meeting. I turned in my uniform and told Monte Krug that I didn't want to play professional baseball. I missed the $20 per game (travel money they called it). A year later I tried out and played on a winter semi-professional team with Cincinnati's (National League) farm team. This was a Saturday afternoon league. I was sent to a class B professional team in Albuquerque, New Mexico but I stayed only two weeks and I paid half my living expenses. Professional baseball really didn't appeal to me; it seemed to always involve the crudest people. One of the fun stories is in a game with Pomona College when I was playing with Occidental College. They had a big football star playing on their baseball team and he tried to score from third base on a ground ball to the short stop. The ball was thrown to me (catcher) and I had the ball before the runner was twenty feet from home. I got set to protect the plate and tag the runner out. As he threw his 220 lbs. of body at me I quickly moved out of the base line and tagged him out as he dove past me. He hit the plate with a thud and knocked himself out. Their coach told my coach he just cringed when he saw his big man running at me because the week before he did the same trick and hospitalized the Redland University's catcher. When he was knocked out (ten or twenty minutes) his own team member congratulated me on the justice of the event. I really don't know if I tagged him too hard on the head going by or if he hit the plate. The school paper wrote it up as "King Kong Bites the Dust With Tag by Moffat." There was enough made of that you would have thought I'd hit a grand slam instead of getting out of the way to save my life!The first game (league game) of the season in my tenth year in high school I was the #1 starting pitcher on the team. I started the game against Muir Tech (Pasadena). The first inning I faced Bobby Jensen who later played for New York Yankees and Jack Robertson later with the Brooklyn Dodgers. We were playing in White Sox Diamond in Riverside Park in Pasadena. I walked three batters and Jensen (the fourth batter) hit the ball out of sight. The coach came to the mound (Geo Sperry) and said he thought I was a pitcher but he must have been mistaken. He let me stay in because no one else was ready and he said all the Pasadena kids were afraid of a curve ball. So I struck out the next six batters with my "round house curves" (every pitch a curve) and had ten strike outs by the fifth inning when my arm began to curve instead of the ball and I had a sore elbow for days. That ended my pitching duties until my twelfth year.That year we played in the Pomona Spring Tournament and I could not go to the tournament because mother insisted I go with the Y.M.C.A. band. I played my clarinet at Boulder, Nevada. On our return home the bus had mechanical troubles in Baker, Calif. and delayed our arrival home some twelve hours. The high school coach met the bus. He called my mother and with her permission at 6:00 a.m. I went straight to Pomona to pitch our fourth game in the tournament. We had unexpectedly won the first three games while I was in Boulder and the coach thought he needed me to pitch. No sleep and tired from the bus ride I was on the mound at 10;00 a.m. in the semi-final game of the tournament. "Use your curve, son," the coach said. It worked like magic for five innings and nine or ten strike outs and then they got the hang of it and we lost the game 15 to 5. That coach didn't talk to me all the way home and the team treated me like an enemy for days. It was a great lesson: riches to rags, glory to disgrace in the sixth or seventh inning in Pomona. That coach really wanted that game.But we won the big C.I.F. Championship in 1938. The final game of this tournament I described above. Our pitcher that day was Tom Morris and he had the finest game I ever caught. He threw a ball harder than any of the Sunday Pros I caught later and we beat the big name "bonus" pitcher, (T. Pine) from Long Beach (4 to 0). Tom Morris's fast ball would hop (rise as it crossed the plate) and that day he had it all. We beat Chino High School in the semi-final tournament game 4 to 1 after having two outs in the ninth inning and behind 1 to 0real drama.My basketball career was confined to High School. I played against Jack Robinson again. I thought he played basketball and football better than baseball. We (Glendale High) probably had the best basketball team in Southern California during my senior year. But we lost Johnnie Burris early in the season when his lungs hemorrhaged and was later diagnosed as T.B.. John was the highest scorer in the conference and it hurt us to fatally loose him and his 20 points per game.Needles to say, with all this athletic activity the academic part of high school left something to be desired. I next attended Glendale Jr. College one year, Santa Monica Jr. College one year and Occidental College one year and in September, 1941, I went on a mission to the Northern States Mission.I changed from Glendale to Santa Monica J.C. because the baseball coach said he would get me into USC with a baseball ride. He didn't so I changed to Occidental College because it was near home and they gave me a $150 off the tuition per semester which was about one half of the tuition freight. I earned $50 typing the script for a college radio broadcast every week; I'd cut the stencil and print thirty copies of it.Roger asked what I did in Church before marriage. I went to the firesides, mutual on Tuesday nights, and always