A Leeds Epic---A Love Story

A Leeds Epic---A Budding Career

Oh bring to me my golden spurs,

And bring my coat of mail

For tomorrow I go seeking

In Quest of the Holy Grail!

            And so they come and go, these young Galahads each spring after graduation week, 
some to fields of journalism, some with geology manuals, a pick, hammer, and a magnifying 
lens or two, and some with a teachers certificate, a headfull of plans, and a heart  full of love, 
to some field, mixed, at best, with pain as well as pleasure.           

            Leads is my hometown, the hometown of a lot of youngsters of my type, past, present, 
and maybe the future.  The ones of my day were blessed with an average supply of gray 
matter, yet mischievious to the Nth degree, a happy bunch who lived in a day when Dixie 
was just an imaginary part of Utah, a little isolated kingdom, each town being a kingdom 
within a kingdom.  We had no movies, no skating rinks, no bowling alleys, not even a high 
school in the whole region until I was in my teens, and the B.N.S. and the B.Y.U. zoomed into 
existence, so we were left to our own devices and ingenuity for our pasttimes.  We had little 
rural schools, and for teachers we had good men, men from the region, but who had not had, 
at best, more than a couple of years of schooling beyond the 8th grade.  In spite of this we 
learned, being inspired with a desire to do just that.

            It was to such a situation that our first high-school-graduated teacher came to us.

            How well I recall it all!  On a blistering midsummer Sunday in the summer of 1900 my 
chum, Bess Angell and I were at my home readying ourselves to attend Sacrament 
Meeting.  A bicycle stopped at the gate, about the first one that we had ever seen, and a 
young man, tired, dusty, and sunburned, dismounted, came to the door and asked for 
Mrs. Helen McMullin, a member of the Leeds School Board.  She was present, and invited 
him in, a shy, unassuming, but self-possessed, boyish young man.  He gave his name, age, 
and qualifications, and made application to teach the 4 upper grades of our school.  Mother 
liked him straight off, and they talked, giving each other the lowdown on their respective 
positions.  He told mother that he was born in St. George, his father had worked at the 
Stormont Mill on the Rio Virgin, and he felt that he would like to have for his first year's 
experience the upper grades of just such a school as ours.  Therefore he made his initial 
application for the
Leeds School.  Oh, T.M., can't you realize that it was the hand of Destiny beckoning.

            When he left, Bess could hold in no longer, but exploded in laughter and ridicule at 
that boy who thought he could teach us.   (Oh, Bessie, remember Deborah Reed and 
Ben Franklin!)

            And so we met Thomas M. Rees, that first high-school-graduate teacher that we 
ever had.  The days between then and the opening of school were filled for Bess with 
misgivings and apprehension, for the school board with a feeling of proud confidence that 
such a favorable windfall had come our way.  And so that is how T.M. Rees came to us, 
this first high-school-graduate teacher, hired on sight, and his own evaluation.

            Came the Opening Day.  T.M. Rees was at the schoolhouse, all neatly attired and 
groomed, confidently radiating a feeling that all was well, as he adjusted things to suit him, 
in almost a dedicated manner, to start the first day of a long career of teaching.  There were 
25 to 30 pupils under him, which he carefully segregated into groups, using uncanny skill in 
his evaluations of who belonged where.

            We had never been a graded school before, and this was stimulating to our egos.  If 
Bess was still filled with misgivings, she subdued them.  And, with her perfect health, vibrant 
personality, and boundless determination, she was bound to be the No. 1 student, while I, 
a victim of several encounters with pneumonia and other fevers that gave me some eye
troubles, was content to follow after.

            This young man, with his U. of U. normal training, went about his work capably, 
businesslike, and joyously, soon giving us such a school as we had never known.

            Withall, he was humble, but ever master of the situation.  The boys respected him, 
and we girls adored him.  He was indeed master in the school room, and on the grounds 
during school hours, but after school he soon became one of us.  He was truly Our Teacher, 
going to our church services, our parties, dances, hikes--everything.  He visited all the parents 
to get acquainted, or to discuss problems, equally at home anywhere, everywhere, could 
mingle graciously with a crowd of girls, or be a pal in a group of boys, but always, we soon 
discovered, our leader.

            Now he did not find things too easy.  He had as wild and free a bunch of young 
mavericks as so small and isolated a town could come up with.  Bess, Lyle, and I, he found 
to be the greatest gigglers that he had ever seen.  I, being oldest of the trio, he took matters 
up with me.  On one occasion I had an errand about a mile out of town, and he accompanied 
me.  I quickly found his purpose, for he was soon telling me that we were old enough to 
begin to feel grown up, and should break ourselves of such a foolish, annoying habit.  I 
guess we tried, for he had the gift of always inspiring us to want to improve ourselves.  He 
ever admonished us by word or example to try to keep our sights high.  With what success,
who knows!

