Adding to a Good Name:
The Life of Wilford Woodberry Warnick
(1880 to 1944)
by
Dale W Adams
June 25, 2011
Adding to a Good Name:
The Life of Wilford Woodberry Warnick
(1880-1944)
by
Dale W Adams1
One‟s character is mostly the result of their own efforts, but it is also conditioned by the habits, beliefs, and support inherited from ancestors. The recognition one garners later for their accomplishments also depends on the amount others write about them. Wilford Woodberry Warnick was blessed on both accounts: he was raised in a remarkable family and had several relatives who wrote extensively about him and his kin.
Four dimensions of his life stand out. He dedicated most of it to spiritual matters, including filling numerous church leadership positions. He also spent large amounts of time in community service. Along the way he succeeded in his occupations, first as a teacher, and then as a farmer. With all this, and with the help of his wife, he raised an outstanding family. Looking back, he excelled in all four of these dimensions, and in doing so added to the luster of the family name.
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On the eve of Wilford‟s birth his father, Charles Peter, accepted a call to serve an LDS mission in Sweden. He sold a wagon and team, his primary sources of income, to finance the trip. He left his wife, Christine, in Pleasant Grove with two toddlers and $5 in cash. A little over a week after Charles left, Wilford was born on April 23, 1880 into humble circumstances. Many years later Wilford recalled his father and mother relating spiritual experiences they both had when he was born.(Father told) this remarkable instance: “I was on the Atlantic Ocean on my way to Sweden. I felt very worried about things at home, wondering if I had done the right thing to leave my wife in her delicate condition. One night I thought I was home. I entered the house through the front room and went into the bedroom and saw my wife lying on the bed with a babe on her arm. She looked up 1 I drawn extensively from “The Life Sketch of Wilford Woodberry Warnick and Jeanette Isabelle Wadley” written by Effie W. Adams in 1966.
and smiled. I was just going to speak to her when I awoke and found myself still on the ship. This dream, or manifestation, was a great comfort to me. I went on my mission without too much worry about things at home….
The remarkable thing about this event was that Mother saw him enter the room and stand at the foot of the bed for an instant, but before she could speak to him, he passed on out the other door.”
With help from relatives and neighbors, Wilford‟s mother, Christine, scratched out a living, and managed to send her husband money occasionally for over two years to support his mission. One of her money-making activities was picking and drying fruit.
Wilford‟s Birthplace in Pleasant Grove WWW, 1880
Christine drew the name „Wilford‟ from Wilford Woodruff the LDS apostle who blessed and set Charles apart for his mission. The source of the name Woodberry, however, is a mystery. It is not found among the ancestors of either Christine or Charles, and it was not a common name in Utah at the time. There were only a few Woodberrys in southern Utah and in Salt Lake Valley when Wilford was born, with no obvious connection to the Warnicks. Perhaps Christine, who had an artistic bent, picked Woodberry out of thin air to give her third son an alliterative name.
Decades later Christine and Charles looked back on the arduous missionary years as the refiner‟s fire that formed a foundation for their future life of hard work, dedication to family, and religious commitment. Nonetheless, one needs to go further back in the history of the Warnick family to fully understand the experiences that honed the family‟s qualities and added to the starch in Wilford‟s character.
His progenitors immigrated to Sweden from what is now northern Germany.2
They left their first tracks on Swedish church records in Stockholm in 1760 where information can be found on the Petter Adolph Warnicke family, who was described as being a sugar master. Later, Petter‟s son, Christian Adolph Warnicke, moved west to an area located between two large lakes: Vanern and Vattern. His occupation was listed as a wagon master. Wilford‟s grandfather, Anders Petter Warnicke, was born there in the village of Varsas, and later became a modest tenant farmer.
The decline in the fortunes of the Warnick family mirrors what was happening to many other Swedish families. A rapid growth in population pressed against limited farm land, forcing increasing numbers of the poor into working as landless laborers or, only slightly better, being virtual serfs who were given small plots of land for their use, with the obligation of providing labor to the landowner as compensation. Anders Petter fell into this latter group. His first patron allowed him to use a one-room cottage and to work for his own account about three acres of marginal land. This “privilege” obligated Anders to give the landowner four days of labor each week. Twenty-seven years later he moved his family to a larger house with the use of six acres, but he was required to give the new landowner eight man-days of labor each week, four by him and four by his oldest son.
In these cramped quarter Anders and his wife Anna Helena Andersson raised seven children and occasionally sheltered their children‟s families. The family exercised their religiosity in the Lutheran Church where the children received a rudimentary education, mostly in the form of Bible studies. The family‟s daily grind of eking out a living was forever altered in 1860 when Adam Swenson, a Mormon elder from Mt. Pleasant, Utah, knocked on their door.3 He brought a stirring religious message and told the Warnickes stories about the frontier in America where even the poorest people owned land. The family quickly accepted Swenson‟s message and soon set the goal of migrating to Zion. It took them six years of scrimping and savings to finance the migration of most of the extended family. This communal effort set a pattern the Warnick family practiced for more than a half century.
2 Most of this early family history is drawn from the Warnick Family History, Vol. 1.
3 Elder Swenson was born in Norway in 1834, married his wife Annie there in 1859, briefly lived in Pleasant Grove, and for a time made his living as a carpenter in Mt. Pleasant, Sanpete County.
He died in Salt Lake City on February 1, 1908.
Adam Swenson‟s Grave
Salt Lake City Cemetery
Although well into their sixties, Anders and his wife were the driving forces in the family‟s migration. At a time when other people their age were thinking about retirement, Anders and his wife Anna were diligently preparing for an arduous trip to a new country. In 1866 they gathered eight other members of their family and set off for America.4 Two members were left behind: son Adolph Fredrick who was serving an LDS mission in Sweden, and daughter Inga Maria who was married to a non-Mormon. Perhaps it is more accurate to say the group included 11 members, since a daughter-in-law, Mari, was expecting at the time.
The Warnicks joined a wave of 3,300 LDS converts who left Europe in 10 vessels that year. Their small ship was the Cavour that left Hamburg and took more than two months to make the passage to New York. The voyage was slow and rough, the food was atrocious, the air below deck was rank, and the drinking water was limited and barely potable. A hint of what was to come occurred when two members of the L. Larson family died, possibly from cholera. Son Charles Peter also lost all of his hair from some unknown malady. Nonetheless, the family members were elated to put foot on firm ground in New York, although they had to take cold showers. They most certainly thought the worst of their journey was behind them. A few days later they climbed into cattle cars for a trip north through Canada and then on to St. Joseph, Missouri. Although the train cars were dirty, the first day of travel north to Montreal was relaxing and the family enjoyed viewing a countryside that looked much like Sweden.
Their tranquil interlude was broken when some of the passengers on the train became violently ill with cholera, with an increasing number of them succumbing to the virulent disease.5 Victims were ignominiously left on the platforms of train 4 For more details on the family‟s trip see Reed W. Warnick and Ryan S. Warnick, The Warnick Family Emigration: Anders Peter Warnick and Anna Helena Andersson, www.lulu.com, 2008.
5 The source of the cholera that struck the emigrants is a mystery. Cholera was raging throughout Europe in 1866. Since the drinking water on the Cavour was likely dipped out of the Elba River, this could have been the source of the infection. The gestation period for cholera, however, is quite short, sometimes only a few days. Given this, it is puzzling that only two people 5
stops over the next two weeks. The matriarch of the family, Anna Helena, was the first of the Warnicks to contract the disease and she suffered terribly for about two days before passing away, about the time the train crossed the border between Canada and Detroit. The distraught family could only say a brief prayer and leave her frail body wrapped in a flimsy blanket on the train platform in Marcellus, Michigan.6
Words fail in describing father Anders‟ feelings as the train pulled away from the small station. What had been a loving wife, mother, and co-partner in the emigration enterprise was now an indigent bundle that someone later begrudgingly dumped into an unmarked popper‟s grave. Anna‟s death initiated a game where death played tag in the family between the ill and their tenders.