Sunday meetings. I can remember serving as the Ward Magazine representative. I was surprised when I was given a chance to sell the Magazine at a Sacrament meeting. (The Era was the adult magazine). From the pulpit I gave it my pitch; I suggested there were even recipes published in The Era: "bigger and better ways to burn the beans." Everyone laughed but no one renewed their subscription.During the time I was attending high school Max was at BYU and Merle was teaching school in Deming near Bakersfield. Gordon was in Wilson Junior High was student body president there and three years later at Glendale High.Sometime in 1939 a military draft was established and everyone 18 and over had to register but college students were allowed to stay in school until war broke out. I played baseball at each college and at Occidental the desire to do something academically was fanned there. The athletic drive was on the wane.Between my Freshman and Sophomore year I worked at Canyon Hotel in Yellowstone and saved $200.00 for the summer's work (1939). Not bad for those days.Bishop Lowe interviewed me to go on a mission and Stake President David H. Cannon and Apostle Steven L. Richards also interviewed me for a mission call. It was a tough interview with Elder Richards; he asked the $64 question several times and the last time I was beginning to ask myself if there was something that I had done and forgotten. That was the procedure in 1941.During the summer of 1941 while waiting for the mission call to come I worked as a community Recreation Director for the L.A. City School system and built tires for Firestone in Southgate at night. I had to play ball for the Firestone team two nights per week. It turned out to be a very busy summer.It was interesting that LeGrand Richards spoke at my mission farewell. He was the substitute for the stake president who was ill. He had been bishop of the ward in S.L.C. were we lived. He later moved to Glendale and became our bishop there and later our stake president. From here he was called to be the mission president of the Southern States and later Presiding Bishop of the Church--still later an apostle. The mission training in S.L.C. was for seven days. We were instructed in gospel principles and two sessions in the temple. Several G.A.s lectured to us.I kissed my folks goodbye in S.L.C. and met them again in Ogden the same day because I left my hat with them. Dad gave me the hat. That hat was blown into the St. Joseph river on the first Sunday I was in South Bend, Indiana. I have never replaced the hat that my Dad thought so necessary for missionary demeanor. It just wasn't mebut it could have saved my ears from freezing.The Northern States Mission headquartered in Chicago, Ill. Leo J. Muir was the mission president. The mission included Iowa. Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, most of Michigan, part of Pennsylvania, and part of Minnesota. Missionaries that were serving in Europe were returned to the States to finish their missions there. Northern States Mission had more than 600 missionaries when I got there in 1941.I was one of the last missionaries to go into the field before World War II. War broke out on Dec. 7, 1941 and I was called September 1941 and was thus allowed to finish the mission. My patriarchal blessing says I will be one of the last missionaries to be called and it would be in times of great destruction and that the teaching of salvation for the dead and genealogy would be my big tools for the work. A last elder before the World War II doesn't cut it.The most important event was the conversion of R.P.M.. I was eager to serve as a missionary and pushed and encouraged my companions to spend more time proselyting. I couldn't see how I could justify the missionary status during war time without a 200% effort. President Muir and I got along well and he gave me many opportunities in mission leadership and special assignments directed by him. In Nov of 1943 when I was released there were 15 young elders, 20 to 30 lady missionaries and 5 or 6 older couples left. People were moving a great deal during the war. We closed one half or more of the branches in the mission and I spent weeks auditing the books of the branches and closing the records and the members had to deal directly with the mission office; tithing was paid directly to the mission office. Funerals were conducted by missionaries assigned from Chicago near the area or by branch offices that were near. Ordinance work was done in Chicago or in the nearest existing branch which was often several hundred miles away.I did rare country work in our mission almost without purse or script. Country work consisted of visiting the people who lived where we had no branches. We set up cottage meetings by mail. My famous story of old dead chicken livers and the flies occurred doing country work. I spoke in street meetings in Coveyton, Ky. and participated in the missions district conference as a representative of President Muir (etc.).I participated in special assignments from President Muir that eventually excommunicated three people and I participated in one convert baptism.