My Parents
Walter Swan April 6, 1944		Deloris (Robinson) Swan April 6, 1944

Walter and Deloris met at a church social in Stockton, California. This is their story. If you want to know more about Walter and Deloris (Robinson) family, you need to read their book "me 'n Mama". It is a sequel to "me n' Henry , Daddy's first book. Mama still wants to complete and publish, "me 'n Grandma:" The Rest of Our Lives Together.

DELORIS CAVELL (ROBINSON) SWAN

Deloris Cavell Robinson Swan (Mama) was born in Merced, California on June 30, 1921. She has two younger brothers, Charles Donald (Don), born in 1922 and Leland Ray (Lee) born in 1924. She is the daughter of George Ray (Ray) Robinson and Charlotte Tessie Page. Her father worked for the Santa Fe Railroad for thirty-five years. Early in Deloris' life, Ray Robinson was transferred several times, ending up in Stockton, California at the right time for Deloris to meet Walter James Swan (Daddy).

Before moving to Stockton, Deloris' family lived in Winslow, Arizona and later moved to Oakdale, California. In Oakdale, Deloris' father built a house, which was supposed to be a garage after he could leave the Santa Fe Railroad. After building the "home" he returned to Winslow to continue working for the Santa Fe. Deloris lived on the farm with her mother and two brothers. They had five milk cows, which had to be milked twice a day. The sold the milk to a local creamery. Her father tried his hand at farming, but he couldn't quite make enough money at farming to leave his job with regular pay at the Santa Fe Railroad. In 1938 Deloris' father bid on the lineman job in Stockton, California and got it. Deloris graduated from Oakdale High School on June 3, 1938. The day after graduation they moved to Stockton.

Her father could never get together enough money to go into the dairy business, so they sold the farm in Oakdale two or three years after they moved to Stockton.

Deloris continued her education at Stockton Junior College for one school year, taking English composition and accounting, not knowing at the time that those courses would be invaluable later on. The next year she took a post graduate business course in the Schnieder Vocational High School, learning typing, shorthand, and business machines. She was a student when she met Walter.

Walter was living in Stockton with his brother, Henry. He had recently moved from Arizona.

Walter and Deloris met at a social held by the First Baptist Church in Stockton, California on April 19, 1940. Walter was 23 and Deloris was almost 19. They were engaged on May 26, 1940 and were married on July 4, 1940. Here is Mama's account of Daddy popping the question.

"It seemed the more we talked, the more we wanted to talk. By that time I had decided that I could care for him and I told him so. This was cause for more talking, and we were getting happier and happier.

"I was so happy that I wanted to share the good news about Vincent and Jean who were planning to announce their engagement at the May 30th retreat our youth group was having up at Mt. Diablo and I told him about it even though I was supposed to keep it a secret.

"Then he said, : 'How about me 'n you announcing our engagement at the same time?" I was flabbergasted!

" 'Do you mean that?' I asked excitedly.

" 'Of course I mean it.'

" 'Oh, Walter! Yes! Yes!' I cried.

"About that time I got a real kiss!" ("me 'n Mama p.6)

For the rest of the story in loving detail, get a copy of "me 'n Mama" by Walter and Deloris Swan and read their touching, "he said-she said" account of their lives together. Linda, the youngest child was born in 1953. Deloris was 31. At this point she had eight children under the age of 12--three in diapers. Speaking of diapers, she probably washed and dried 100,000 diapers between 1941 and 1955. From the time Walter and Deloris were married until their youngest child, Linda, was 12, Deloris never worked outside the home. She stayed home and cooked and cleaned and took care of the children.

Who knows how many loaves of bread she made or how many meals she prepared. It seems that she was always up early in the morning to fix breakfast for everyone. Some days for several days in a row it was oatmeal mush. When we complained she would fix cornmeal mush. She fixed whatever she had to work with. Sometimes for supper all she had was a soup bone and some vegetables from the garden or some dry pinto beans that Daddy had bartered from a local farmer. We probably didn't know how good we had it when we sat down to a meal of beef and vegetable soup and fresh homemade bread.