Three days after Anna‟s passing, her grandson, John Gustaf died, and the Patriarch Anders and his daughter Christine soon exhibited symptoms of cholera.
By the time the dwindling group reached St. Joseph, Missouri, Anders and Christine were near death. They were left at death‟s door on the train platform as the remainder of the Warnick family sadly struggled on to meet their waiting wagon trains in Wyoming, Nebraska.7 Three more in the Warnick group succumbed to cholera as they trekked west to Utah. Only the onslaught of cold weather in Wyoming finally tamed the cholera monster.
Seven in the Warnick family group died on the way and only four survived to enter the Salt Lake Valley on October 22, 1866: John August, his wife Mari, their daughter Caroline, and John‟s 16 year-old brother Charles Peter. Years later, recalling his feelings near the end of the trip, Charles wrote: When I now look back and think of that awful scene, I wonder how we could do it, and I can only think that we saw so much suffering and death that our sense of feeling and sympathy must have been paralyzed. We thought that we were all doomed and nothing mattered – the sooner (death happened) the better.8
Soon after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley the Warnicks continued south in the wagon train, led by Abner Lowrey, headed to Sanpete Country where many new LDS converts from Scandinavia were settling. On the way south they stopped overnight at a campground on the west edge of the small community of Pleasant died on the Cavour from what may, or may not, have been cholera during a two month voyage.
This hints that the group was exposed to the lethal bacteria after they arrived in America.
6 Marcellus is southwest of Kalamazoo; the name of the railroad was the Michigan Central.
7 With their two dying relatives, the Warnicks abandoned a substantial part of their luggage in St.
Joseph, including the family‟s Bible.
8 “Sketch of the Life of Charles Peter Warnick,” as told to his wife and written by her.
Grove.9 At the time, it was common for those in local communities to mingle with groups passing through seeking news and friends from the old country. Paul Anderson, originally from Sweden, happened to meet the Warnicks during their brief stopover, and convinced them that Pleasant Grove was a better place to settle than Sanpete County.10 The Warnicks readily accepted Anderson‟s hospitality. John‟s wife, Mari, was near the end of her tether after losing a son and helping to nurse unto death six other members of the family. It was through the chance kindness of Paul Anderson that a large segment of the Warnick family later called the north end of Utah Valley their home.
Paul Anderson‟s Grave Samuel Savior‟s Grave In Pleasant Grove Cemetery
The Andersons took the Warnicks in and helped them locate shelter in an abandoned dugout owned by Samuel Savior located east of Locust Avenue. The brothers husked corn and stripped sugar cane to earn food for the winter.
Charles also found a job making adobes that earned him pay in the form of a cow. The family‟s fortunes reached a nadir when a storm caused the dirt roof of their crude shelter to cave in on Christmas day. Through the kindness of neighbors the Warnicks found other shelter and managed, somehow, to survive their first dreadful winter in Utah.
Over the next few years August and Charles worked wherever they could, including cutting wood, digging canals, building railroads, and doing miscellaneous farm work. They used some of their railroad earnings to pay the passage to Utah of their sister Inga Marie, her four children, and a friend, L. John Swenson. The two brothers also bought small parcels of land and repaid their 9 This campground was about where the Mahogany Elementary School is now (2011) located on the west edge of Pleasant Grove.
10 Later, Anderson was a lifelong friend of the Warnicks.
debt to the Perpetual Emigration Fund. August also built a brick house, the first of its kind in Pleasant Grove.11 The brothers were hardworking, frugal, and typical of many other early Utah setters. Eventually, Charles earned enough money to purchase a team and a wagon that he used in the timber business.
The C. P. Warnick Family
By 1874 Charles, mostly known later as C. P., had a house and a Danish bride, Christine Marie Larsen. The couple later had ten children, nine of whom lived to maturity. In addition to making a living and raising a family, Charles displayed a leadership trait that was passed to his children. He was elected president of the Pleasant Grove Scandinavian Organization and served in that position for ten years. In 1883 and again in 1891 he was elected to the Pleasant Grove City Council and also served in the Pleasant Grove Ward Bishopric. After moving his family to Manila in 1895 he helped to build the church house there and later served as bishop of the ward for nine years, before his deteriorating hearing forced him to retire.
Over the next few years the family developed a thriving farm, bought additional nearby acreage for the older brothers, and gained some notoriety for raising purebred Berkshire pigs (Salt Lake Herald, May 3, 1920). C. P. also had a love for horses that included frequent horse-trading, and participating in horse pulling contests. In addition to farming, the family also harvested timber in the West Mountains and also in American Fork Canyon, and they ran cattle in the same canyon and behind Mt. Mahogany. Besides working a lot in the canyon, the family also recreated there, eventually building a small cabin on what is now called “Warnick Flat” in the North Fork of the canyon.12 Near the end of his life, C. P. stated he hoped he could pass on two traits to his offspring: dependability and punctuality.
11 The brick house was located in the vicinity of 2nd North and 4th East in Pleasant Grove.
12 The cabin was built in the summer of 1919 (Salt Lake Herald, August 10, 1919).
C. P. Warnick Family, 1920 C. P. and Christine Warnick, 1920
Several features of C. P.‟s family stand out. All of his children, except one, went to college, something that was extremely uncommon at the time. In addition, all of the children filled numerous leadership positions in both church and civic organizations. C. P. and three of his sons were LDS bishops, and another son was an LDS branch president. Two of his daughters married men who would also be bishops, and two of his sons later became stake presidents. All of the family served in various church positions virtually all of their adult lives. While doing this, they also found time to serve in a variety of civic and professional organizations: the Farm Bureau, the Republican Party, various commodity and livestock organizations, 4H, Daughters of the Pioneers, etc. Two of the sons were elected to the state legislature, along with one son-in-law. One son was elected president of the National Dairy Federation, another was principal of two high schools, and one daughter was appointed a department head at BYU.
Given this background, it isn‟t surprising that Wilford would be heavily involved in church leadership positions along with other types of public service. It was deeply embedded in his genes.
EDUCATION
A large part of Wilford‟s education occurred in the family, working on the farm, and helping his father harvest timber from American Fork Canyon. Most of his formal schooling was in Pleasant Grove. In his journal he says: “While in the 8th grade we organized the „Seekers League Society‟ for which I was elected 1st vice president and afterwards President. How it used to frighten me to call the meetings to order. During the same year we organized the Pleasant Grove Alumni Association. I was chosen 2nd Vice President, Burdett Smith, 1st Vice President, and Hermes Peterson President.”
His family mostly moved to the farm in Manila in 1895 when he was 15. He returned to town to complete his primary education, and later attend the first high school there. At the time, it involved a year of so extra education, beyond the customary 8 years of schooling. The high school was organized by D. H. Robinson. Wilford says in his journal:
“In 1897-1898 I attended the 9th Grade. During the summer I worked on the farm. During the winter of 1897-98 I was chosen secretary of Young Men‟s Mutual Improvement Association of Manila Ward.”
Ben, Effie, Wilford
University of Utah
With a year or so of education beyond the 8th grade, in the fall of 1898 Wilford enrolled in the University of Utah, after his parents agonized over how to support him there. In a letter to his brother Louis, who was serving an LDS mission in Samoa, Wilford mentions the decision to attend was made at the last minute.13
To reduce costs he boarded with a Warnick relative, Huldah Habish, and her husband David, and walked the mile or so to his classes. Room-and-board was
“paid” for by Wilford‟s father regularly dropping off farm produce at the Habish‟s residence at 503 East 2nd South in Salt Lake City. Since Dave Habish was a barber, Wilford likely also enjoyed free haircuts.