--Not exactly a "successful" mission. I always figured that when Parker was born I evened the score in the Lord's Kingdom (three in and three out). I got involved in several college religion emphasis days in Indiana and Michigan and was a supervising elder in the Cincinnati District after being in the field for six months. While in Cincinnati I met Elder M. Duff Hanks. He was assigned to my district and he soon was the manager and M.C. for a very professional group of singing L.M.s (sextet).I followed Ted Tuttle into South Bend, Indiana and helped schedule appointments for a quartet singing group that included Robert Backman. These three men all became general authorities later. Al Larson was in Cincinnati when I arrived but he was transferred before we had opportunity to work together.Mostly our travels were by bus or train. We got 20% off ticket prices because we were "ministers." It cost about $50 per month to sustain a missionary in the Northern States Mission in those days. I served as supervising elder missionary in Cincinnati, Ohio and Lansing, Michigan. During the last six months there were few proselyting missionaries because of the War. My time was used in special assignments from President Muir. I attended two months at Hiram college in a physics class before returning home. I needed the physics class to complete my premed for dental school.The War years were different: meat, sugar, shoes. etc. could only be purchased with ration stamps. Cars were not manufactured during the war and hence not available to buy new. They were difficult to buy for several years after they were manufactured again beginning in 1947.I returned home on Nov. 1, 1943 and started dental school at USC on November 19. There was no room in the USC Dental College for me. The class was fullmostly of Army and Navy sponsored students. After school started I spent five days in the Dean's office trying to get an interview with him and a possible late acceptance into school. (I had an acceptance in the Western Reserve Dental School in Cleveland, Ohio and I had to be there by the 21 of November.)Somehow it seemed so important to stay in Los Angeles. The military draft board was not pressing me and I would be allowed to go to dental school without being drafted if I got in school. The situation at home with mother's illness made it very important to stay home. Early on the eighth day after school started the secretary to the dean at USC called and told me to come down and talk to the dean. He looked over my transcript of grades and wrote on it "it looks like a train ticket to Hobokin." (So many schools: Glendale J.C., Occidental, Hiram College, Santa Monica J.C., Michigan State.) I was admitted to the class seven days late. They gave me a folding chair to sit in high on the last row in lecture hall. The dental career was launched on a very quiet, prayerful, and grateful note.When a missionary returned home in those days he reported to the whole stake at quarterly conference. I was called on in the afternoon session. Mother could not be there. She attended in the morning and was out of gas for the afternoon session. In fact she fell walking to the car after the morning session; I don't think she ventured out again. I had been home more than three months when I reported to the stake. By then I had a butch hair cut and looked very military. I told the congregation that I was prepared as well as the average missionary when I was calledbut I wasn't prepared well enough. I suggested we need methods and techniques for teaching the gospel and maybe the first three months should be spent at BYU etc. I was a little ahead of the times.Stephen L. Richards, the general authority presiding, laughed when I suggested with my new butch cut I could qualify as a devoted missionary because I had the characteristics and the cardinal marks of a class A missionary: lost my girl to a Dear John letter, studied so hard I now needed glasses, and third, it now looked like I was loosing all my hair as a sacrifice to the cause. But apostle Richards stopped laughing and roasted me for the BYU suggestion. He said a humble missionary could do his job OK without three months BYU training if they would follow the counsel of their mission president and were "humble." Lorraine Haller was in the audience and witnessed the rough treatment by Brother Richards. Later on a trip to S.L.C. as the Bishop of Scottsdale, I talked to Apostle Richards and reminded him of the remarks of that brazen return missionary. He remembered them and me. I assured him that I hadn't apostatized from the Church and I was happy to see the proselyting methods changing to a more systemized approach. The missionary training center did not start then. It was several years before it came into being.In the V12 program, a Navy government program pays the special education needs of the military services: physician, dentist, veterinarian, certain types of engineers, etc.. These were training programs the military could not do themselves. They paid me Apprentice Seaman wages,($65 per month). I lived at home. I wore the military suit one day a week or every day if I wanted. They paid tuition and bought my equipment. I attended military drills daily and an occasional Saturday training film session.When I returned home from the mission in 1943, Mother was having trouble walking. We kept mother at home during all the illness. We hired a R.N., Wynn Mathews, who took care of mother during the day and I was needed on the nursing duty at night. My best qualification as the night nurse was that I could sleep in the next room but the slightest movement or irregularity in Mother's room would always wake me up. Wynn Mathews could sleep through some difficult nights but somehow I could always awake if she was in need. I was blessed with a good strong back to lift and move mother when necessary.Dad was called on to work extra time in the