Grandpa Wessman's Letter Part 4

WHEN DID YOU START DRIVING? WHAT KIND OF CAR DID YOU DRIVE?

When I was thirteen years old, my father one day suggested that I start to drive our family car. One day enroute from the shop, he turned the car over to me and I drove it the rest of the way home. It was a quiet day with very little traffic, and being on streets in Ogden with no traffic lights or stop signs, I was successful in getting the car started, shifting gears, and driving it the rest of the way home and into the driveway at our house. This was in a 1924 Dodge sedan, and father also later acquired a 1926 Dodge 3/4 ton wiremesh truck which I drove quite often. One time my father had driven in the sedan to the town of Malad, Idaho on a business matter; returning home he decided that I should drive the car part way, so mother and the baby (my sister Marilyn, who was about a year or two old) were transferred to the back seat and I transferred to the driver’s seat. The highway was not paved but was a graded and graveled road; on it I kept the car moving readily, but soon got going too fast--35 miles per hour--which father felt was too fast for anybody to drive, and hence he had me slow down. I drove about ten miles, which took approximately twenty minutes, then father took over the rest of the driving back to Ogden. My father’s first car was a 1916 Ford Model T, the nest one was a 1918 Dodge touring, and the following one was a 1923 Dodge sedan, however I was too young to have an opportunity to drive one of these. Subsequent cars which I owned by myself and drove were a 1929 Model A Ford sedan, a 1937 Ford two-door which I owned when I was married in June 1944 and later sold in November, 1944 when I was preparing to go into the Army for an unknown term. In 1947 after I had returned from the military and we had moved into an apartment at 644 Third Avenue in Salt Lake City, I purchased a 1937 Terraplane two-door. Two year later I sold this car to my friend James McQueen when we purchased a 1940 Plymouth sedan from Beverly’s mother and father; we used this car until 1955, at chich time we traded it in on a big 1955 Ford family station wagon. Subsequent cars were a 1964 Mercury Comet station wagon, a 1973 Volkswagen bug, and Audi station wagon about a 1974 or 1975 model, a 1973 Chevrolet four door sedan, then a 1984 new Volkswagen station wagon, on which we traded in the 1973 VW bug, the 1973 Chev sedan and the 1974 Audi wagon, leaving us with only one car. We kept this until October, 1985 when Beverly and I were in the Missionary Training Center prior to our going to France on a mission for the church; Beverly’s uncle Jack Green and his wife Peggy offered to purchase the 1984 VW wagon and they are still using it. After we returned from France in 1987, we purchased in April a used 1986 Audi 5000 four-door sedan, which we are driving now.


HOW FAR DID YOU GET IN SCHOOL, AND HOW DID YOU LIKE IT?

I graduated from Weber County high school in 1935, attended the L.D.S. Business College full time for several months, then continued some classes therein on Monday and Thursday nights to improve my accounting technique. After returning from my was army service, I returned to my accounting duties at the Mountain Fuel Supply Company; to assist, I was also taking accounting classes at nights at the University of Utah, and I did so for several years.

How did I like school? I always enjoyed going to school; the classes were favorable to me, and I always enjoyed the teachers I had. Our family became enlarged up to a total of eight children, I transferred occasionally at Mountain Fuel to other jobs, and I also was attending drill meetings at nights with Reserve Army associations to which I was attached. These conflicted to my completing my university record to a point where I could possibly have acquired at least a bachelor’s degree. My record there indicated that I probably had acquired one-half of the necessary hours. My total formal education training was always enjoyable to me.


HOW BIG WAS YOUR SCHOOL?

My elementary schools were of usual sizes--approximately from 30 to 40 students per class. They started with the Franklin School in Provo, then to the Pingree School, the Madison School, the Washington School, and back to the Madison School in Ogden. Subsequently I attended the Burch Creek Junior High School in South Ogden; this was a smaller school, having about 25 students in the class I attended. I later went to the Weber County High School for three years, which was a fairly large school in Ogden, Utah. The L.D.S. Business College was a moderate one, but the University of Utah was a very large school for comparison.