His classes were in University Hall, located on Union Square, in the area where West High School was later located.14 There were about 400 students attending the university and it offered two career tracks. One led to a baccalaureate degree and the other was the Normal program for individuals planning to become teachers. About half of the students were enrolled in each track. Following his older brother Louis‟ career choice, Wilford wished to become a teacher and entered the Normal program.15
13 If he had enrolled a year earlier in 1897 he would have been classmates with David O. McKay, Howard R. Driggs, and Nettie B. McKay. His future wife‟s nickname, Nettie, may have come from her relative Nettie B. McKay.
14 The university did not move to its current location near Ft. Douglas until the fall of 1900.
Union Hall Huldah and David Habish Admission included taking entrance exams for three days in a handful of subjects such as arithmetic, history, grammar, and civics. Some of his Pleasant Grove friends had trouble with these examinations and were required to take remedial courses, but Wilford passed three subjects, and received a conditional pass in civics. Between examinations and getting registered, Wilford became better acquainted with Salt Lake City by visiting the city hall, the city library and attending meetings in the Tabernacle where he heard a sermon by the new LDS
church president, Lorenzo Snow, the successor to his namesake, Wilford Woodruff.
Wilford attended school on a shoestring. In a letter to his brother, Louis, he mentioned that he was out of money after paying $10 to register and spending about $10 on books and supplies. The poor young man from Pleasant Grove had no car, no computer, no cell phone, and little spending money during his university experience. Nonetheless, he was a handsome young man with a genial manner that quickly attracted friends. He mentions in a letter attending a
“handshake party” in October where he met other students. His natural congeniality led to him to be elected president of the 1902 Normal Class, and to receive an invitation to join the Zeta Gamma Society, a literary and debate group.
To learn more about conducting meetings, he studied Roberts Rules of Order and was proud of his progress in learning how to manage an orderly meeting.
Zeta Gamma met most Thursday evenings when, typically, several members gave presentations on various topics.16 The first part of May 1899, for example, Wilford spoke to the group and his topic was South America. In the same session, two other members talked about feudalism and its effects, and instrumental selection (Utah Daily Chronicle, May 3, 1899). The topics discussed in other sessions were eclectic: gun-powder and its successes, the persecution of the Christians by Nero, the rise of Protestantism and its effects on Europe, the Dreyfus Affair, the German Emperor‟s recent pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the Bible 16 Zeta Gamma was one of four social groups at the U of U, the others being the Normal Society, College Women, and the Delta Phi Fraternity.
and why it should be taught in colleges, origin of the Star Spangled Banner, the life of Mohammed, morality, our criminals and what should be done with them, and the effects of the Cuban War. Participation in Zeta Gamma exposed Wilford to a liberal education. He was elected to be the secretary of the group for the 1899-1900 school year, but he chose not to return to school after one year at the university.
During his year at the “U” Wilford took nine courses: algebra, arithmetic, drawing, English, music, reading, U.S. history and civilization, physical geography, and physiology. He received his best marks in U.S. history and civilization, and in English. His lowest marks were in reading and drawing.17
He didn‟t return to college during 1899-1900, possibly because he lacked the resources to do so. His parents were strapped to meet family expenses, to develop their farm, and to support son Louis on his mission in Samoa. To earn money Wilford worked on the farm with his father and brothers, and also helped William Wadley, his future father-in-law, dig a well in Cedar Valley. The project was located about nine miles from Fairfield. Wadley hoped to find water that could be used to support farming there on inexpensive desert land. The well was dug by hand and the dirt was lifted to the surface by a horse-driven hoist. Most of the digging was done during the winter, water for drinking was hauled from Fairfield, and supplies were hauled from Pleasant Grove, nearly 40 miles away.
The digging was arduous and proved to be fruitless after driving a hole that was said to be nearly 200 feet deep.
Wilford‟s journal entries for the year show the variety of work he did, both around the farm and in church activities. Farm work included hauling manure, dehorning cattle, killing pigs, shoeing horses, plowing, planting gardens, digging ditches, fixing fences, sheering sheep, planting trees, and irrigating crops. Following his father‟s interests, he also hauled wood from the American Fork Canyon, cut posts for fences, hauled ore, and helped improve the roads near their home.18
With all this, he still found time for church duties including hauling materials used in building the local chapel, the tithing barn, and a tithing cellar.
BYU Academy
Despite enjoying a good year at the University of Utah, Wilford transfer to the BYU Academy in Provo for the college year 1900-01, but he was initially disappointed with the change. Perhaps he missed the social recognition he had 17 His courses and grades can be found in the University of Utah Archives.
18 His brother, Reed, provides details on the family‟s local road building activities in the “Golden Decade of the Warnick Family.”
received at the U of U., and he may have also felt the academics at the Academy were a notch below the University. He describes his early experiences in Provo in a letter to his brother C. L. in Samoa.
When I first came over here to school I did not feel at home, could not settle down something seemed to disturb me and would not let me rest, making me believe things were not as good here as at the U. of U. etc. In our first Fast and Testimony meeting here at school, something said to me, "It is the evil one trying to keep you away from here. If you will arise and bear your testimony it shall have no more power over you." I did so and thank the Lord His promise was fulfilled. I have felt more confidence in self, more at home in classes and now I can say from the bottom of my heart I like this better than the U. God's is the honor and the glory.
BYU Academy
These comments suggest that exposure to religious instruction enhanced his views of the Academy, and also reinforced his religiosity. Theological classes comprised two of the nine courses Wilford took during the 1900-01 academic year. His other subjects included physics, U. S. History, woodwork, botany, psychology, commercial arithmetic, practical grammar, and theory.
One of the noteworthy events during Wilford‟s year at the Academy was the death of the 16-year Principal of the Academy, Karl G. Maeser. To honor his passing the Academy was recessed to allow students to attend his funeral in Salt Lake City. Wilford was proud to be named one of the ushers at the funeral.
K. G. Maeser
The year that Wilford spent at BYU Academy influenced him in two ways. He improved his writing ability substantially and he strengthened his religious beliefs.
Maeser had a profound influence on the Academy and his religious views reinforced Wilford‟s testimony. One of Maeser‟s former students, Alice Louise Reynolds, wrote that, “He had the ability to inspire. He made his students feel the worth of life; he told us that the Lord had sent each of us to do a spherical work, and that the proper preparation was necessary for that mission.” Maeser practiced the maxim that “Come follow me,” and not “Thou Shalt” was the best principle for teaching, a maxim that Wilford practiced the rest of his life.
TEACHING
At the time, attending college for a couple of years qualified young people to teach in Utah, and Wilford and several of his siblings became teachers. His first teaching assignment was in Alpine in 1901, just a few miles north of the Warnick home in Manila. He joined three other teachers there, including the principal Jesse Johnson. The community of Alpine had just completed a two-story red brick school house where Wilford taught (Wild, p. 118). He received the modest sum of $50 per month, about $2 a day or 25 cents per hour, for his efforts. The school offered eight grades and Wilford most likely taught the middle grades.
Like most schools at the time, the restrooms were located outback. Comments in his journal capture some of the feelings and challenges he faced while teaching there.
Tonight I feel quite well, I have had a very pleasant school day. Ah!
Could it always be thus, school teaching would be a pleasure. But when I am compelled to use harsh means and be too firm and perhaps a little cross with the pupils in order to control them I feel discouraged. I do not like to be on the warpath with children. I would like to gain their love and confidence and help them to be better. I have not yet gained „skill,‟ „tact,‟ „governing power,‟ or 14
sufficient amount of their love to do so. How to do this God must show me. For I cannot gain their love by letting them have their own way; if I did it would be a sickly sort of love, not the kind I want.