mail service and wasn't home much--remember this was war time. Merle and Ray had been transferred during these war years to New York, where he worked as a scientist developing radar and radar directed bombs, etc. He worked in Bell Laboratories. Max worked at the ship yards in San Pedro as a supervisor during the warseven days a week some weeks. Gordon was in the Navy and was sent, via the Navy V12 program, to San Francisco where he attended the Physician and Surgeon's College of Dentistry. So really I was the only member of the family to be available for the constant help at home. I always felt that was a great blessing to be allowed to be near mother when she needed me most during those years I was in dental school. I was home every night. I had to work at the clinic some Saturdays. There were no vacations from school.Three weeks before graduation from dental school my mother passed away on July 21, 1946. She died of complications of Muscular Dystrophy, probably pneumonia. The official medical diagnosis was Encephalitis but we know that diagnosis was wrong.A note about mother's funeral. Primary children, a hundred or more, did the singing and the old Glendale ward house was filled to over flowing. Mother was well known all over Southern California; mostly in Primary circles. Merle had returned home several months before and she assumed much responsibility and managed mother as well as her own little family. We continued to have the R.N. at home. I started as a civilian and joined a V12 Navy program and was discharged from Navy and finish school as a civilian. After graduation I joined the Navy and served two years. The war was over by the time I got to active duty. I voluntarily joined the Navy as a dentist because I thought it the least I could do for the privilege I had during war time. Also mother's death three weeks before I graduated and the pace I had kept for the past five years warranted some time to slow down; I needed the Navy laid back schedule to catch up on a little R and R.When the War was winding down and they anticipated not needing the physicians and dentists they were training, they discontinued the program. They sold the equipment back to me that they had purchased ($800 or so) and discharged me from the service. I was allowed to continue the dental school as a civilian. Gordon was in the same program but he elected not to go in the service after his school was completed. He went into private practice for 8 years or so and was then drafted back into the Navy to serve two years or more in the Korean War (1950-1952 I think).My experience in the Navy started at the naval training station in San Diego and I was assigned to coach the basketball team and later assigned to US Nereus As#17, a submarine tender and we had a squadron of ten submarines along side. We participated in trying to run the submarines under the ice-cap in the Bering Sea from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. We weren't successful then but several years later they moved a submarine from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean under the ice cap.My sister Merle died when she was young, 45 years old. She was a very gracious, kindly, loving person with most of the characteristics of her mother. She was a hard driver toward certain goals. She served as ward primary president and stake primary president. She was a well trained elementary school teacher from UCLA. She taught school a couple of years after Mother died. Ray Scoville, her husband, was getting his own business started, Vector Electronics. Merle had it all but was very disappointed that Ray was not active in the Church. He was a member (a priest) and his father was a well versed member but his mother was a clinger and anti-church. Ray's critical and cynical attitude bled over into the minds of his boys Larry and Dale.My experience in the Military was easy and relaxed. When I was stationed in San Diego I began to court Lorraine ("Sassy Sue") again and we were married in September 1947 and we spent a year in the service together before we were mustered out.Actually the courtship of Lorraine and Dick started soon after I arrived home from a mission. Gordon and Sassy attended Occidental at the same time. She inquired about the new returned, pious missionary in the ward and Pluto (Gordon) told her I was far too old for her. We went to the Gold and Green Ball. It was Thanksgiving time and she was the "queen" of the ball and we returned to the Moffat homestead after the dance for pie a-la-Ida. It was a refreshing evening of wit and candor. It seemed so easy to generate good times when she was there. We dated and talked on the phone more. She was a freshman at Occidental College. Her Sophomore year she attended BYU. Junior and Senior year were at Occidental. I got temporarily side-tracked with another charmer but under the stress of the days that arrangement didn't generate any real feelings of right for me.When I got to San Diego in a Sailor suit the days were interesting and the nights a bore. I made good conversation with the Catholic Chaplin (John Longadin). He played good pool. I got weekends off and frequently got home to Glendale to check in with Dad, Max, and occasionally with Sassy Sue. We had good memories, good conversation, good times, and good chemistry. We scheduled our marriage as soon as I got home from the ship cruise to Wake Island and the Arctic Circle. we played games putting submarines under the icecap. It was a long Summer.We were married by the Stake President, David