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Show UTAH PIONEER SATISFIED WITH BLUE SHIRT AND TICKET TO THE MOVIES ON NATAL DAY; RECOUNTS HARDSHIPS OF EARLY SETTLERS SALT LAKE "A blue striped shirt, a new ax, and a ticket to the movies." That vvas all "Grandpa" Gardner wanted for his eighty-fifth birthday, but that wasn't all he received. Thapcelebration was a big event to the children in the neighborhood of his home, 1753 South West Temple, and they came to see him for blocks around, their fists filled with sacks of candy, garbles, and brilliant hued lollypops. And every child who called in to congratulate him carried car-ried away a piece of birthday oake, together with one of the eighty-five pink candles stuck in its frosting. They call him the "Pied Piper" be- cause like the famous legendary figure, there is always a string of children tagging after him, running to him with presents, or sitting like a row of solentn crows on the back fence watching him chop wood. One lad recently gave "Grandpa" a cherished cherish-ed flipper, and on "Hot Cross Bun" day, the old man had more buns than the bakery. Because of his chubby countenance and white beard, he has often played the part of Santa Claus too. He bears a remarkable resemblance to the popular conception of the old saint, and has spent many Christmas tides ringing doorbells, jingling sleighbells and passing out presents, j And one of his proudest I recent j acquisitions is a pair of 'corduroy j trousers. "All the boys had 'em" he : said. "Grandpa" Gardner was born William Gardner, the son of Robert and Jane McKeown Gardner, at Bonaparte, Bon-aparte, Iowa, in 1846, while his family were enroute from their Canadian home to Nauvoo, Illinois. His birth occured in a terrific rainstrom, and the water was reported boot-top deep around the wagon. He arrived with his parents and two older sisters, Mrs. Mary Jane Miller, and Mrs. Mar-garett Mar-garett Miller, now both dead, in Salt ; Lake valley in 1847, and is another of the "Old Timers" who will be present pre-sent at the "Covered Wagon Days" celebration. Although he is physically well and strong, he was badly injured in an automobile accident several years ago, and as a result, his memory of the early days of his life is almost gone. He lives entirely in the present trem ndously interested in things that are going on around him now. He spent the greater part of his life in I the Dixie saw mill of his father, R. Gardner, and his uncle A. Gardner, and is still happiest when he is the woodcutter. Most of his days are spent in the back yard of his home, where he lives with his daughter, Mrs. Effie May Twiggs, chopping away at a log or an old tie, and he has piled the yard high with kindling. He has also collected three coal scuttles full of nails which have been discarded in the construction of nearby buildings, painstakingly straightening each of them out and segregating them in boxes according to size. Reared in a day when it was necessary to conserve everything, he still follows the precepts pre-cepts of his early training. "Grandpa" Gardner was much too young to remember anything about his trip across the plains, and the first days in the valley, but the whole interesting story is contained in the diary of his father. The family left Nauvoo, in April, 1846, for winter quarters. The Mormon Battalion had been organized shortly before, and the families of those who had left were dependent, upon the few remaining men in camp for care and protection in an uninhabited country. Log houses and dugouts were built for shelter, but the winter was one of suffering and privation. The following spring the Gardner family set forth in the company of Joseph Home. When Winter Quarters Quar-ters was about a hundred miles behind them, Robert, Jr., five years old, was kicked under a wagon by an oxen and two wheels passed over his body. He lived for five hundred agonizing miles, every jerk of the cumbersome old wagon causing him untold suffering, suffer-ing, and died and was buried on the Platte River .near Deer Creek. Then, near Fort Bridger, William (Continued on Editorial page) PIONEER TELLS OF EARLY UTAH DAYS (Continued from page one) fell out of the wagon and the two nigh wheels ran over both his ankles. ank-les. Fortunately the train was passing pass-ing through a deep sand country and the lad escaped serious injury. In the absense of other medical remedies, the injured limbs were hastily swathed swa-thed in poltices made from crushed, aromatic cedar berries. Those were the days when almost any substance that was edible served as sustenance for the pioneers. Robert Gardner relates in his diary of eating thistle roots,segoes violets.and the meat of the wolf, crow, and the crane with an occasional meal of rawhide. The Gardners first located on Mill Creek, near the spot where the stream str-eam i.ow crosses Hyland Drive. In 1861 they moved to Dixie.where young William farmed hauled wood, and worked in the sawmill. He joined the volunteers of lames .Andrews and went with him. to fight hostile Indians In-dians who were stealing cattle and poisoning streams. Other redskins he made friends with,and he loaned his gun yearly to a group of them who went into the hills to shoot deer. The gun was not only always returned, cleaned and oiled, but game and pine nuts were sent back with it. "Grandpa" Gardner was married in 1868 to Mary Almeda Burgess, and in 1872 to Mary Jane Thomas. Of his nine children, six are living. They are: Mrs. Effie May Twiggv Mrs. Amanda Jane Miller, Mrs. Mahala Jane Bracken, Mrs. Mary Merle Tol-ton, Tol-ton, Mrs. Elizabeth Smootz, and Mrs. Gweneth Woolsy. Almost ten years of William Gardner's Gar-dner's life were spent in the mission field in Australia and New Zealand. And in conclusion there is just one more story to tell, a story which portrays por-trays a sidelight of that indomnitable spirit of pioneerism which carried those hardy people through years of vicissitudes and privation. "Grandpa" Gardner remembers riding rid-ing out with a group of volunteers to quell troublesome Indians, approaching approa-ching encounters in which some of their number were killed by whizzing arrows, and the song which they sang as they rode along was a gay, rollick-.' rollick-.' ing one The old man can sing it yet. It went: "I wish I had a clean shirt, I wish I had some shoes, And my old mule was good and fat And I didn't have the blues. "If ever I get home again, Contented I'll remain, i And never go exploring Until called upon Again." |