"Dam Job"

5 months after' Dad's job was over Dad found employment with construction of Boulder Dam, a government project, as a truck driver from 5/1933 - 01/1934. After he worked the first day, Dad wrote home joking he was now a "Dam worker".


Mom had been sent home to St. George while Lee found his "Dam job". She was expecting her first child and hadn't the money for proper food or doctor's attention.


Grandma Emma was having health problems of her own, having had a stillborn birth around the time of Mom's marriage. Emma had no extra money to help her daughter out since most of her other children were still at  home.  Grandma let Melba know she had made her bed and must deal with it.

Mom gave birth to her first child in her mother's bed as there were no hospitals available to her. Mom swore she would never be put in to position to go home to her mother again.

Dad was able to send very little money home. His mother-in-law did not shy from telling him exactly what she though of the care he was taking of his wife.

Later, when Grandma Emma developed Sugar Diabetes, Dad always gave her a box of Chocolates on Mother's Day. For some reason this gift did not please Grandma. As a child I could not see why she complained about such a wonderful gift.

Because Grandma Emma was not shy in telling Dad when he needed to shape up, and Did didn't take the advice quietly, grandma had not spoken to him for over a year at the time of her death. daddy was tender hearted person and he felt bad that he hadn't won her over.

LaVerna, their first child, was born on June 23, 1933. My mother was angry and embarrassed when I told her visitors once that LaVerna was born one day after Mom and Dad got married. In my childish innocence i didn't realize my error in the fact that it was their first anniversary date. Those kind of childish indiscretions are probably why the old rule of "Children should be seen not heard," came into being.

Dad was hoping to get a farm in the St. George area that his father said might become available.  This dream was never to become  a reality.

It was while Lee was working away from home with his brother Bert in the tent city set up for Boulder Dam workers the Dad sent a letter home saying how lonely he was without his wife.

A family living nearby had taken him in and made him feel comfortable. They had a lovely daughter he had taken for a walk in the moonlight but he was trying to be good.

The letter that followed this was written by a woman who splattered the pages with her tears. she was wounded deeply that Lee should think he was the only lonely person in the world. She wished she could take her darling baby and run away and never see him again. That may be the reason his job driving truck at the Dam site came to an end so quickly.

All jobs seemed doomed to be short lived. His jobs also were the kind that kept him away from his wife too much.