H. Cannon. Sassy had gone to the Salt Lake Temple and had accepted her endowment in preparation for a temple wedding. But the schedule of getting to the temple and back for a reception could not be managed in our time schedule. Air service was not convenient like it is today to little towns of Mesa or Salt Lake. The Los Angeles Temple was not available because it would be built 10 years later. We were married in the beautiful Haller home. Our get away car would not start so we borrowed one. We traveled by train and bus to Monterey, California for our honeymoon.Our first residence was in a navy quansit hut at Mare Island Naval Base not too far from where Chris and Kent live today in Antioch. When the ship I was assigned to came out of dry dock it went to San Diego to stay. We had a little apartment in Chula Vista. We worked at night in a dentist's office to earn enough money to buy a car. Sassy was my first dental assistant. We were paid $160 per month as a Lt. J.G.(Junior Grade) in the Navy and we made it OK. Mother also worked at a department store in San Diego during the day for a while. We were released in October, 1948 from the Navy. I was accepted into the August 1948 graduate class of Orthodontics at the University of California in San Francisco. But at the last minute the Navy would not allow me the 60 days accumulated leave I and needed to get into the class. The military was still winding down from war and they were releasing men on a earned point system. I had 60 days of terminal leave (vacation) but the Navy did not let me use it because that would mean another dentist with war duty could not be released until two months later.Gordon was practicing dentistry in Yuma, Arizona because he failed the California Board. He was not yet 21 years old when he graduated and I suspect that may have been part of it. He was a good student and had good hands. He took the exam in Arizona and passed and went to Yuma to get a fast start. Yuma was without a dentist for several years during the War. He worked there for a year and was called on a mission to the New England Mission (Boston). He came by one afternoon in San Diego and asked if I wanted to continue his business in Yuma until I could gain an acceptance in the next orthodontic class in the University of California 18 months down the road. It would take no money to get started. The deal was if I left Yuma, I would pack up his equipment, pay the bills, and close the office.I had passed the Arizona Dental Board while I was still in the Navy. We accepted the deal from Gordon to run his office in Yuma, Arizona and he then went on his mission to New England.Christy, our first born, (born while we were in Yuma, March 23, 1950) was a beautiful child but she had a really tricky stomach that refused most of her food (choleic). She out grew this within nine or ten months but her parents were put to the test for that period. Mother (Lorraine) was up with her all night every night. I wondered at how Chris could live because it seemed that 100% of what she ate came back up. We often took her for long drives in the car because that seemed to distract her and she would fall asleep. We took her to the drive-in movies often. The theatrical seed was thus planted very early in her life.While we were in Yuma we visited the famous Orthodontic office of Dr. Charles Tweed in Tucson. He was a pioneer in the field of orthodontics at the time. I told him I was interested in Orthodontics and had been accepted in the program at the University of California but the Navy didn't cooperate and I couldn't get out in time for the beginning of the class. He said some interesting words like "you are better off." The graduate programs were just getting started again after being closed several years for the war and they would be poor quality for the next two or three years because of faculty commitments. Besides "his" new methods were not accepted yet, let alone being taught in the schools. He invited us to follow his advise and teachings and we would smell the "roses." His brother Ted Tweed was very gracious and helpful and a good teacher.I went to the University of Detroit for a good technical course. I studied all the Orthodontic Journals they recommended and spent time in their offices. We sold the little home we bought in Yuma and bought a 3 bedroom home at 1635 W. Clarendon in Phoenix. We moved to Phoenix when an orthodontist, John Newcomer, was killed in a auto accident towards the end of 1950.The Newcomer office was old fashioned and they offered it to me for nearly nothing if I would just come to Phoenix and take the cases off the estate's hands. Gladys Lemons was Newcomer's assistant; she came with the office. She talked like a sailor but she knew the business and had great loyalty to Newcomer. She hated Mormons but stayed with me for a few months out of respect for Newcomer. But she stayed with me for the next 33 years. During that time she joined the Church and brought her children and her husband in behind her. Today she is an active genealogy nut and gets to the temple often with her husband, Lester.Mother decorated the new home beautifully and we were busy and happy. I was called to serve in a bishopric (second councilor) in a newly established ward, 9th Ward. At that time I was ordained a High Priest by Elder Delbert Stapley. I served with Bishop Maurice Tanner and Reed Price. Our experience in the bishopric was good training for what was ahead. We learned a lot. Parker and Marty were born while we lived in the