WALTER JAMES SWAN

Walter James Swan was born near Bisbee Junction, Arizona on September 10, 1916, the second son of Albert (Burt) Jackson and Olive Elizabeth (Moore) Swan. His brothers and sisters were: Henry Albert Swan, Hazel Elizabeth (Swan) Stoner, Oliver Swan, and Rosa (Swan) Boyer. He grew up on the Swan family homestead. Walter's grandfather, Henry Hunting Swan with his wife (Caroline Jackson) and each of his sons (Albert Jackson and Clarence Milton) homesteaded 120 acres land each between Warren and Bisbee Junction, Arizona near the border with Mexico. Burt sold off his land in small pieces until it was all sold. He then moved to his father's land, where Walter was born.

Walter's life was hard in southern Arizona during the depression. Most of the time he had precious enough to eat and rarely owned more than one pair of overalls at a time. When his mother had to wash them he would have to go to bed and stay under the covers while she washed the overalls and let them dry.

Once when he needed a pair of shoes he let a cottontail rabbit inside the garden which was usually protected from such animals by a tightly woven ocotillo cactus fence. Once the rabbit was inside he closed the hole and in his bare feet chased the rabbit around the garden until he caught it. He gave the rabbit meat to his mother for supper and cured the hide and sold it for enough to buy a pair of tennis shoes.

When the family needed something for supper they sent Henry and Walter out to shoot some wild game. Whatever he killed was what they had for supper. If they didn't kill anything, the family had some cornmeal mush and milk.

Walter's parents separated when he was a teenager. This had a profound effect on his life. After living with his father and his brothers Henry and Oliver for a few years he decided to go the California. He spent only a few days with his mother in Los Angeles and then struck out on his own. He had heard that there were some jobs in Sacramento. So he got on a bus (an elongated car with three extra sets of seats and doors) and went to check it out. When he arrived in Sacramento he was hungry and tired. He rented a room in a trashy looking hotel for a dollar a night--not knowing the place was a brothel. He had just gone to sleep when there was a knock on the door. When he opened the door a woman told him that if the police came in should hurry down the back stairs.

He said to the woman, "I don't understand."

She replied, "My boy your are in a whore house."

He dressed in a hurry and left, but stopped at the front desk to get his money back, but the clerk couldn't give him his money back because it was in a locked box. He left the place and sat down on the curb and bawled.

He waited around until the bus was ready to go back to Los Angeles, bought his ticket and got on the bus.

On the way back to L.A. he saw beautiful grapevines. When the bus arrived in Lodi, he asked if he could get off in Stockton to look for work if he could use the rest his ticket resume his trip to L.A. in a few days if he didn't find work. He wired his dad to send him some money and Burt sent him $20. He never did use the rest of his ticket.

That is how he ended up in Stockton. He got a job and eventually met Deloris Robinson.

MAMA AND DADDY TOGETHER

As I think of my parent's lives together I am reminded of a few lines of Shakespeare I had to memorize in the tenth grade. (Most likely, neither one of them read Shakespeare. I include this quote because it might help the reader understand our family.)

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat;

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our venture.

Julius Caesar, Act iv, scene 3

For Mama and Daddy, there must have been thousands of "tides in the flood," which made a difference in their lives.

Only God knows from the beginning to the end. All we mortals can do is look back and recognize how His hand has made a difference in our lives, and how the decisions we make along the way have consequences.

Courtship and Marriage

For Walter Swan and Deloris Robinson, finding each other and getting married is nothing short of a miracle. I wasn't there when it happened, but it was probably the most important thing that happened as far as their descendants are concerned. Those of us who were born because of their falling in love and getting married, will be eternally grateful.

Daddy's Early Jobs

Daddy had a variety of jobs soon after they got married, including working for the state highway department, driving a bus, working on the railroad, working in the shipyards, working in a creamery, and finally plastering.

At one time he was working the midnight to 8 AM shift as a switchman at night for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He would ride the switching train in the yard, jumping to catch a car and then hanging on to get to the end of the track where he would manually switch the track so they could put trains together. The job was dangerous in the daylight, let alone at night in the dark. Daddy had dreams of failing to catch a car and falling under wheels of the moving train. On one occasion before Walter went to sleep he told Deloris that he was afraid that if he went to work that night he could be killed. Deloris begged him to go to the railroad yard and quit the job. He got out of bed and did got dressed and just that.

