Edgar Varley (Ted) Prestwich

Autobiography of Edgar 'Ted' Varley Prestwich
Born in Vineyard, Ut. February 6 1922, Died in Bountiful, Ut. February 9, 1987

I was born February 6, 1922 in Vineyard, Utah, in my grandmother, Harriet Parkin Varley's home, in the same bed my mother was born in. I was a blue baby and had difficulty breathing. However, with the care of my grandmother and my Mother I survived. This home was located south of the old Geneva Resort and was sold to U.S. Steel for the building of Geneva Steel in early 1940's to enhance the World War II effort.

My father is Horace Emerson Prestwich, b: Dec. 24, 1896 d: May 6 1988, and my mother is Zipporah Varley Prestwich, b: Mar. 31, 1896 d: Apr. 16 1977. I was the fourth child of eleven children, 6 boys and 5 girls. Their names, birth and death dates are:

Jean V. b: 18 July 1915 d: 23 July 1953
Emerson Lamar b: 1 Aug. 1917 d: 30 Aug. 1971
Horace Lester b: 16 Sep. 1919 d: 4 Apr. 1987
Edgar Varley b: 6 Feb. 1922 d: 9 Feb. 1997
Lowell Melvin b: 25 July 1924 d: 17 Feb. 1958
Morris Keith b: 17 Apr. 1927 d: 12 Ian. 1988
Robert Glade b: 12 June 1929
Marilyn b: 22 Mar. 1932
Shirleen b: 3 Aug. 1936
Louise b: 8 Nov. 1938
Gloria b: 8 Nov. 1940

MARBLES
My first memories were looking up at the table, being eye level with the table and trying to reach something off the table. Then I can remember going to first and second grades at Vineyard Elementary School. On the way to and from school the Wilkinson boys would beat me up and I would run home crying. I was so afraid of them I could not concentrate on my school work. One day Les offered me a bag of marbles if I would stand up to those boys. I fought all three of them and beat the blazes out of them. I was so proud to have my reward from Les. I hadn't done well in school because I had missed the first two years of grade school because of the constant threat of the Wilkinson boys. I could not concentrate. My folks decided I was mentally retarded. So my Dad took me to the American Fork Training School for the mentally retarded and had me tested. They could not find anything wrong with me, so my parents hired a tutor. I did pretty well after that.

I remember the apple tree out in the orchard and I would always climb up the tree and played on that tree. I fell many times but was uninjured. I recollect Christmas, we would have an orange and one toy and some fruit and nuts. I remember going to school walking down the dirt road from Orem bench to Vineyard School. In the winter time we would ride our sleds down the hill and pull them back up after school. I remember winter more than summer because in the summer time I had to herd cows. A big canal run through the farm and we would herd the cows up on the ditch bank. I remember one time I was up herding the cows and I saw my first airplane sailing through the sky. Also I can remember laying on a bridge looking down in the water. The water was flowing under the bridge and soon it seemed the bridge and I were moving.

LOWELL
When I was in the second grade, Dad told me to come home from school and watch Lowell, who was about five years old. Dad was at work, and Mom was in the house. I forgot Dad's request and played on the way home from school. When I arrived home the haystack was on fire. Mom and a couple of neighbors were trying to put it out and when Dad came home he wanted to know why I was not watching Lowell. He always bought a big long stick of bologna for his lunches and he had one in his hand. I ran into the house and hid under the bed, he drug me out by one foot and started to beat me with the stick ofbologna. Every time he hit me a piece would fly off and I started to laugh, and the more I laughed, the madder he got.

Mom would always say to us, "Wait 'til your father gets home, you'll catch it," and that's why I was always afraid of my Dad.

PROVO
We moved to 554 East 1st South in Provo, as Dad had found work at the State Mental Hospital, as farm superintendent. We used to go to the Hospital every Thursday evening to watch a movie with the patients. We got in free because of Dad's position.