Phoenix 9th Ward.While in the 9th we also associated with a group of newly married couples that have been dear friends all these years. Every Christmas we get together and have a big bash. The old "gang" has been individually successful in their businesses and church responsibilities and have raised good families with kids that are following their parents' footsteps. There are several stake presidents, mission presidents (3), bishops (6), patriarchs (3), and regional representatives (3) that have come from the "gang." Reed Price is currently mission president in Bristol, England. Keith Allen is executive secretary to the regional president in Australia and has eleven missions and more stakes in his responsibility. The regional presidency are General Authorities (from the Fist Quorum of Seventy) in charge of a specific region of the world.Grandpa Moffat died in March 1952 of a heart failure (thrombosis in the coronary artery). He lived to be 68 years old and had the first heart attack three years before. Grandpa Haller died in 1958 also of a heart failure. Uncle Bob (Sassy's brother) was also lost to heart troubles. Obviously that is a popular excuse for our genetics to play a prominent role in our "transition."Our success in the office allowed us to improve our house situation. We moved into the Scottsdale (4511 E. Exeter) area and I was soon made Bishop of the Scottsdale Ward. The Scottsdale area was growing rapidly and the ward grew from 419 to 1200 in less than three years while I presided. I served nearly three months before I was ordained a bishop. I was ordained by Marian G. Romney on the day Merry Ann was born (March 24, 1956). General Authorities always ordained the Bishops in those days.In addition to the challenge of the rapid growth of the ward, we were involved in a major addition to the Scottsdale Ward Building. The building was more than doubled in size and cost $300,000. In those days the ward supplied 50% of the money or equivalent labor and the bishop was responsible for the construction. A Church approved building supervisor was hired and some of the cash cost of the building was managed by donated labor. We completed the addition in less than 10 months and two wards held all their Sunday meetings in the building during this major change. I made many trips to S.L.C to keep the paper work running smoothly and adjusting the costs and arbitrary with the kids. I was in Salt Lake eight Mondays out of fourteen weeks. As soon as the building was completed the ward was divided into three wards and I was released. It is interesting that it was Apostle LeGrand Richards that rededicated the building and Larry Lee replaced me as bishop.P.L. Lawrence sold us a desert adobe house north of Scottsdale. This was the winter home of Fred Maytag (of washer and dryer fame). We completely reconstructed this home and installed air-conditioning. We paid $25,000 for the home that sat on two and a half acres. We spent that much again in the renewal of the place. It was a unique and beautiful raw adobe house. We lived there 8 years and moved to Mesa.During these hard days mother had a negro, Mildred, come in once a week to help when we lived on Exetor. When we moved to the desert, Mildred saw the little guest house and thought that would be a great place for her to stay. It worked out that she lived there and went to ASU in pursuit of an education. Mildred was great help to us. The desert house was big. The demands on mother were great. We did a lot of entertaining in those days. She came to live with us when her step-mother invited her to move out. She was with us from 1959 to 1963. When Roger was born she moved out. She attended ASU ten years and never graduated. She married and had two children. She came to Chris and Parkers' wedding receptions and her little boys had a field day at the refreshment tables.I was active in dental society business during these busy days. In 1954 I was elected president of the local (Central District Dental Society). In 1956 I served as President of the Arizona State Dental Society.We left Scottsdale with a lot of brownie points on the table. After serving as bishop I taught early morning seminary for a year and was coordinator of the seminary in the Phoenix, Scottsdale and Gilbert area for four years. I enjoyed that job despite of the hours, mostly because I could see the potential to help and change kids lives. I served on the High Council when the Scottsdale Stake was carved out of the Phoenix Stake. Junius Driggs was the Stake President and Apostle Le Grande Richards presided at the Stake conference when the division was created and I was set apart as High Counselor by Elder Richards. (Has his name come up her several times or what.) He is a great and beloved man to our family.During our time in Scottsdale, Mother served as Y.W.M.I.A. president, in a Relief Society presidency with Hertha Lawrence, and she directed several fun and winning road shows. We made a endearing friendship with P.L. and Hertha Lawrence. The Lawrences moved from Idaho to Scottsdale. He had served several years in a stake presidency of Twin Falls. Mother and Hertha became best friends. We were really deputy-step relatives; his cousin married my Aunt Allison. This couple was 20 years our senior but it didn't seem that way. Hertha reminded me much of Merle in her generous, loving manner and we would have adopted them as honorary grandparents to our family except they just seemed like family without any such formalities.While we lived in Scottsdale we