History
of John Thomas Isaac
Written
by his daughter Kathryn Isaac Huff
John
Thomas Isaac was born thursday
March 10, 1896 at 2 oclock in the afternoon at
Spanish Fork, Utah in the home on the corner of 3rd South and 1st east. The
home was built buy Dads Father Benjamin Isaac Jr, and
by Benjamin Isaac Sr. his grandfather. Dads parents were Benjamin Isaac Jr. and
Catherine Thomas daughter of John and Margaret Johns Thomas who lived at 232
west 600 north in Spanish Fork, Utah. Dad weighted 3lbs when he was born and
could fit in a quart cup.
When
Dads folks were married they lived with his folks the Den Isaac Sr. After Ben Sr. died Ben Jr and wife
stayed and took care of his mother Phoebe. Four children were born to Ben and Catherine
Isaac in this house Phoebe Isaac Markham, Margaret Isaac Leyshon,
Ben Lester Isaac and John Thomas Isaac. The fifth child and the last one was Le
Roy Isaac born in the house in Leland after the family moved there.. Dad was only about 2 when the family moved to Leland to the
farm and his grandmother Phoebe moved down and lived with them. The house only
had two rooms then but was built on shortly after the family moved in.
When
Dad was blessed on the 2nd of July 1896 by B1ahop George Snell helped b1
Grandfather and Father Isaac at the home on 3rd south the "blessing of the
·everlasting gospel
was pronounced on his head that his hand was always to be ready
to uphold and sustain that great and
marvelous work, that he would live to see many great things foretold and that
he would be one of the great workers."
The
home in Leland was built onto and there Dad grew up and went to the first
school house which is the house owned by Tad Larson now 1n 1981. He attended 3
grades there and then went to the old Thurber School on Spanish Fork as well as
the old Central on 3rd east and 1st north. He had as his teachers Hubbard
Tuttle, Lee Bradford, Will Cornaby, Ed Rowe and Lars
Nielson. Some of Dads closest friends were Lorin Creer, Joe Markham, Frank Thomas, Lester Larsen, Wells Fergeson and his brothers Ben and Roy. The children went to
school by horse and wagon or horse and cart.
There
was always lots of music in the Isaac home and Grandfather played the violin
and the children were all beautiful singers especialy
[sic] Margaret, John and Roy. These three sang for many years at funerals and
ward outings and ward meetings, Aunt Margaret played the piano and Dad and
Uncle Roy sang duets and Aunt Margaret sang with Dad also. Even now there are
so many people who tell me how beautiful they sang and how pretty their music
was. I remember them singing the song "The house at the end of the
Lane" and after Dad and Mother were married Mother sang with Dad too, and
they were beautiful singers..
The
people from this area went to Payson to conferences of the church because we
belonged to that Stake. Dad went to Payson to do his courting and to the dances
and at one time he was arrested for doig [sic] the
"rag" a dance which was frowned on at that time. He had a beautiful
horse and rubber tired buggy which all of the girls fell for and Mother was one
of them when Dad was 19 he asked Mother, Ruth Dixon, to marry him and she said
"yes".
Dad
and Mother were married on the 7th of June in the Sal' Lake Temple in the year
1916. Dad worked on the farm and in his spare time rented out himself and his
team of horses to the Utah Idaho Sugar Factory hauling beets. Dad and mother
lived the first years of their aa.rr1ed life in the house now owned by May
Atwood and is just east of our home now in 1981. We are at 1200 west and 7300 south
1n Utah County. At this home John Dixon Isaac was born, Feb 28 1917 as well as
myself Kathryn born Sept 10, 1918.. Dads parents built
the new home in Spanish Fork at 300 south and Main Street and moved up there and
Dad and Mother moved into the the [sic] old home where
Jack Blaine Isaac was born on Sept 17.1925. The old home was large but we only
used 4 rooms until I was a Junior in High School and
the others rooms were remodaled [sic] and a furnace was
put in and the house was very nice then.
Dad
and Mother always went to Sunday school and were faithful members of ward choir
and Dad was assistant ward choir director and mutual chorister [sic] . After Dad got busy with the sheep and was gone so much
he didn"t attend church as much as he should
have. Dad and uncle Roy worked on the farm and at times wanted to buy it but
Grandfather would never sell it to them but he did sign a note for them to borrow
money to buy a herd of sheep and when the depression [sic] hit in 1932 things
were very bad and so Grandfather gave the farm to the boys.. Uncle Roy elected
to let Dad have the farm if he payed [sic] off the morgage so Dad took it and he had a very hard time and it
took a long time to pay off the note. Dad had to sell some of the land to Hark
Stark to get out of debt. We never had much money but we always had lots of'
good food and that was as good as onyone [sic] did in
that hard times. I remember seeing my Father cry for the first time when it
came time to send my brother Dixon money so he could stay on his mission but he
had no money to send. I am sure that our prayers were answered because a man
came to buy some hay that day and Dad had enough money to send Dixon. Dad
worked tor Parley Jenson, from Provo, taking care of his sheep during the
depression and Dick and I did our share in taking care of the stock left [lines
cut out from copying] it was my job to feed them then.
Dad
started to go to church after Dick got home from his mission and he became a
very faithful member. He was in the Bishopric with William P. Larsen as bishop,
a counselor to Bishop Lorin W. Creer
and was Bishop himself for 7 years and he was on the High Council of the
Palmyra Stake so he really fulfilled the promise given to him when he was
blessed. Dad was a wonderful father, he was not very large in stature but he
made up for it in his sense of humor, his fairness and his love he had for his
family and his ward when he was the father of that. we
adored him and Mother, He was always fair in his dealings with the people he
worked with in business.
After
the sheep wore sold Dad worked for Uncle Ben after he bought Leland Milling Co.
in 1930. Dad bought and sold grain as well as managed the Mill for many years,
Uncle Ben hired his son Bert to help with the mill and things didn"t work as smooth as Dad wanted so he went to Salt
Lake and got a job with a friend Grant Maxfield as a
grain broker for several years then Brookfields
bought Maxfields and Dad went to work for them doing
the same kind of work. AT this time uncle Bens second son was runing [sic] the mill and he had an accident and fell off
the roof of the Mill in November of1955 his name was Russell and he was a young
man at this tme. The mill was for sale and since Jack
Blaine was homo from his mission he and Dad decided to buy the place and run
it.
Mother
was very jealous of Dad buying the mill because she had gone many places with
him to buy grain and now he wouldn"t be going so
much. He had gone to Idaho, Wyoming and all over Utah to buy the grain. She gave
him a bad time and he asked me it I would talk to her
which I did and he said things went better after that..
He enjoyed the Mill and worked hard to make a go of it. He worked there for 6
years and then he became ill and in 1961 he went to the Hospital in July and
they took several tests and decided that he had a congested heart and his lungs
had gotten full of fluid. He was in the hospital for 10 days or so then he came
home but his arm bothered him and was numb. In September he had a heart attack [sic]
and went to the hospital and this time the x-rays showed damage to his heart.
On the 29th of september a
blood clot hit his heart and he passed away at 4 oclock
in the afternoon. I had just been to see him before going to Provo to see my
son Steven who was in Utah Valley for treatments on his back and I was ther [sic] when Jack called to tell me, I had only been
away about 4 minutes when Dad went.. We were heartbroken to have lost such a
wonderful Father, Dad was just 65 years old when he died and that was too soon.