They must first learn to respect my authority and then me, and then I will gain their confidence and good will. I have a few pupils of somewhat surly disposition, especially a couple of boys. I early made up my mind to gain them. I have talked to them privately and kindly. Sometimes I think they are trying to do better. Then again they are back in the same old track, idling and sulking their time away, and I find myself losing patience with them. But I must not do so. I will not be discouraged. God assisted me to qualify myself for the office and He will assist me to do good in it.
Red Brick School in Alpine Manila School After teaching in Alpine for a year, Wilford moved home and taught for one year in the Manila School during 1902-03. One reason for his move was to be closer to his sweetheart, Jeanette (Nettie) Wadley. They were married after school was out on June 17, 1903. In his Journal Wilford notes that he bought a new pair of pants for his marriage, took the train to Salt Lake City with his mother and Nettie, and that they stayed with Aunt Hulda before getting married the next day in the Salt Lake Temple. After the couple returned to Manila, they celebrated their union at a dinner party at the Wadley‟s home.
Jeanette Isabelle Wadley was the daughter of William and Isabelle McKay Wadley. She was born October 2, 1884. Like Wilford, Jeanette was raised in a home where the gospel was paramount. Her father was a convert to the church from Gloucester, England, and her mother had been converted, with parents and brothers and sisters, in Thurso, Scotland. The Wadley family had been through the hardships of pioneer life; they had served ten years in the missions of southern Utah in the 1860s from which William had been released because of poor health, probably Malaria. They had settled in Pleasant Grove in 1873, and William developed a fine farm and a reputation as a skilled horticulturist.
Jeanette was the youngest of twelve children. She had held positions in the church auxiliaries since she was thirteen years of age when she had been 15
appointed organist of the primary. She had musical talent which she was called on to use in many capacities throughout her life. Her mother owned an organ which was the only musical instrument in the community for many of those early years, and Jeanette learned to play it well.
Like many couples, the Warnicks were a contrast in personalities. Wilford was nearly unflappable, calm, conservative, patient, soft spoken, and steady. Nettie was spirited, a bit of a Tomboy in her youth, a person who took charge of things, and occasionally did things out of the ordinary. I remember her donning a Santa Claus costume for a primary Christmas party when there were no men available.
She was comfortable clowning around and having her picture taken at Mutual Dell while sitting on a donkey. Their personalities overlapped, however, in love of church and family.
Nettie at Mutual Dell
During the summer of 1903 Wilford successfully passed an examination given by the County Examining Board for teachers, and was soon hired as a teacher in the South School in Lindon (Salt Lake Herald, June 18, 1903). Although only 23
at the time, the next year he was appointed school principal and his salary was increased to $65 per month. It was in Lindon that the Warnicks suffered the loss of their first child who died shortly after birth.
Lindon School
Wilford exposes some of his philosophy in a journal entry while teaching in Lindon.
When I am compelled to use harsh means with pupils to control them I feel discouraged. [I] would like to gain their love and 16
confidence and help them to be better. [I] can‟t do this by letting them have their own way. They must first learn to respect my authority, then me. God assisted me to qualify myself for this position. He will show me how to do it well.
The final year of his teaching career was spent in Lehi during 1905-06 where he taught 7th grade with 29 students and one class in the high school, and was paid $70 a month. Their daughter Ethel was born there, their only living child not born in Manila. Later Wilford mentioned they made many life-long friends in Lehi, something they continued to do elsewhere throughout their lives. They were consummate friends-makers.
Central School in Lehi
Wilford spent a good deal of his adult life supporting schools, on various occasions serving on local school boards. Membership on the school board in Manila involved more than going to meetings. Daughter Effie remembered numerous occasions where her father was call upon to be the handy man in her school. In addition, Wilford was often asked to participate in school ceremonies.
For example, on December 11, 1912 the new Central School in Pleasant Grove was dedicated, the ceremonies being held in the stake tabernacle. Elementary students from Lindon, Manila, and Pleasant Grove were educated in this new facility, the cost of which was $43,000 (Salt Lake Herald, December 12, 1912).
Being on the school board, Wilford was asked to give one of the speeches at the ceremony.
FARMING
Wilford was a patient and dedicated teacher, but farming was in his blood. He was drawn to animals, tilling the soil, and seeing things grow. An opportunity to buy 20 acres from Thomas J. Barratt, just southwest of his father‟s farm provided the chance to be his own boss at the age of 26. Barratt lived in American Fork, 17
later ran a lumber yard there, and Wilford paid him $700 for the parcel of land.19
Later, in 1912 he bought 10 acres from Edward Jeppson that was located southwest of his home.20 In 1919 he bought an additional 20 acres from Dominic Fassio. This parcel was located just northwest of his home. Still later, he bought an additional 25 acres from James Hunting that was located immediately south of his homestead.
The Barratt property had a soft rock home on it made from material originally mined from Wilford‟s father-in-law‟s property.21 The soft rock was good insulation; the house was warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Wilford soon added space on the east side for a kitchen and two screened porches to the original home. He also dug a well for drinking water immediately east of his house.22 Over the next few years he built corals, a milking parlor, a nearby silo, and a large fruit cellar where he stored fruit for later sale. As daughter Helen noted, the Warnick farm gradually exhibited two distinct personalities: fruit and dairy. A part of the Fassio parcel had an apple orchard. Later Wilford planted an additional orchard of apples, peaches, pears, and apricots to the west and south of his home. His varieties of apples included Jonathans, Roman Beauties, Arkansas Blacks, and Transparents. His wife Nettie also inherited 5 acres from her father that was located just south of the Manila Ward Chapel. A peach orchard occupied part of that land and Nettie mostly assumed the responsibility for harvesting the crop there.
The Warnick Home, 1960 Helen and Steve and Well, 1930
19 In his Journal, Wilford mentions that he paid $840 for this parcel of land, but that may have included interest on his bank loan, or possibly rent on the land before he purchased the property.
20 He borrowed $1,000 from the Bank of Pleasant Grove to purchase this property.
21 The rock home had been earlier owned by J. K. Allen. It is uncertain, however, if he built the home.
22 A neighbor, John Iverson, dug the well. Other members in the Warnick family occasionally drew water from the well because the water was cool and especially good tasting. Since the well was only about 50 feet from nearby corrals, one wonders if its location “enhanced” the taste of the water.
In the early farming years, fruit was an important source of income. Occasionally Wilford would haul the fruit to a central market in Salt Lake City in a wagon and sometimes peddle goods door-to-door. More commonly he consigned the fruit to George and Niels Monson who also peddled fruit in Salt Lake Valley. The typical 70-mile round trip took three days and sometimes included stops at Warnick relative‟s homes. Later, Wilford was instrumental in organizing and leading a local cooperative that marketed much of the fruit that he and others raised. Wilford stored a substantial part of his apple and pear crop in his underground cellar for later sale. As a kid, I fondly remember the fragrant smell of the fruit and the straw in which it was nestled.
The Warnick Family Harvesting Fruit, 1930
In the latter part of the 1920s Wilford became increasingly involved in the dairy industry. The County Agent, Lyman Rich, encouraged 4-H members to acquire pure-bred Holsteins, and son Charles was one of the initial participants who raised pure-bred calves that were imported from other states. Eventually Wilford, with Charles‟ help, developed an excellent herd of pure bred Holsteins. One of his cows, named Hope, won a first place prize in the State Fair before World War II and then she went on to birth numerous calves that provided the foundation of his herd. By today‟s standard, his milk herd was small, numbering only as couple dozen cows being milked at one time.23 But, selling high quality calves, especially bull calves, became a profitable aspect of his activities as the reputation of his herd increased. Concurrently, his brother Merrill also developed a nationally recognized dairy herd. In recognition of his accomplishments, Merrill was elected president of the National Dairy Federation in 1956.
23 Hand milking limited the number of cows that farmers could manage, especially when the father often had to rush off to attend civic or church meetings before milking was completed.
This, plus the fact that son Charles was away at college and later in the army, meant that young son Steve often completed the milking alone.