I remember going to the Maeser Elementary School in the third or fourth grade. Some of the girls were: Macksene Harding, Beth Elliott, Ruth Ercanbrack, Leda Stevens, Dorothy Hatch, and Leona Holder. I was teasing one of those girls and three or four of them got me outside of the school and beat the h___ out of me at recess.

My buddies were Vernon "Bun" Cheever, Dix Hardy, Ray Hall, Miles Basset, Walter Prusse, Wally Ripple, Grant Larsen, Bruce Jenkins. We just played marbles, and got into mischief.

I went to Farrer Jr. High at the age of 12. I was kicked in the groin while playing football, and my enthusiasm was cooled. One day when I came home for lunch, I learned that Principal Bjearegard had slapped Lowell around. I got so mad that when he came from lunch to go back to school, I caught him on the street and beat him up. He never walked down our side of the street again.

ICE CREAM CARTS
Lowell and I had the opportunity to sell ice cream: Milk Nickels, Fudge-cycles, Ice Cream cups from the Sunfreeze Ice Cream Company, which was later sold to Chases' Ice Cream. The carts had motorcycle wheels. One day I didn't feel like selling ice cream, so I pushed the cart behind the company and went off to play all day. When I returned home I counted out my money and my Mother asked me how much I sold today. I made up a big old story and my Dad said: "You're a damn liar because I went down and saw your cart behind the company and there wasn't any ice or ice-cream in it and it had not been used today. Now, I want the truth and I'll give you a whipping if you don't tell me the truth. "I had on new shoes which were all wet and muddy so I told him I went out playing all day. He said: "I'll give you a whipping for getting your shoes messed up." During the Depression (1930's) shoes were hard to come by so I got a whipping with a rubber hose. He really ripped me up for lying to him even though I paid for the shoes out of my money, I still got a beating for getting them wet. Another time I was pushing the ice-cream cart down on Nina's street, on Fifth South, I did not know her then. The cart went off in the ditch, and her brother Victor had to push me out of the ditch.

RUNAWAYS
I got fed up with my treatment at home so my pal Raymond Hall and I caught a freight train and went into Nevada. We got so hungry we ate carrots from the ground. We hiked to Baker, Ca. and knocked on a door and asked for some food. The lady gave us bread filled with lard - ugh, that was the most awful stuff I ever tasted. The cops caught us and called our parents and sent us back home on a bus.

MAX & IRENE ROBERTS
Then Max and Irene Roberts offered to take me in and give me a home and straighten me out. I helped milk 30 cows, morning and night. I helped cool the milk, bottled it and got it ready for delivery the next morning. Then I helped Max deliver it. It was the best part of my life. I was loved, I was needed and I had a good home.

CCC CAMP -PROVO, UT AH
In 1938 at the age of 16, I joined the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) in Provo; I was a dental assistant, but soon we were transferred to the canyon east of Kamas. (This was in the Soap Stone area.) They said, "You are the camp cook." They gave me an army cookbook and some food supplies, placed in a truck, and we proceeded to a big camp ground where we built roads, picnic tables, and out-houses and parking. One time Wallace Beery visited our camp and I rowed him in a row boat on the lake.

We used to chase the women in Kamas. The girls in Provo were not pretty enough and we had to go out in the sticks. ("How come you married a girl from Provo, Old Man? Were you still hard up?" -Nina) ("Try to answer that one, Dad!" -Clint)

NATIONAL GUARD
I joined the National Guard in 1939 and attended weekly meetings, then spent two weeks at Camp Williams during the first year.

U S NAVY
On December 10, 1940, my life-time friend Raymond Hall, and I joined the U S Navy and were sent to boot camp at San Diego. We spent eight weeks, marched, drilled, all sorts of doings on the parade ground. It wore out our shoes and they call it the "Grinder" .

