John Richard Clay, Jr.

John Richard Clay, Jr. was a kind, loving, soft-spoken man but not timid.  Everyone who knew him had great respect for him and had only good to say about him.  His children knew when they had pushed his patience too far because of the way his bright blue eyes blinked and “snapped” at them.  He never struck or insulted his children and they always knew he loved them.

John was the 5^th of 11 living children, 2 of the 13 children having died as newborn infants. His parents were John Richard Clay, Sr. and Isabelle Adams.  The family had started at Oxford, Oneida county, Idaho where the first 3 children were born.  They later moved to Almy, Uinta county, Wyoming where John was born 24 April 1888.  John’s father & older brother, Samuel worked as coal miners here.

A few days before John’s 7^th birthday in 1895, the No. 5 mine where they worked, had a major explosion killing several miners including Samuel who was just 15.  John’s father had serious injuries but eventually recovered.  Between 1896 & 1897 the family moved to Randolph, Rich county Utah where his mother’s parents & family lived.  John was now the only boy to help his father on the farm to which they moved.  He had only a little schooling in Utah in 1897 to 1899.  When John was 13, the family moved to a farm between Rexburg & Hibbard, Idaho.

By this time, there were now 2 other boys & 6 girls in the family and John worked at many different jobs to help provide for the family.  Soon, the 3 older girls married & left home.  In April 1906 his beloved mother passed away from complications of childbirth when his youngest sister, Alice Ann was born.  His mother was buried on John’s 18^th birthday.  It was a great blow to lose his mother with whom he was very close.  Just a year before in 1905, John’s sister, Sarah Clay Muir, who was 4 years older and with whom he was also very close, had also died in childbirth. 

After his mother’s death, the family moved closer to the Hibbard Ward & John was very active in this ward.  He worked hard to help buy another home for the family & to keep the taxes paid.  Once, the tax money was stolen from his pocket.

In 1907 John went to a circus in St. Anthony with his sister and her boyfriend.  They introduced him to a young woman named Alice Grace Hope.  He took her to a dance that night which was the beginning of a 2 year long courtship conducted mostly by horse & buggy.

John & Alice were married in the Logan L.D.S. Temple March 24, 1909.  Alice’s grandparents, Freeman Dewey Higley and Eliza Ann Cheney were temple workers there at the time and were the only family members in attendance at their wedding.

They lived in the Salem-Rexburg area where they bought a piece of ground and built a small 2-room house together.  He worked on his farm and also hired out to other farmers.  In the winter, he worked at the Idaho Sugar factory in Sugar City which he did for 11 winters.  Part of that time he was the foreman on the lime presses.  In the winter of 1910 he went to the factory & back on horseback 3 miles.

While at his work on the lime presses, the lime vats exploded filling both his eyes with lime.  His eyes were treated with an acid then he was put on his horse to be taken home.  The doctor said there was no hope for the right eye and only a chance for the other.  But they asked the Elders to come administer to him and give him a blessing and through John & Alice’s faith & prayer his eyes were healed.  The next winter he was working at the sugar factory again.  Their first 2 children, Verla and Gladys, were born while living in the Rexburg & Sugar City areas. 

In 1913 they moved to a dry farm 12 miles west of Idaho Falls in the Oswald Basin area and took up a homestead.  Their house was a log house with a dirt roof and a dirt floor.  A small branch of the Idaho Falls 1^st ward was established in the school building nearby and they were both active participants in that church branch. 

They struggled along for 9 years hauling water a long distance, melting snow in the winter for the horses & cow, hauling cedar wood out of the nearby lava beds for fuel and to sell for extra money.  Their food was what they could raise in their garden.

Their first son, Vernal, and their 3^rd daughter, Delpha, were born during these hard times.  Finally, in 1919, the climate was so hot with no rain and the crops dried up forcing them to leave their homestead even though the patent had been issued in 1917.  John said he had no money when he went to the dry farm & had $20 when he left.

They lived in Idaho Falls for a short time, then in Roberts & again in Sugar City.  Then in April of 1922 they traveled by team & wagon along with some other family members to Emmett, Idaho, working on farms and in orchards on the way.  When they arrived in Emmett, John was able to get work on the construction of the Black Canyon Dam.  The family lived in a tent house at the construction site.  They cooked outside over a fire using the prevalent sagebrush plants for part of their fuel.

The dam was completed in 1924, then, they rented a house in town in Emmett.  Their 2^nd son and 5^th child, William LuRue, was born here.

In October of 1925, they and other members of the extended family and some friends traveled by Ford cars to Washington State to seek employment.  The family worked together in the fruit harvest and John also worked on road construction.  They found out there was a branch of the L.D.S. church about 25 miles away at Bellingham and they attended church there.

They really enjoyed the area and would have made it their home but after living there only 9 months, they got word that Alice’s father was very ill & he was requesting them to come back to Rexburg.  They arrived there in 1926 and John was able to work at the Skaggs store then at the Safeway store in Rexburg.

In 1930, Alice’s niece, Olive died leaving a 6 weeks old baby and she had requested that her Aunt Alice take care of the child.  So Violet came into their family as their youngest child and was raised as their own.  Not long after that, Violet’s father asked them to come back to Emmett so he & the other children would be able to visit and be acquainted with her.  So John quit his job at Safeway and moved back to Emmett.  He was able to get a job at the Emmett sawmill but there was a layoff soon after which left him unemployed.

At the time, the government had established some programs to help those unemployed because of the Great Depression.  One of these programs was the Works Progress Administration or WPA. John was able to get on with the one in Emmett where he earned $40 a month.  On payday, he would stop at the grocery store, buy $5 worth of groceries, and carry them home in a box on his shoulder.

They lived in 2 or 3 rental houses until they were able to purchase a home on which they made payments of $10 a month.  They raised a large garden for their own food and also worked in the orchards for fruit and for cash.  In 1942 they left Emmett & moved to Nampa where John worked at the Nampa Sugar Factory.  The older children had all married or left home by now leaving just John, Alice, & Violet so they rented a 3-room apartment.  When the sugar season ended he worked as a night watchman at a fruit packing shed, then at Showalter Chevrolet dealership cleaning cars.

They finally were able to sell their home in Emmett and moved back to Idaho Falls where he worked as a watchman, handyman, etc. for Burgraff Construction for about 1 ½ years.  Then he was able to get work at the Montgomery Ward store as janitor & maintenance man where he worked for many years.  They were also able to purchase a small, run-down house at 995 Cassia St. which he remodeled and repaired and made it into a comfortable home with a nice yard and large garden.

John had been having some health problems which were finally diagnosed as Muscular Dystrophy.  Because of this he also had to retire from Montgomery Ward.  The company and workers there gave him a big retirement/farewell party and everyone expressed high praise for his work and for him as an individual.

Although they had moved so many times during the years, John always took pride in the appearance of the home and the yard wherever they lived.  He always planted flowers, bushes and vegetable gardens and fixed and remodeled the houses and took care of their homes until he become too incapacitated because of the Muscular Dystrophy.

In March, 1959 they celebrated their 50^th Wedding Anniversary and John still said he married the prettiest girl around.  By 1970 John was so incapacitated that he and Alice could no longer take care of themselves even with the help given them by family members.  They chose to go to a nursing home just a few blocks south of their home.  

After living there a couple of years, John passed away 4 days before his 86^th birthday on 20 April 1972 and was buried 2 days later, 22 April 1972, 66 years to the day after his mother’s death.  He was buried in the Sutton Cemetery at Archer, Idaho outside of Rexburg.