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to the railroad (as we kids didn’t realize). When these men were home,
quiet was needed near their homes. When they were awake during the
day at home most other men were at work, so railroad men’s social and
church activity was limited. In fact, I can’t recall seeing one such man at
church despite their membership and their family’s activity there. These
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lonely lives themselves. In our youthful ignorance, we didn’t realize
that aspect. A substantial portion of the men in our neighborhood were
“railroad men”; the remaining men worked for a variety of employers.
As I grew up, our neighborhood was slowly declining. In the
prosperous 1920s, some of our parents’ friends moved to new homes on
the “East Side.” New home construction in our area was rare (there were
few vacant lots), and the older homes were deteriorating. My Dad had
been born and raised in this neighborhood among these people. He saw
the physical decline in the neighborhood but couldn’t bring himself to
move away, despite Mother’s one big desire, which was to move to the
“East Side.” It was the only big unsettled problem I ever saw between
th
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1942. The home was newer and smaller, but in a nicer area. Mother was
very happy.
Laurine had been dating a tall, slim, quiet fellow named Grant
Ellis. He was a medical student in the two-year medical school at the U
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pital/clinical work, the Utah students had to go back east to a major
medical school). We boys liked Grant. He treated us as though we were
his little brothers. Grant worked in his father’s planing mill in Ogden to
make each of us a set of wooden golf clubs. We then dug holes in our
back lawn, inserted empty tin cans, and this became our backyard golf
course.
Grant’s father was a general contractor in Ogden, mainly build-
ing homes. Grant absorbed training in precise woodworking. He always
enjoyed being involved in construction projects. He had completed a
mission in the Northwestern States Mission, which had included help-
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and Grant were married in the Salt Lake Temple in September 1929.

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