Before George moved to Sparks, he worked in a variety of
jobs. According to his biography he worked as a deliveryman in Ogden.
One time
he was sent to pick up a man at the train depot. As they traveled the man
looked as if he were bothered. Finally George asked him what was wrong? He said, ‘I am looking for Mormons.’ George
told him, ‘I am a Mormon.’ Whereupon the fellow asked, ‘Where are your horns?’
George replied, ‘Well they now have a potion they put on us when we are babies.
When I was a baby they didn’t get it in quite the right place so one of mine
came partly out. Here, feel.’ He took the man’s hand and put it on a bump on
the top of his head. George had acquired the bump that morning when he hadn’t
ducked enough going through a low door. As soon as the man felt the bump he
jumped off the wagon seat, even though the wagon was moving, and the last
George saw of the man, he was running up the road. George called him to stop
but he wouldn’t. George just took the man’s bags and dropped them off at the
hotel where the man was supposed to stay. He never saw the fellow again.”
He was later trained as a plumber. Quoting his biography,
“In those days, the railroads required plumbers and pipe fitters, not only for
new construction and kitchen/bathroom repairs, but also for a host of other
functions. Much of the machinery in the roundhouses and other railroad
buildings ran on steam rather than on electricity. Given these needs, George
was hired by the Southern Pacific railroad around 1910.”
By this time, George had wooed his childhood sweetheart, Estella,
whom he loved and adored. They were married, then one and half years later they
had a baby girl named Helen. When Helen was less than a year old, George had a
couple of accidents that left him with a badly broken leg and a limp for the
rest of his life.
There was one definite difference between the two affable
brothers. George had a predisposition to addictions stemming from a broad swath
of alcoholism in the family. Off and on throughout his youth, George indulged
in alcohol, smoking and chewing tobacco. Peter never touched alcohol at all.
George’s background
reinforced his bad habits on one hand and diverted his afflictions on the
other. “He absolutely did not want to put his family through what his mother
and he had gone through.” When the family moved to Sparks, his wife Estella,
Pete and other church members in Sparks encouraged George to change. With the
spiritual cost of breaking the Word of Wisdom, George had become passive about
his activity in the church. After many years of continued support from family
and friends he quit smoking “When he became active, he thoroughly dedicated
himself to serving the Lord. He would spend the next forty years of his life
trying to make up for the time he spent in inactivity and the things he had
done that he was not proud of.”
“When George was getting back into activity in the church,
he was taught the principle of tithing. He was making $100 per month and
spending every penny of it. He was finally convinced to try paying his tithing
when he was promised that if he did, things would work out. The first month he
paid his tithing he expenses were $110. Luckily he had a small savings account
to draw on. The second month the same thing happened. So he went to his branch
president and complained. He was told he should keep paying his tithing, and
things would work out. For the first six months, his monthly expenditures were
$10 more per month than his income. The seventh month his expenditures,
including tithing came to $95 so he was able to put some money back in the
bank. Things improved from there until at the end of the year, he was able to
put $10 in the bank each month, pay his tithing and still live as well as he
had been doing. He never lost his testimony of tithing and that was always the
first check he wrote out when he paid his monthly bills.”
“Once George became active again in the church, he tried to
serve the Lord with full heart, might, mind and strength. Nevertheless, he
believed the Lord gave him a family to care for and he always tried to put his
family first.
On one occasion, Branch President Giles Vanderhoof and
George’s brother Pete met him just as he was arriving home from work. They
said, “Brother George we have to go and administer to Sister so and so and we
need you to come with us.” George said, “Let me go in and tell my wife where we
are going.” They replied, “No, we are on the Lord’s work, and we have to go
right now.” George said, “My wife is expecting me home for dinner. The Lord
gave me a family to take care of and that is my first responsibility.” He then
went in and told his wife where he was going and why. When he came out the two
brothers chastised him, telling him that if he did the Lord’s work first, the
Lord would take care of his family. George still maintained that his first responsibility
was to his family and that if he properly took care of his family, he could and
would also find time to properly take care of the Lord’s work. And he did.
George maintained that putting family first would not guarantee all your family
would remain active in the church, but it would give you a better chance of
keeping them close to you and to the church.”
During their vacation back to Ogden, the family enjoyed a
fishing trip together. They had gone fishing several times before but this time
was memorable in that Stella announced she was to have another baby. It had
been nine years since she had their first child; a little girl named Helen.
Shortly after Helen was born, Stella expected another child.
A few months passed and Stella became nervous about the future birth. In April
of 1919, a baby boy was born by Caesarean section, a fairly new procedure at
the time. The birth seemed to go smoothly at first. Stella was told to rest in
the hospital for 10 days and another week at home. At the end of that period,
Stella died of a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the pulmonary artery.
There was nothing that could be done.
“Not only did George and young Helen have to deal with the
loss of their wife and mother, but soon they also had to deal with the loss of
the baby. The baby was born with a heart defect and only lived another two and
a half weeks after his mother’s death.”
“Estella’s death devastated George. He had been getting his
life in order, he had been ordained an Elder two months before, and he and
Estella were preparing to go to the temple and be sealed the next month in
June. After many years, he was seriously trying to do what the Lord wanted him
to do, and the Lord took from him his beloved wife. For the next three years,
his daily prayer would be an anguished, “why?” Even so, George never lost his
new-found faith.
“Later in July 1919, George was set apart as the second
counselor in the Sparks branch presidency. He also served twice as Sunday
School Superintendent over the next three and a half years.”
Following Estella’s death, George and Helen lived by
themselves in their little home in Sparks. George worked ten hours a day. While
he was gone at work during the day, Helen would stay with close family friends,
or the Purdy family, another founding family of Sparks. Margaret Purdy and Helen
became best friends.
Around 1920, Helen became very ill with a viral form of
pneumonia. The doctor was surprised she survived. “George’s mother decided she
should stay and take care of Helen and keep house for them. She did this for a
number of months, but then her health failed, due to her diabetes. Grandmother Annie
wanted to go back to Ogden so it was agreed that Helen would go back and nurse
her grandmother as her grandmother had nursed her.
On one of George’s visits back to Ogden, they met an old
friend from Sparks, Roy Porter. Right then, Roy determined George should meet
an old acquaintance named Charlotte. The three of them: George, Helen and
Charlotte became great friends. Charlotte became a real blessing in their lives
as she and George were married in the Salt Lake temple and moved to Carlin,
Nevada to live in 1923.
