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History of Joel Clement Metcalf

Written by his wife Leona Schramm Metcalf

   

Joel Clement Metcalf was born 11 May 1902, in Centerfield, Sanpete, Utah to Jane Erickson and Arthur Velorus Metcalf.  He was the second of eight children.  He had three brothers and four sisters.  They are:  Arthur Lavern Metcalf, 10 June 1899, Amber Metcalf Lund, 12 June 1904, Laura Jane Metcalf Coates, 28 June 1907, Guy Metcalf,16 Oct.1909, Deon Metcalf,29 Dec 1919, Margie Metcalf Amtoft,12 Nov. 1921, and Lois Verna Metcalf Hammond, 5 Dec 1925.

 

Clem attended school in Centerfield, Utah. As a boy and young man he worked with his father on their farm in Westview or Clarion.  They raised hay grain and sugar beets.  At one time they also raised sheep.

 

As a boy Clem had a lot of trouble with his ears. At times he had to stay in Salt Lake to have treatments. He lost most of his hearing in one ear.  He said he had to be careful as a boy about his ears.  He couldn't go swimming in the ponds with the other boys for fear of infection.  He had other serious illnesses while growing up.

 

There were some Japanese truck farmers who farmed near Clem's father.  As Clem grew older he often worked in his spare time for them. They were very fond of him.

 

The following is a list of the Priesthood ordinances that Clem received: He was blessed July 1902 by John Kearns, Baptized 7 June 1910 in the Manti temple by Jorgen P Winter, Confirmed 7 June 1910 by Aaron S. Squire, Ordained a Deacon 27 March 1921 by Charles Hansen, a teacher 5 February 1922 by Charles S. Embley, a Priest 24 June 1923, by J Earl Pickett, an Elder, 23 May 1948 by Clyde Barker, a high Priest, 11 April 1954 by Orin R. Bawden, and he received his patriarchal Blessing 11 July 1955 by J. Hatten Carpenter.

 

Two of Clem's brother's died during his youth. His oldest brother, Lavern, died 22 June 1918 of diphtheria:-His brother, Guy, died 16 Nov. 1921 of typhoid fever.  This was very hard for Clem because of the close relationship he had with these brothers.

 

I met Clem during the winter of 1929 while I was living in Manti with my aunt and Uncle and attending Snow College. We dated off and on during the years of 1929 and thirty.  There were several Gunnison boys that were dating Manti girls.  We had a very enjoyable time together.

 

Clem often worked in the sugar factor in the fall.  He worked in the Burley Idaho sugar factory in 1936 or37.  He worked on a farm near Burley Idaho for a few years. At one time there no bunk houses available for them so he and another fellow built a log cabin and lived in it.

 

After some bad years on the farm in Clarion his father sold the farm and Clem bought a farm in Granger just off 3100 S. and 3600 W.  He and his brother Deon moved to Granger around 1940.  For a few years he farmed and milked cows.  Then he got a job at the Garfield Smelter.  About this time Clem's father, whose health had been failing, passed away.  A little later Clem sold his farm and bought a small farm at 3806 S. 4000 W.  Here he built a basement house.  He and Deon lived there for awhile.  Around 1947 he built a small block house North of the basement house where he had lived.

 

On June 2, 1948 Clem married Leona Schramm in the Manti Temple.  We came right to his little house here in Granger and spent our honey moon fixing up our home and planting our garden. We dug a well that summer because there was no water system in Granger. Then we dug a partial basement and added a bedroom and bath to our house.  We also completed the living room which was not finished.  It was late in the fall before we got started building, and stormy weather started before the shingling was completed, so of course the roof leaked.  We worked together on the house, nailing up rock lath, tacking down flooring, and etc.

 

The winter of 1948 and 1949 was a hard one.  The men were out on strike at the Smelter.  Then Clem had to go into the hospital for surgery.  The buses didn't run all the while he was in the hospital.  There were blizzards constantly and huge snow drifts everywhere.  I had to drive into Salt Lake to the hospital to see him.  I had to wait all along the way for bulldozers to clear the road so I could get through.  Clem just got home from the hospital when the roads were completely closed with snow drifts.  Clem had to stay in out of the weather for some time, so I had the chores to do.  We got down to our last big lump of coal when the roads were opened so that we could get through to the mill to get us a couple of sacks of coal.  Several days later we were able to get a truck load of coal.  Were we ever grateful!