We came home on leave for a week, then returned to San Diego and were transported on the old USS Enterprise, an air craft carrier which shipped out to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I was then assigned to the Pensacola, which was a heavy cruiser. I was a First Striker, then I made Third Class Cook. The watch was divided into two watches, 24 hours off and 24 hours on. And Ray was assigned on the USS Houston. This was the last time we saw each other.

Our crew shipped out November 28, 1941 bound for Manila, and we accompanied nine (9) Troop Transports. This was the only Man-O-War with the convoy. We did not have any live ammunition but were armed with only all-target ammunition.

When we got word of the Japanese strike against Pearl Harbor, we left the convoy and stripped the ship of all unnecessary things, right down to anything in excess of our immediate needs: i.e. razor blades, bedding, Captain's ward room furniture, anything we did not need went over the side to make the ship light and go faster.

We arrived in Brisbane, Australia the 24th of December, the day before Christmas. We were the first Man-O-War to visit Australia after Pearl Harbor. What a liberty port that was. All the Australian men were up on the North Coast of Australia, because they were afraid the Japanese would come down the Torres Straits, a strip between Australia and New Guinea.

As I stated above, Ray and I had taken our first leave together. When we returned he was assigned to the USS Houston, a heavy cruiser, which was bombed and sunk in the Torres Straits. All aboard were lost. My life-time friend also lost his life. There were probably men with life preservers on, but the Great White Sharks got them.

AUSTRALIA
The ship was divided into Starboard Watch and Port Watch. In other words, half of the crew received Liberty and the other half stayed aboard. Our liberty was a 24 hour period. I was on the Starboard Watch, or First Watch which meant I got liberty first.

When we went on the dock wearing our white uniforms, the women fought over us. A mother and daughter grabbed me and put me in a cab and took me to their home for Christmas. I spent 24 hours with them, spending Christmas Eve and Morning with them, then I went back aboard to stand my watch at noon. I got liberty again after 24 hours and they met me on the dock and we went sight seeing all around Brisbane. No one in Australia would let us spend any of our own money for street cars, restaurants, or taxies. They would not let us spend any money. The thing I remember in Australia, the toilets were down below the street. Men used one side separated by a wall, and the women the other side. I remember the women didn't have good teeth. They didn't have the calcium to make good teeth. We stayed in Australia until we took on fuel and ammunition. We then headed for the northern coast of Australia.

We were hit by a bomb in the bow, and we limped back to Pearl Harbor, another month at sea. We were transferred off at Pearl when the Pensacola was in dry dock for repairs. Les was a yeoman 1st class, Admiral Nimitz secretary, because he had studied typing and shorthand at Provo High. He was able to pull strings and had me transferred to an Aircraft Carrier in San Diego, the USS Von Homme Richard. I was placed in a fighter squadron and I stayed on there for a couple of months, and Les had me transferred to Mare Island, Vallejo, California aboard the USS Stockton, a Naval Training ship. I was there until we got a billet to Treasure Island. There I worked for a couple of years in K Galley and I was in charge of the night watch. I had made 1st Class Cook by then. Daily I could take a crab net and catch crabs, which I would then boil and make crab Louis, cracked crab, crab salad and cocktails in the officer's mess.

We witnessed a body pulled from the bay that was eaten by crabs. So one day a big black mess cook was cleaning tables in the mess hall. I had caught a mess of large crabs, and I took one in my right hand and held it behind and pinched his rear end with my left hand. He turned and saw the crab, let out a yell, leapt upon the tables and ran the full lengthof the mess hall. I was afraid he was going to kill me. But he was good natured about it and we had a good laugh about that.