purchased a camper. It was an auxiliary to our family lifestyle that seemed to fit. It was a 1962 1 ton Chevy truck with 1 bath, 6 beds, and kitchen built on that truck chassis. We have a lot of fun memories of trips and outings in that rig. We attended the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 (or 63). It was a novelty on the road that year.In 1965 we travelled to the World's Fair. We left Roger home, he was 18 months old; he stayed with the Ruth and Junius Gibbons family and with the Pat Thompson family. (When we returned home he didn't remember his mother until several days later when he saw her washing dishes in the kitchen.) The New York trip started by Mother (Sassy) driving the camper to Nashville, Tennessee with 4 kids. Parker stayed with me for a week and we flew to Tennessee to join the camper fun.Mother truly proved the camper belonged to her. She made the trip possible and a fun family event. It was hard work for her to manage food, bed, baths, laundry, and loving care in that 100 square foot home on wheels. She studied the maps and became chief navigator and co-pilot after my arrival. We went from Tennessee to New York and stopped in Philadelphia and Washington D.C.. We attended the World's Fair with walkie-talkies and had a thrilling experience. We attended a few Broadway shows too.It was necessary for me to get back to work in Arizona and I left them in New York as they attended "Hello Dolly" with Carol Channing. I kissed Mother goodbye in front of the theater and joined them in Boston 5 weeks later. When I think about it I wonder at my sanity. Sassy managed the like a true teamster. She truly made this family outing memorable and worthy. She nearly ran out of money in Boston before she got to the Western Union office to be resupplied. She seemed to manage this complex outing as if it were routine--nothing to it. I rejoined the vagabonds in Boston; they were all healthy and happy and had wonderful experiences never to be forgotten.This travel troop went from Boston to Sharon Vermont where we started the Mormon Trail home. We stopped at Nauvoo and fell in love again with the great pioneers that sacrificed all for the gospel. We went there when the old homes were in ruins. The only house that was restored at this time was the Heber C. Kimball home. It had been purchased by a descendent, Dr. LeRoy Kimball and he restored it as a second family home and from that he encouraged the great restoration of the homes and town sites that we have there today.Mother proved on this trip that she had a love of history and wanted all the little Moffats to love it, taste it, and experience it. It was hard work and demanded much from her. She gave it all she had each day and each night must have climbed up in that camper loft bed bone tired but happy.We kept the camper for several more years until we had outgrown it and sold it with 60,000 happy miles on it. We've taken other great trips in rented campers including a trip to Canada in 1972 and a trip back to Nauvoo with Mur, Craig, Roger, and Mindy in 1979. We are drawn like magnets to that road.We lived in the adobe home in the desert until Chris was a senior and Parker was a sophomore at Saguaro High School. This high school had an active music and drama department and Chris participated in several musical productions. Pa and Ma began to feel the need for an environment that supported the family goals. Chris was the only Mormon girl in her class and drugs were beginning to be a problem at the school at this time. Saguaro High was reported to be the most active in drugs in Arizona.We had opportunity to buy a new home in Mesa that did something for us and we moved lock, stock, and barrels to 2601 E. Brown on July 21, 1967. This is the day my sister Merle died in California of a stroke. She married Ray Scoville and they had three children: Larry, Dale, and Diane. Ray at that time had a very successful electronic manufacturing business (Vector Electronics). It hurt big to loose Merle. She was a charming, intelligent, gracious gal that gave life her all through her intense attention and effort and it didn't seem to give it all back as she hoped.We moved to Mesa and settled down to the serious business to try to raise our family of wonderful kids in the best manner we could. The Church and school played great parts in our growing up.A poor investment with Gordon and other men in a ranch and dairy in Utah began to eat us up. By 1976 there was no were to go but the wall. We had debts of the corporation of the dairy that I had to sign for to keep the dairy alive only to have it take us in all the way to bankruptcy. This was difficult for me to live with. There were so many "wonder if" questions and "I should have" haunts and regrets that went over such a long period that I wondered at times if the sun would ever rise again. It did. I can think of no lessons learned that needed to be relearned and relearned that are worthy of commentary here.Mesa has treated us well. From here Parker was called to Germany on a mission to be followed by Craig to Canada, Merry Ann to Japan, and Roger to Chile. We matured a little in faith and love of each other. I've had opportunity to serve in high councils in two more stakes under two more fine presidents--Eldon Cooley and Eldon Porter. Our home has been the center of family activities and we aren't looking back. As Sachel Page says "there might be someone gain'n on us but the today is great." ................
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