The night has been filled with many special memories. The post about my first Thyroid problem reminded me so strongly of the great man that Dale Firth was. Even with four little children about we were still very much like newlyweds trying to just make things better for our life together. The little old house that was our first home in Bothwell was really not such a fantastic place but to us it was home. We had been working very hard to make it more livable. The heat source for our little home was a Stoker-Matic furnace in the living room and a wood cooking stove in the kitchen. The Stoker-Matic was a big box about the size of a big box freezer. Each day and sometimes twice a day Dale would bring in the coal and fill the hopper and take out the ashes. It really made the living room nice and toasty but the bedroom and bathroom off of the living room could get a bit chilly and the back bedroom was right cold unless we built a fire in the cook stove. So while I would be recovering and the children were being cared for he made the decision to add a nice air flow furnace to our little home. There was a man in Bear River City selling a used horizontal one for a price that we could afford.
Dale had been let go from Thiokol in their big lay off in 1964-65. He had worked their as a Draftsman and just the week before during his review they had told him how pleased they were with his work ----- and bang the next week the big lay off came (just like today). His father had approached him about becoming a partner in his farming operation. Dale loved the land and working it. A desk job was never his desire even though his mother kept insisting that with his bad back he could not be a farmer- he needed to work in an office. He had completed his Junior year at Utah State University to become a mechanical engineer. But one day -before the Thiokol job- when he had gone to the University to register for the next session he came home way too early. He came in frustrated as heck and said he could just not do it any more. (registering then was an all day hassle - plus it was just not what he wanted to do. (Just like most of his children ----- he was strong of mind.) He applied at Thiokol and was hired. We both worked in the Tremonton office. His station was in what is now Feldman's ---- I worked for Jerry Mason in the other part of that old building which is now a parking lot for Murdock cars. It was nice to be so close and have lunch together each day. After Tonya was born and I was no longer working he was still in Tremonton for awhile until the new plant at Promontory was built. He was then transferred with most all of the local employees to the Promontory site. Thiokol was in the research and development stage and was working on the Missleman project. It looked liked things might be okay. Funny how life can have its ups and downs.
Well back to the new furnace ----- The only place that a furnace could be put was under the little old back room. This was a very interesting place. The backroom was a lean to build on. I guess maybe in the old days it would be considered a summer kitchen. When our family increased so quickly we had cleaned out all of our storage and sheet rocked and painted the walls and ceiling and put some carpet on the floor. However, to get to the dirt cellar underneath a big door had been cut in the floor with some wood stairs going down. It was dark and musty down there and I hated it. In the spring it usually had some water in it. But, I tried not to think about it. We had made a nice bedroom for the two older girls. But now a furnace needed to go there. But first, Dale would need to fill this "basement?" room with dirt so the furnace could be higher up and that the water seepage would not be a problem. Bucket by bucket he, with the help of his father, the dirt was brought in through the back window and took down the stairs to this cellar. One thing about Dale was that he was not afraid of very hard work. He would do anything that was needed to care for his family. Even if sometimes that brought great pain - whether physical or emotional. He looked after us. It was a very dirty project and one that I could not help with. He had banned me to the front bedroom and closed the door to try and isolate the mess to the backroom. This project would take several days along with working on the farm. But eventually the dirt was high enough and the furnace was gotten ----- now another hard project would begin. He would have to crawl around under that old house to place the lines that would take the nice warm air to each of the rooms. He had cut the necessary holes in the floors of each room to guide him. There was not really a lot of space under that old house so it was good that he was a skinny guy. Getting it all the way to the bathroom was a real tight project. But, he was a man with great determination and sometimes a good bit of temper. That winter our little home would have the comfort of nice warm heat in each room. With the big Stoker-Matic gone from the living room it now seemed so big. I am very grateful for the man that Dale was. He always tried his very best for his family. Mother always said that the reason I insisted on attending Utah State University was because I was suppose to meet Dale. Yes, I think so ----- and I am grateful.
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