In November 1946 Les, Betty and I took leave and went home to Provo the second week of November. On the 11th, Veteran's Day they had a parade in Provo which I led carrying the American Flag. That night there was a dance at the Utahna and that is where I met the love of my life, Nina Ann Luke. We danced the whole night and I took her home in my 41 Chevy convertible. I determined to stay over one more day and took her to lunch, and that night to dinner at the Alpine Villa in Pleasant Grove. We corresponded and I returned at Christmas, and we dated. I enrolled at the BYU college and took classes in Accounting, Religion, and Music. It was a very hard time financially, because I was not receiving my college funds and didn't return on the next quarter. I cooked at Freddie's Cafe on North University. Nina and I were married at Uinta County Court house in Evanston, Wyoming on the 12th of March 1947. Rhodes and Orvilla Jeppesen (Nina's sister) drove us there. We returned to Provo and lived with her mother and I had a gas stove installed in the kitchen as I had always hated building fires in coal stoves.

I made a trip back to San Francisco to take care of my Navy papers and my discharge. In August we bought a small trailer and we took Nina's sister, Ruby with us for the trip to San Francisco. She had Roberta and Joyce with her. I took them allover San Francisco and Ruby and children left after a few days for Los Angeles to visit Nina's brother, Roy, wife Hazel, and Mal, wife Ellen, and Victor, wife, Beryl, and all their children.

We had settled in a trailer court in San Francisco, but found a better place in Daly City, which was always fog-ridden. I got a job doing accounting at War Assets Administration and we survived. Sandra Jean was born at the San Francisco County hospital and Nina almost lost her life because was over dosed with ether. They did not let Nina see her for a day or two, nor would they let me see her or the baby because several babies had recently died of diarrhea. Nina and baby were there 10 days, and oh, the joy I had seeing my little one for the first time. I nearly died when the nurse put her in my arms. She was a beautiful baby.

Nina surprised me by taking the baby on the bus from Daly City into S.F. and came into War Assets Admin to show the baby to my co-workers. They had given a beautiful sweater set to our baby and Nina felt she would like to thank them personally and let them see our little doll. After Sandy was six weeks old, Nina found a good job with Jackman & Co. doing bookkeeping and secretarial work in down town San Francisco, and it was an 8-hour a day job. At that time we found a Mormon couple in Daly City who tended Sandy and we had diaper service (no paper ones at that time).

Shortly after this I found a very good job at U.S. Steel in down town San Francisco. In February of 1948 we moved into San Francisco public housing at Hunters Point. It was sparsely furnished with twin beds, a day bed, two dressers, a kitchen table, and four chairs. The stove was a small gas one with an oven. When Sandy was five months old, Ted was ornery and mean with Nina about the coffee. Nina called Betty, who came out and helped her pack a suitcase, and went with her to the bus station, where Nina bought a ticket to go home. At the last minute Nina called me tell me she was leaving. I must have run every red light from work to the bus station. I came and cashed in the ticket and drove to a safe parking and told Nina I was sorry and how much I loved her and our baby and to make a good life for us.

Our baby sitter soon became pregnant and we found another lady in our housing area who took Sandy for us. They had a little dog, this is how Sandy became fond of dogs. Nina became pregnant with Ricky and in September we packed to take her home to be with her Mother and have the baby in Utah. Richard was born in Utah Valley Hospital on October 30, 1948 at two minutes to midnight. I was over-joyed to have my first boy. Columbia Steel Co. wired a lovely bouquet to her at the hospital. I sacrificed much so she could stay there until December 28, 1948 when she flew home to San Francisco. The plane was very late as it could not land because of fog. I could hardly wait to hold my new son and cherished our darling little girl, who called her little brother "Gicky"

In February 1949 I came down with infectious hepatitis, and went to the Navy hospital for examination and they told me I could not go home. At this time telephone service was nil and I could not call Nina. I told them I must return to tell my wife where I was. I came home and packed my toiletries and took my car to Les and asked him to bring Nina to see me. It was a difficult time. I was fed boiled steak, could not have chocolate or sweets, and stayed there for two months. Columbia Steel paid my salary and I was covered by Navy Insurance. This was a difficult time for Nina, but she braved busses and street cars to visit me. It would take her all afternoon. 1