Wilford with Prize Cow “Hope”
Fruit and dairy were major farm enterprises on the Warnick farm, but Wilford also had other crops. For a few years he grew peas that were sold to a local cannery, and he grew sugar beets for a few years. Some of his land was usually planted to barley and wheat with the straw being used as bedding in his cattle sheds and his fruit cellar. Threshing times were often a group affair with neighbors and relatives joining in to help with the sifting of grain from straw. It was also a busy time for the lady folks as they prepared large meals for the threshers. Aside from orchards, much of Wilford‟s other land was planted to alfalfa and corn that provide feed for his dairy herd. He took particular pride in raising tall corn with strait rows. In the fall, the corn was chopped and blown into a cement silo. The silage was fed during the winter to milk cows, along with some grain supplement and hay.
Until shortly before World War II horses and hands did most of the pulling on the Warnick farm. In about 1940 Wilford bought his first tractor, a small Ford, and also installed an automatic milker. These changes were a preview of what would happen in Manila over the next decade. Before the War most of the residence of Manila operated small farms, mostly using horses for power. Shortly after the War, many of the residence became part-time farmers and tractors largely replaced horse power.
Sugar Beets
Although sugar beets were only one of various crops that Wilford grew, his involvement in the industry merits further comment. During the 1930s he was involved in the sugar beet industry in Utah County, both as a farmer producer, and as a mediator in a tense dispute between farmers and the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company. His role in that dispute illustrates some of his qualities.
Early settlers in Utah experimented with making sugar from beets, but it wasn‟t until the early 1890s that the technology for processing them into white sugar 20
was mastered in the state (Schmaltz; Arrington). Mostly with LDS Church support, the first sugar factory using U.S. machinery was built in Lehi. After it finally proved to be a financial success in 1897, seventeen other processing facilities were eventually built in the state, again, largely with LDS Church support. Sugar beets became an important cash crop and they were further beneficial because they enhanced soil fertility, making sugar beets an important part of a good crop rotation. Compared with other local crops, sugar beets, nonetheless, were a temperamental enterprise. They required well-prepared land, proper irrigation, lots of weeding, and thinning done on hands-and knees.24
Sugar beets also proved to be susceptible to pests such as beet leafhoppers and a parasite called beet nematodes. Only the best farmers successfully grew this demanding crop.
Burt Adams was one of the farmers in Pleasant Grove who successfully raised sugar beets and he convinced Wilford to begin growing the crop during the 1930s. Years earlier, before World War I, Wilford‟s brother C.L. had grown sugar beets on his farm in Manila, and later cultivated them in Idaho and Montana. Son Stephen remembers working in his father‟s beet fields during the 1930s while he was a teenager, especially in harvesting the crop. This first involved digging up the beets with a special plow. Next a worker used a beet knife with a hook on the end of it to pick up the beets and then chop off the tops. After removing as much dirt as possible, the beets where then thrown onto a wagon. Later they were hauled to a train siding in Pleasant Grove for transport to a processing plant in Spanish Fork or South Jordan. In the 1930s farmers were paid $4 to $5 a ton for sugar beets, with most of the payments being made periodically over the next year as the processed sugar was sold.
Wilford became involved in an acrimonious quarrel in 1936 between the farmers who grew the crop and the church-owned Utah-Idaho Sugar Company that processed all the beets in Utah County. Some background is necessary to understand that quarrel and Wilford‟s role in it.
The 1930s were a difficult time in Utah, due to the Great Depression; more than a quarter of the men in the state were unemployed. This was exacerbated by a drought in the early 1930s that caused Utah Lake to shrink to about half its normal size. The resulting economic stress led church leaders to organize what later evolved into the Church Welfare Program. In Utah County this included 24 Hand thinning was necessary because the beet seed used at the time sprouted two plants each, resulting, without thinning, in two undersized beets. It was not until the late 1940s that researchers developed a monogerm sugar beet variety that did not require hand thinning.
forming a number of stake farms, the growing of sugar beets on many of them, and providing support to unemployed people who helped grow and harvest the beets. The church used some of its profits from the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company to underwrite what was, in part, an employment program.
The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company was the primary processor of sugar beets in many parts of Utah, including Utah Valley. This meant that the Company set the terms each year under which it purchased sugar beets from farmers. Like many people in the United States, sugar beet farmers in Utah were adversely affected by the depression and felt they were not paid fairly for their products. This led them to organize a statewide sugar beet producers‟ association with about eight thousand members. The Utah County association, led by W. J. Chadwick, had some 1,500 members who planted about 15 thousand acres to sugar beets in 1935. After some haggling, most of the beet producers in Utah accepted the terms offered by the sugar processors in 1936, but the Utah County Association dug in its heals, saying they would not produce beets that year unless the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company substantially “sweetened” the remuneration offered to farmers.
The dispute came to a head in a meeting held in Provo on April 23, 1936 that was attended by beet farmers and the president of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company (and president of the LDS Church), Heber J. Grant (Salt Lake Telegram, April 24, 1936). The ensuring heated discussion included the Association representatives threatening that farmers would not grow sugar beets that year, and the Company stating a strike would threaten its survivability. Both parties in the dispute felt abused. Farmers felt the Company should share more of its profits with producers; in 1935 U-I Sugar realized profits of $1.2 million (Salt Lake Telegram, April 20, 1936).25 At the same time, church leaders felt betrayed by the producers after almost single handedly developing the sugar beet industry in the state and then using most of its recent profits to underwrite a new welfare program.
In the meeting President Grant pointed out that sugar beets were a vital part of the Church‟s new Rehabilitation Program aimed at providing unemployed people some cash income through a make-work effort. As part of the meeting, Stake leaders in Utah County were elected to administer this new Rehabilitation Program. Arthur V. Watkins, president of the Sharon Stake in Orem was elected chairman of the county Rehabilitation Program, and W. W. Warnick was elected 25 It is worth noting that the church-owned sugar company had lost money for many years and that the profits in 1935 were an exception.
vice chairman.26 The peacemaking of the pair eventually smoothed ruffled feathers and their work supplied additional employment in the county, although a few disgruntled farmers grew other crops that year. Peacemaking was a quality Wilford cultivated his entire life. He knew how to calm troubled waters.
A year before the conflict over sugar beet prices, Wilford was appointed to a nine-member board appointed by Governor Blood, called the Agricultural Conciliation Committee. Under the leadership of Ray L. Lillywhite, “The board was to act as a liaison between indebted farmers and their creditors in an effort to lift the burden of farm debt in Utah (Salt Lake Telegram, January 1, 1934).
During the last half of 1934 Wilford also worked as assistant director of a cattle-buying program that used government money to buy cattle in Utah County from farmers seriously affected by the drought. More than eight thousand cattle were purchased under the program (Salt Lake Telegram, February 20, 1935).
Concurrent with dealing with all these depression-related activities, Wilford was also involved in the reassessment of farm land values in Utah County (Salt Lake Telegram, April 17, 1936). During the depression farm incomes and land values plummeted but assessed values for tax purposes were not similarly adjusted.
At the prompting of the local Farm Bureau, the Utah County Commissioners asked Wilford and Theron S. Hall to assist the county assessor (Wilford‟s brother-in-law, Lawrence M. Atwood) in accelerating the reassessment process.
Chickens
Wilford‟s farming experience is representative of what many farmers in Utah Valley were doing. Initially, Wilford struggled to produce enough to eat, with only a few products being sold for cash, hopefully enough to pay the taxes and the mortgage payments, plus some. Through trial-and error farmers such as Wilford gradually expanded their commercial production of fruit, cereal grains, livestock, dairy, peas, or sugar beets to increase cash incomes. As part of this evolutionary process, in the 1920s and 1930s numerous farmers in the north end of Utah Valley entered the chicken business, a few full-time, but mostly part-time poultry farmers. This enterprise was supported and promoted by a new poultry cooperative that manufactured feed and also marketed the eggs from Leghorn chickens. Nettie was an early member of this cooperative and Wilford built a coop for her chickens during the mid-1920s. For a number of years she earned additional income for the family through her chicken project. In 1951 Nettie received a 25-year membership pin from the Utah Poultry and Farmers 26 Watkins was later elected U.S. Senator from Utah and served in the Senate from 1947 to 1959.