            Having relatives in St. George, he frequently went there during, but not for the 
weekend.  And never, in that school year, or at any other time, have I ever known him to 
lower his sights, never be anything but 100% truly exemplary in his leadership.

            I will have to say, tho, that there were times when he went off all by himself to some 
nearby hilltop, something that puzzled us.  If our parents saw his form silhouetted against a 
darkening evening sky, they no doubt thought "The boy had to shake those kids, and get 
off to himself for a while.  Don't blame him--only wonder that he doesn't do it oftener!"

            As the school year advanced we noted his growning attraction toward Bess.  And 
she--well, she changed too, showing a warming attitude toward him.  Then, suddenly we 
began to feel that at some future time of their own deciding, to suit their own plans and 
aspirations, they would become man and wife.  Yet, how graciously and gradually it came 
about, with no flaunting of their affections, nor any neglect on his part of his duties to the 
school.  No one was jealous of Bess (that I know of), yet we may all have wished it could 
have been us.

            Time sped on, the year was rapidly passing.  But in spite of all the agreeable 
features (and there were many), he had a few times of strain and stress to stand up under, 
one that I especially recall, I will relate.

            We had a family in town at that time of very poor people, a father, mother and four 
daughters, but I just do not recall why they happened to be living in Leeds.  They were a 
pathetic looking bunch, plainly showing the effects of not having had enough to eat.  They 
had been here a year or so, and knew that they commanded our sympathy, so they had 
developed a strange technique.  Whenever circumstances were such that they just did not 
have the wherewith to have plenty of food, they would throw a surprise party for some 
member of the family, and always say that they could not provide picnic for the party 
because the surprised member would get wise.  Also it was not at all uncommon to have 
several parties a year for some certain one of their family.  Always we each were invited to 
bring a pie, cake, or plate of sandwiches along, to prevent the leak.

            It was early spring of the Rees school year that we were so summoned.  Would we 
go!!  Would we ever pass up such an opportunity for fun!  And, this time we were told to 
invite our teacher.  We reviewed that idea much in our minds, and finally decided we would, 
but felt that he should have a written invitation.  But who would write it?  We all knew that a 
wheelchair daughter did the family's writing, but who knew her writing?  And who but I knew it? 
Mother was postmistress, and I had the opportunity to study people's writing.

            All of this scheming and planning took place right in the school room while Mr. Rees 
was devoting his time to the 5th and 6th grades, across the center aisle, and five or six 
young 7th and 8th grade villianesses put our heads together in an opposite corner.  First, 
we had to draft an invitation, which was no great trouble, then I was to copy it.  Now, this girl's 
writing looked like the tracings of a seismograph's recordings of a violent distant earthquake, 
and my production was more than successful.  Of course we became convulsed with a sort 
of under-our-breaths type of laughter that almost became hysteria before we gained our 
control and got back, each to her own seat.  Then, when all was calm, Maude presented 
the invitation.  It was accepted graciously, but Oh Brother!!  were we all holding our tongues 
in our cheeks, with our eyes glued to our text books.  How much of our prank was suspected 
we did not know.  When school was out, the floor sweeper for the day being absent, I 
volunteered to do the job, and, taking a broom, I was soon busy.  Then, to my chagrin, 
that man took another broom and started to help me.  I do not know whether my face was 
flushed with guilt, or drained of color with misgivings.  At any rate, before the job was 
completed I had confessed the whole thing, but I had not called forth the wrath I had 
expected.  Had I dared look, I may have seen a wickedly mischievious grin on that man's 
face.

            Well, anyway, it was agreed that he would go with us, and when we met at our 
rendezvous, here he came with a bag of hardtack.  All went merry, and nothing was ever 
done to punish our deed.  And that was only one of many of our heathenish pranks, pulled 
off on a surprisingly wise and patient pedagog--surely one of the kindest, most tolerant 
teachers that bunch of goons ever had.  I can only surmise that it was because he was the 
same kind of kid at heart that we were.

            Soon spring examinations came, and Leeds had a class of four eighth grade 
graduates, something unheard of before.  Bess and I were among them.

            His year in Leeds did not break him of his chosen teacher career, tho he may 
have exercised great care in selecting where he would teach next--not in Leeds.  Even 
at that, he still loves Leeds, and is loved in return by Leeds as warmly in his late seventies 
as in his "roaring twenties."

            As a sort of postlude, I will state that Bess had become so dedicated to the work of 
obtaining an education, that she had no part in our many parties, and riotous quests for 
fun.  Was it her loss, or gain?