 

Finally the men were able to go back to work at the Smelter.  When Clem recovered sufficiently from his operation he went back.  It took us all that winter and part of the next summer to get our house finished.  In the meantime Clem worked at the Smelter and farmed our seven acres. He bought a tractor to help with the farming.  Clem's brother Deon and his wife Esther lived next door to us on the south.  Deon had two acres of land which he farmed.

 

In 1953 we were on a belated honey moon to Los Angles California.  Katherine and Walter Ricks went with us, also Clem's mother.  On our return trip home we went to a session at the St. George Temple and saw my friend ZelIa Stone and her husband Le Grand Hepworth and their little girl sealed in the temple.

 

Clem-and I were very happy together.  We had one sorrow.  We were not blessed with a family of our own.  After we had been married about five years I was asked to return to teaching because there was a teacher shortage.  This I did.  It worked out quite well for us.  We were able to build us a nice double garage, which has been very handy.

 

On April 1, 1954, Clem was in an explosion at the Smelter.  He was blown about twenty feet from where the accident occurred.  The doctor called me at school and said he had been in an accident and was on his way to the St. Marks hospital in an ambulance, and that I had better get in there as quickly as possible.  When I arrived at the hospital he was in surgery and I had to wait two or three hours before I could see him.  They brought him from the recovery room all swathed in bandages.  He had a couple of very large facial lacerations, a broken collarbone and other cuts and bruises.  The doctors said that they weren't concerned about those outward hurts, as serious as they were.  They were afraid of internal injuries.

 

Just after Clem was brought from the recovery room the Bishopric came to see him.  One of the ladies I taught with had notified them.  They gave him a blessing and promised him that he would recover.  He was in intensive care for three days.  I stayed with him.  Then they took him out of intensive care and sent me home. Clem recovered, and after three or four months he returned to work, but he never got to feeling as well as before.  His broken collar bone didn't heal and the next year he had to have surgery and some bone grafted in it.

 

Clem and Deon had a chance to sell their farm land for a subdivision, so they sold it, keeping just the homes and garden plots.  On the second of March 1956 Clem was shocked and deeply sadden by the sudden death of his brother Deon.  Clem had been very protective of Deon.  After their father's death he had been more like a father than a brother to him.  After living so close he missed him every where he turned.  In Dec. 1956 we bought the old Lon Haskell farm and home in Payson.  That winter and summer we spent all of our spare time fixing up the place.   It was in ,a bad state of disrepair.  Clem liked the farm very much and we planned on moving there when we retired.  We rented the farm and the house.

In the summer of 1958 Clem wanted to go back to Idaho and see the places where he used to work.  We took his mother and made the trip.  We visited several of his cousins and the places where he used to work.  While on the trip he told me he wasn't feeling too well.  After we returned home he still felt restless and under par. The doctor could find nothing wrong with him.  All fall his health continued to fail.  The doctors performed all kinds of tests but still could find nothing wrong.  On the 23 January 1959 he passed out in the bathroom.  He had been vomiting blood and bleeding internally.  I called the Doctor and we rushed him to the hospital in an ambulance.  They stopped the bleeding and took a number of tests.  He returned home and finally they told me he had cancer.  On the 13 Feb. 1959 we had to rush him to he hospital again in an ambulance because of hemorrhaging.  On the second of March 1959 the doctors decided to operate.  The cancer was too extensive to remove, so after he had recovered sufficiently they gave him X-ray treatments.  After each series of treatments he would have to go back to the hospital for blood transfusions.  He got so tired of hospitals.

 

After school was out we went to Payson for a few days.  Clem got to feeling worse so we returned home on the 5th of June.  His condition continued to worsen.  He could only be up for short periods of the day.  It got hard for him to eat and keep his food down.  We borrowed a wheel chair for him to get around in.  I called the doctor and he had me bring him into the office.  When he saw him he had me take him right to the hospital. He had been in the hospital a little over a week when he passed away on 20 July 1959 about ten P.M.  We laid him to rest in the Payson City Cemetery, 23 July 1959.

 

He was courageous and brave to the very end.  I was so grateful that our marriage was an eternal one, and that the parting would be for but a short duration.

  

Contributed by jhammond22@cox.net

 

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