Association (Salt Lake Telegram, March 1, 1951). She also had a raspberry patch and a row of black berry bushes that provided some income, as well as family preserves.
An indication that the Warnicks lived humbly is shown by the fact that Wilford did not pay off his final loan from the Federal Land Bank until 1942, two years before his death. Before he died in 1944, Wilford transferred the title to 70 acres of the homestead to Nettie.
POLITICS
One area of Wilford‟s public service was in politics. For many years he was active in the Republican Party. As early as 1916 he was a delegate to the Republican State Convention (Salt Lake Telegram, July 27, 1916). During the Depression, when support for Republicans was at a nadir, Wilford, years later joked that he and Don Mack Dalton held several Republican precinct meetings on the steps of the Manila church, with only the two of them attending.
Wilford‟ oldest brother, Charles Lewis, more commonly called C. L., was the first one in the Warnick family to run for a statewide office. He served two terms in the Idaho Legislature while living near Idaho Falls before returning to Pleasant Grove about 1912/13. In November 1914 he was elected to the Utah House of Representatives as a Republican. His election caused a furor in the Legislature with the Progressives and Democrats arguing he did not meet the residency requirements for members of the legislature, which was three years (Salt Lake Telegram, February 10, 1915). Furthermore, opponents argued that he was still legally a member of the Idaho Legislature when he was elected in Utah. Despite these irregularities, a large Republican majority ignored the vehement objections and certified C. L. as a member. Later, he served as state committeeman in the Republican Party in Utah for many years.
Perhaps at the prompting of his older brother, Wilford made a successful foray into politics on November 7, 1922 when he was elected to a four-year term in the Utah Senate.27 In a newspaper interview he expressed his political views as follows: “I believe we should demand the same efficiency in public as in private affairs. As a rule too much legislation is passed.” (Salt Lake Telegram, January 15, 1923). He was one of two senators representing Utah County, the other being LeRoy Dixon. They joined 18 other senators when the Legislature opened for business on January 8, 1923. The custom at the time was for the Legislature 27 In the same election, Wilford‟s brother-in-law, Lawrence Atwood, was elected to the Utah House of Representatives as a Democrat (Salt Lake Telegram, January 23, 1923).
to meet for about a month, every two years. During the 1923 session Wilford was appointed to the Agricultural and Education Committees, and his name is listed as sponsor of three senate bills. One of his bills allowed some farmers, mainly those growing beets, to pay their property taxes in December, rather than in November (Salt Lake Telegram, January 19, 1923).28 He also argued for a constitutional amendment that would have allowed a state income tax (Salt Lake Telegram, February 14, 1923). A noteworthy act sponsored by his education committee required the teaching of the Constitution of the United States in public and private schools in the state. In the parlance of 2010 that would make him a Tea Party supporter. Wilford left his final mark on the Fifteenth Session of the Senate by making the motion to adjourn on the 7th of February.
During the next session of the senate that began on January 12, 1925 Wilford played a larger role. He again was a member of the Agricultural and Education Committees, but he also served as chairman of the Revision and Printing Committee. His name is listed as the sponsor of eight bills. Two of his bills focused on the regulation, licensing, and taxation of “gambling halls” and
“speakeasies” that operated under the guise of social or athletic clubs (Salt Lake Telegram, February 11, 1925). He also introduced a bill aimed at increasing the excise tax and licensing fee on cigarettes (Salt Lake Telegram, March 6, 1925).
In the 1926 election he did not run for a second term, probably because he was made bishop of the Manila Ward in 1924 and didn‟t feel he had time for the state office. A good friend, Clifford E. Young, was elected to replace him as senator for Utah County. Curiously, when Wilford was made bishop he was released from his position in the Stake Mutual Improvement Association and Young was also his replacement in that church calling (Salt Lake Telegram, September 18, 1924).
Wilford took a second swipe at elected office in 1930 when the Utah County Republicans nominated him for a two-year term as county commissioner. He outpolled Ruel Evans of Lehi 197 to 148 for the nomination (Salt Lake Telegram, September 21, 1930). It was not a propitious time for a republican to run for a Utah County office. Two of the three incumbent commissioners were democrats and the republican president, Herbert Hoover, was perceived as steering the economy into a depression. Wilford‟s opponent in the election, held on November 4th, was the incumbent chairman, J. W. Gillmor. Despite some daunting disadvantages, Wilford almost pulled off an upset. More than 14
thousand votes were cast for the two candidates with Wilford coming up short by 28 There were numerous beet farmers in Utah County at the time and they usually did not receive payments for their beets from the processing plants until late in the year or even early the next year.
only 53 votes (Deseret News, November 7, 1930). Consistent with his disposition, he did not ask for a recount.
In addition to politics, Wilford found time for other public service. He was on the local and State School Boards. He was on the board of the Utah Valley Hospital, and a member of the Timpanogos Cave Committee. To help with marketing local fruit, he helped organize the Pleasant Grove Marketing Association and then served as its president. In addition, he served as the President of the Utah County Farm Bureau and was also the secretary of the Pleasant Grove Grazing Association. For a time he was on the Soldier‟s Welfare Committee and was also on the committee in charge of selling Christmas Seals in Utah County one year (1924).
CHURCH SERVICE
Religion was a major segment of Wilford‟s life. He exhibited religiosity early in his life. His mother suffered from migraine headaches most of her life. On one occasion when Wilford was about 5 years old, she was laid low with this malady and Wilford prayed that his mother would be relieved from her pain. While still a teenager, Wilford served as Ward Clerk, helped his father with the Ward‟s financial accounts, and held this position for 23 years. In 1907 he also was appointed to the Alpine Stake YMMIA board and later served in the Superintendency until 1924. Along the way he was ordained to be the president of the 44th Quorum of Seventies, and fulfilled several short-term home missionary assignments. On August 31, 1924 he was ordained Bishop of Manila Ward, following his brother Ben and Father Charles P. in that position. On July 1, 1928
the Alpine Stake that covered the north end of Utah Valley was divided into three stakes: Lehi Stake, Alpine Stake, and the Timpanogos Stake. Wilford was called to be President of the new Timpanogos Stake with Joseph Olpin and Edmund Cragun his counselors. He served in that position for 16 years until shortly before he passed away in 1944.
A simple listing of the church positions Wilford held doesn‟t capture the entire flavor of his church service. Being bishop and stake president for two decades involved thousands of meetings, preparing a large number of sermons, interviewing thousands of individuals for church positions, presiding over hundreds of funerals, giving hundreds of funeral sermons, and counseling with numerous troubled church members. Especially during the 1930s, many members lost their farms, were discharged from jobs, suffered from droughts and low farm prices, and were forced to seek welfare. This must have caused numerous family problems that were unloaded on Wilford during tearful 26
counseling sessions. He had special counseling skills to deal with these problems and still return home each day with a positive and loving attitude.
Sons Charles and Steve remembered numerous times when their father rushed off to fulfill a church obligation leaving them to complete some farm task.
Wilford‟s counselors likely became accustomed to the slight waft of dairy farm in their meetings.
One of the fond recollections of Wilford‟s children and grandchildren was meeting numerous church leaders who attended Stake meetings and who were also invite to eat at the Warnick‟s humble home. When I was just a shaver, I remember shaking hands with President George Albert Smith and having him give me a children‟s‟ book with his signature in it. I assume he handed out hundreds of these books as he travelled around attending church meetings. Many of these church authorities attended the Stake Conferences that were held in the Pleasant Grove Tabernacle, with Wilford conducting the meetings for 16 years.
