Gila Junior College-Safford

After I graduated from Duncan High I went to work for Phelps Dodge in Morence that summer. I worked as a gandy moving railroad ties, rails and pounding spikes in the open pit mine. I worked 6 weeks straight, 7 days a week for $9.28 a day.

In the fall Don Pace, my dad's cousin, who lived in Safford, came and talked me into going to Gila Junior College in Thatcher and wanted me to live with him. I would go to class until 1:00 pm and then I'd go to work at a service station outside of town until 11:30 pm. Then I had to deliver the money to the owner's house after work each night. I also worked 12 hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays. I didn't have much time to study. I made $44 for each 66 hour work week.

After the year was over I left Gila Junior college (now Eastern Arizona Junior College) and went back to work at Morence. I worked on the locomotives that summer. That fall I went back to Gila Junior college. I got sick and had to leave college. I went back to Morence to live in the dorms with my dad. When I got better, I went back to work at PD in the power house. That was a nice job, but unfortunately part of the waste heat department in the smelter was considered part of the power house. I was transferred there. It was a terrible job in a terrible place. It was very hot between the boilers and the smelter. Acid dust, blue smoke, I had to wear overalls, gloves, hat, goggles and a respirator which made it even hotter there. I worked there until May 1954. I told Dad I was going to join the Merchant Marines in San Francisco. Dad drove me out to my brother Grant's house. he had started his dental practice in Merced, California in 1952. I got sick while I was there. I decided to stay there and work and then join the Merchant Marines in the fall.

I went to work at a real tough job in a lumber yard for $50 per week. That fall I remembered that the year before I had applied to BYU and sent in $10 for a room at the dorms. They said they didn't have a room for me at that time. Since it was a year later, I wrote them a letter saying that you didn't refund my $10 so I should have a room for me by now. They wrote back and said, "Yes, you have a room." I decided to go to BYU that fall instead of the Merchant Marines.