Pleasant Grove Tabernacle
Reflecting his trusting nature and religiosity, Wilford bought shares in the John H.
Koyle “Dream Mine” located near Salem, Utah. Koyle, later an LDS bishop, reported having a nighttime visitation in 1894 from the angel Moroni who showed him the location of nine colossal vaults filled with Nephite gold in the mountain east of Koyle‟s home (Kraut; Miller; Cantera). Successful predictions about the location of a lost cow and the future flow of a well nurtured his reputation as a visionary man. Koyle‟s story drew a lot of interest, especially among members of the LDS church in Utah County, and led to the formation of the Koyle Mine Company.29 This was followed by the sale of 114 thousand mine shares valued 29 There was resurgence in mining interest in Utah in the 1890s, especially in Central Utah. This included the discovery of the Tyng mine in American Fork Canyon in 1904, where some of Wilford‟s neighbors were employed, along with intensive mining in Mercur, Eureka, and Park City.
at $1 each, with some of the shares given for labor in the mine. Eventually, the venture would issue about 700 thousand shares.
Digging started in September 1894 and proceeded for 20 years, resulting in two long tunnels being dug before the War caused a pause in the effort. Two other bursts of digging occurred during the 1930s and 1940s, including building a head house at the mouth of one of the tunnels. In the later years Koyle predicted that the gold in the mountain would, in time, provide relief for those living in the area.
This led to a change in the name of the enterprise to the “Relief Mine.” Over time, nearly two miles of tunnels were dug without finding treasure and Wilford‟s stock certificate became only a curiosity. Despite more than a century of unfulfilled dreams, shareholders in the Relief Mine still hold occasional annual meetings.
The John H. Koyle Family Relief Mine American Fork Canyon
From the earliest settlement of Utah Valley, American Fork Canyon was an important resource for those living in the north end of the valley. Water, lumber and minerals were early fruits of the canyon. Later, it became a pleasant place to go during the warm weather to camp, fish, hunt, and hike. Immediately after World War I, the president of the LDS Alpine Stake, Stephen L. Chipman, concluded that young people in his stake should have a recreation area in the canyon. He asked stake leaders in the Mutual Improvement Association (MIA) to identify and develop an attractive site. Wilford and his sister Effie were two of these stake leaders.
In the fall of 1919 Wilford and A. A. Anderson, Scout Commissioner, rode horses up the South Fork of the canyon seeking sites for a MIA camp. They reported back that an area at the head of the fork, previously a sawmill location, would make an ideal place for the facility. The Forest Service granted a lease to the property and the next spring an improved road to the site was built. As soon as weather permitted, Hyrum E. Johnson coordinated the construction of a relatively 28
large building that was completed the latter part of July 1920. The cost of the building was about four thousand dollars and Wilford played an important role in collecting the donations that paid for the building. Effie Warnick suggested it be named “Mutual Dell,” an idea that was accepted.
Wilford on Mt.Timpanogos
Later, the Forest Service built a trail from Mutual Dell to the top of Mt.
Timpanogos, and in 1926 Wilford helped construct the “Glass House” on the top of the mountain. Over the years, tens of thousands of people have enjoyed their stays at Mutual Dell, hiking the trail to the summit of Timp., and enjoying the view of three counties from the “Glass House” that Wilford helped to erect.
Family Contacts
One of the distinguishing features of the Warnick family in general, and Wilford and Nettie in particular was the emphasis they placed on family gatherings and keeping in touch with each other. This included gatherings to celebrate holidays, birthdays, people coming home, and periodic family reunions. Most of the WWW
family parties took place in their small home where being wedged tightly together was an important feature of the event. These parties, especially during the summer, usually involved making a freezer of homemade ice cream, something that was a family tradition. It is also noteworthy that margarine was never served at any of these events – nothing but butter.
C. P. Warnick Reunion 1950 W. W. Warnick Family Party 1950
Some of Wilford‟s relatives settled in the area near Delta and the Pleasant Grove Warnicks went out of their way to maintain contact with these relatives. This included periodic visits, attending reunions in Delta, and writing a book about the Warnick Family that drew in the Delta relatives. In his life history, F. Elmer Foutz remembers riding from Delta to Pleasant Grove with Wilford, Nettie, and one of his daughters in their Model A, four-door car. He also recalled that they stopped somewhere between Eureka and Payson with the men using a bush on one side of the road while the ladies used a bush on the other side. These bushes are now known as rest stops.
In the 1930s daughter Ethel and her family moved to Hiawatha, near Price, for a few years. This resulted in numerous trips by the Warnicks to Hiawatha, and occasional picnics at a mid-point near Soldiers Summit so the family could stay in contact.
During World War II the WWW family was further disbursed when son Charles served in the Army and daughter Helen and her husband William West were living in Boston. To sustain family contact, Helen started a chain letter that made the rounds in the family. It involved her writing a newsletter to the family that was sent on to another member of the family who added their newsletter and sent the two letters on to another family member etc. At the end of the rotation the letters were archived and another round was started. This collection of letters records a detailed history of the extended WWW family for several years, something that isn‟t duplicated in a world now dominated by emails, tweets, blogs, Skye conversations, and telephone calls.
In one of the letters he wrote to the family in 1943, Wilford laid bare his philosophy.
I want to say this for church activity. I don‟t know of anything else, in looking back over my life, that has brought more joy and satisfaction. It has given us the opportunity of associating with, and having in our home, and being personally acquainted with a group of the finest men in the world. So my advice to you all, and I give it without even being asked, is to continue your church activities.
Don‟t begrudge the time or effort or money you contribute to the church. The Lord is a good paymaster. There is nothing which will bring you greater joy, and after all that is what we are all seeking.
The only church activity that is burdensome is the one we don‟t do.
He added to this philosophical statement in a family letter written in October 1944, several months before he died.
Well, this is fall, in many ways the finest time of the year. First, it brings the annual harvest and second it is our opportunity to prepare for the winter. Mother and I have always believed in putting things away for winter. Our cellar full of bottled fruit, usually a pig or two salted down, potatoes in the cellar, and apples, grain in the bin for flour and feed for the animals. Usually we have had plenty for ourselves and some for others and a surplus left over for spring. Then there are the eggs and milk and butter and garden.
So while we have always gone without many things we would like, we have always had plenty to eat. I believe that the Lord will provide, but I believe he does it by furnishing us our opportunities to provide for ourselves………………one of our philosophies of life (Mother‟s more than mine), to be prepared for the future with something tangible for our needs. This applies to preparing for the next life too.
These two statements showed that Wilford had both feet on the ground, completely at peace with his surroundings, but still with an eye to what might lie beyond this life.
A Life Well Lived
Late in life Wilford and Nettie could look back and reflect on a successful life.
They had built a thriving small farm, lived honorably, and helped all of their children to attend college. But, the last couple of years of Wilford‟s life were painful as he suffered through two operations and stomach cancer. With Charles in the service, this thrust most of the farming duties onto son Steve and on wife Nettie. In a short letter to the president of the church dated April 18, 1944
Wilford acknowledged that he was seriously ill and asked to be replace as Stake President.
“I haven‟t been so well lately. I am somewhat anemic and have ulcers of the stomach. I have been trying to cure it with dieting etc., but the doctors have decided it will take an operation and some rest. So I feel it would be a good thing if I were released as President of the Stake.”
I suspect this was the first time in his life that Wilford had asked to be released from a church calling, and I suspect he never turned down any of his many callings. He died on December 10, 1944 and was buried in the Pleasant Grove Cemetery.
HIS CHILDRENS‟ MEMORIES
Jeff West, a grandson, asked the surviving children of Wilford and Nettie to record some thoughts about their father. Although Effie had passed away by then, she had earlier written several life sketches of Wilford that included comments about his character. I provide short abstracts of their comments in the following. Son Paul and daughter Jeanette did not live long enough to leave any thoughts about their father.
Stephen, Charles, Effie, Ethel and Helen
Jeanette (February 22, 1904 – February 22, 1904).
Ethel Myrle (June 2, 1905 – July 5, 2005):
Father liked farming. He would look out over a field he had finished plowing and say, "Isn‟t that beautiful?" When the grain came up he smiled and said the same as harvest time came and the granary bins were full of grain. There was a large stack of hay, the silo was full of corn and the cellar full of vegetables and fruit. He would always say a special thank you prayer and say, "we are so blessed."…….
Grandfather loved the canyon and so did his sons, especially father and his brother Ben………….. Father was an outstanding leader but wouldn't have been able to do all he did without mother. He would milk the cows but leave her to take care of the milk and wash the milk things and often feed the calves……………….
I'm grateful for extra special and faithful parents. It will be good to see them again.
Paul Wilford (August 11, 1908 – April 30, 1922).
Effie Mary (May 24, 1910 -- September 30, 2000):
If Wilford had been writing this sketch personally, much of the foregoing information (about him) would have been omitted and it would have contained information about the activities of his family and friends…….Wilford and Jeanette shared a love for the church, and participation in its activities constituted their social life while young. It was here they learned to appreciate each other, and fell in love…….Wilford Woodberry Warnick was beloved by everyone who knew him, and it could probably be said of him, as the Book of Mormon historian said of Mosiah: “Therefore they did esteem him, yea, exceedingly, beyond measure.”…… All (his) family members have been active in Church and community work. Through the example of their parents, they learned the joy of service through these activities and have thus greatly enriched their lives.
Charles William ( August 21, 1914 – February 20, 2005) : So much of the farm work was done by horses or by hand before the days of tractors and machinery, and Dad and I worked together doing work like piling hay, picking fruit, irrigating, milking, and much more, so it was natural that we had quite a close relationship……….. He was an even tempered man, hardly ever losing his temper or getting excited……….. I remember Apostle Reed Smoot coming out to the barn while waiting for supper to be ready and sitting on the milk stool talking to us while we milked……….. I was in Italy fighting the war at the time of his sickness and death, so I didn't get to bid him farewell, but I can't forget the feeling of the great loss when I got word of his passing. It was the loss of a mentor and friend as well as a great parent.
Helen (February 8, 1919 – November 25, 2008):
Dad never quit teaching, he taught by the way he lived……. Paying tithing has never been a problem for me because of Dad and a load of hay. During haying time, I used to help drive the team and tromp the hay as Dad and the boys forked the alfalfa up. The load grew and got higher and taller until you could feel it sway as the wagon rumbled over the rough ground. And I can recall Dad calling out,
"Throw on a few more piles, this is the tithing load."…….Dad was calm, passive, soft spoken, shy. He didn't like confrontation or conflict…….. He was my knight in shining armor (or blue overalls). My handsome Dad. I say I must have done something good in the spirit world to be so blessed to be born at that time and into this family.
Stephen Lee (April 8, 1924 – still fishing):
Working with Dad was an education in doing the job right the first time, making a straight row, using every drop of irrigation water, putting the best fruit on the bottom of the basket, avoiding debt, paying your bills promptly, taking good care of the land, livestock and equipment, enjoying the good things like family, the 33
canyon and nature, good crops, fine animals, popcorn, and bread and milk………….. Dad's love of the canyon and mountains was certainly passed on to me. We have enjoyed many good times together taking cattle to the mountains for the summer and getting out wagon loads of wood for fuel and poles for corral building…………… The most important lesson Dad taught me was that the Gospel is true and service in the church brings more joy than anything else.
Trying to follow his example in this regard has brought me much happiness and satisfaction.
PERSONAL MEMORIES
A description of Wilford‟s accomplishments isn‟t complete without acknowledging the contribution his faithful wife made to the family. Nettie was a religious rock and fully supported her husband‟s church and community efforts. I fondly remember her ritual of baking cinnamon buns each Saturday for her grandchildren, and her constant efforts to keep her family close. Her life deserves a fuller writing.
My lasting memory of grandfather is of him in bib overalls, wearing boots, and cradling a shovel. His tastes were simple and he exhibited no pretenses. A common meal for him was bread and milk along with a couple of slices of cheese. I remember grandma most as wearing an apron, bustling around to prepare a meal, and fussing over visitors.
Wilford and Nettie Warnick
Like other farmers in Manila, Wilford spent a large part of his time during the summer in his fields guiding precious irrigation water to thirsty crops and orchards. Not until decades later did I appreciate the importance of the irrigation system that permitted the Warnicks to squeeze a living from farms in Manila.
Nature provided the snow pack in the headwaters of American Fork Canyon, but thousands of days of work were involved in redirecting the water flow from 34
American Fork Creek through two hand-dug ditches around Cedar Bench and then through a web of ditches that distributed water to lower areas in Manila, Pleasant Grove, and American Fork. Water turns were the life blood for Wilford and other farmers in the area.30 Getting up several times a night to redirect irrigation water to pasture, hay, and corn fields was part of his summer routine.
I remember Grandpa Warnick as an old man, although I‟m a dozen years older than he was when he died at the age of 64. I remember his white hair and having him swing me up and down on his out-stretched leg as he sang ria ria runcan. The Warnick family had a bifurcated hair graying pattern. Wilford had gray hair from an early age, but most of his brothers had dark hair until late in their lives. Unlike her father, my mother had little gray hair until she was in her 80s.
One fall day I accompanied Grandpa on a wagon pulled by a pair of horses to pick up hay from the lower part of his farm. On the way back, with only a few bales of hay on the wagon, the horses bolted on a rough road coming up out of the hay field and bounced some of the bales off the wagon. Being only about seven at the time I had a naïve view of Grandpa that saw him a candidate for sainthood. I was roughly jerked into reality when Grandpa gave the team of horses a Swedish blessing as he got them under control. He was a saintly person, but he was still a man.
Since I was only ten at the time, I don‟t remember much about Grandpa‟s funeral, except that lots of people attended. For some reason or other, Mom and Dad were the last of the family to leave the cemetery services. I looked out the back window of the car as Dad drove away and saw the sextant, Jess Walker, preparing to lower the coffin into the grave. At the time, I thought it odd that he lifted the lid on the coffin for a final look at Grandpa before lowering the coffin. It wasn‟t until much later that I understood the lid-lifting as a proxy for the community saying goodbye to a beloved leader.
Warnick Headstone in Pleasant Grove Cemetery
30 For many years, Wilford‟s brother, Ben, was the water master for Manila.
His funeral was held in the Pleasant Grove Tabernacle where he had presided over hundreds of meetings and funerals for others.31 Numerous tributes and loving remembrances were given. A fitting close to his life story is a poem read by President David O. McKay at the funeral:
I have no wealth to leave you and no fame.
This must be your inheritance – my name.
Mine has not been a life of great achievements.
I have not done the deeds some men have done but I have kept Unsoiled and untarnished that thing – a name, entrusted to my care.
I have not let dishonor dim its luster nor have I let shame Leave its dark mark there. I have not let my name be classed With fear nor greed nor intolerance toward others nor lack Of charity for those in need, but I have made instead my name Synonymous in all men‟s minds with things that are the most worthwhile.
This is what I would say. With strength to do the right though None might see me. With grit to meet disaster with a smile, With loyalty to those with claims upon them, with justice toward all.
My word and bond. Now as I read the end, too well I know that I have failed in efforts where I have wanted greatly to succeed.
But this I do believe, when I have traveled life‟s dusty road, And worked out life‟s plan it will be said of me, He was a man. And so because of this I feel no shame, When I bequeath to you my sons, my name.
31 His obituary was in the Deseret News, December 11, 1944.
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