Walter worked for a few weeks at the shipyards before he got hurt. He was operating an air drill when the drill caught him in the crotch of his pants and tore up his scrotum. He finally got it loose, but then it bore into his left leg between the main artery and a nerve.

Walter had told the man who dispensed the tools that the air drill was not working. But the man said, "That is too bad. That's the only one we have." Walter had tried to protect himself, but now he had two serious injuries.

In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, he asked the man who was attending him to hold his hand. He was afraid that he would die if he lost contact with this man. The man held is hand all the way to the hospital. Jerry and I were about 18 months old when this accident happened.

His crew took up a collected about $300 (a considerable sum in 1942) and gave it to Deloris. After he got well Walter and Deloris decided that it was time to try for another baby-not sure if they would have any more children after the accident. They did in fact have eight children altogether.

He was off on a workmen's compensation when Jerry and I were born. He had broken his back and the doctor wouldn't let him go back to work. This was the first of four breaks in his back. When he was 77 years old a doctor x-rayed his back and told him it was a miracle that he could still walk.

Most of all, Daddy was hard worker. Once when he was out of work and didn't know where his next dollar was coming from, he went out and picked peaches. Jerry and I went along to carry the buckets to the sorting table. He made $6.00 in about 5 hours of hard work.

Better than working hard all the time he taught his children to work. Two of his sons followed in his footsteps and became plastering contractors.

Buying the Place on Carroll Avenue

Home ownership seemed to be important to Mama and Daddy. Ray Robinson co-signed a $300 loan to help Daddy and Mama make the down payment on the place on Carroll Avenue. The place on Carroll Avenue was the first place they ever owned. It cost them $1,800. It was primitive by today's standards, but not too bad for a young couple just getting started during World War II. I remember helping Daddy in the garden there. I remember going with Jerry to the grocery store on the corner with a list and money. We thought we were alone, but Mama had followed us about half way there.

One of Daddy's favorite stories about us on Carroll Avenue was the time he had to get up on the roof of the house to fix it. He had left the ladder against the roof so he could get down when he was through. After being on the roof for a few minutes he heard Jerry and me saying, "Help you Daddy? Help you Daddy?" We were about 18 months old. For Daddy to see his two little boys at the top of a ladder that was leaning against the roof caused his heart to jump into his throat. He grabbed us--one in each arm--and started yelling at the top of his lungs for Mama to come and get us.

Another event Jerry and I remember with clarity was the time we stole (not understanding what we were doing) some green cantaloupe from our neighbor, Mr. McNair. We couldn't have been more than two or three. We sort of wondered over into his garden and picked some cantaloupe and took them home to show Mama and Daddy. Daddy made a big deal of it, but we never forgot the lesson. He went out and bought a pipe and some pipe tobacco and made Jerry and me take it over to the neighbor and tell him that we were sorry that we had stolen his cantaloupe. He was very gracious and I remember his wife giving us some ice cream and cake.

The best thing about the place on Carroll Avenue was it gave Mama and Daddy a start--a place to grow--a place to begin teaching us children how to work and to be honest. We lived there until the fall of 1944.

Buying Place on Alpine Road

The more they planned for the future the more they realized that they needed more ground to rear a family and provide for them. World War II was on and almost everything was rationed. Not only gas, but food. Meat cost more ration points than almost anything. If they had some land in the country they could have animals that could be slaughtered and we could put the meat in the frozen food locker.

When they saw the advertisement in the newspaper for the ten-acre place on Alpine Road, just east of Stockton they were sure they wanted the place. Daddy gave the realtor his whole paycheck for two weeks as earnest money. The total price for the property was $3,750

The place came with a pumping well, approximately 100 trees, and a steel-tired Ford tractor that was twenty years old. Most of the trees produced English walnuts, which produced a good cash crop every year. All we had to do was harvest the walnuts every fall. Not an easy job, especially for teenagers who thought they were being pressed into slave labor, until Daddy showed up witht the ice cream sandwiches.

The place didn't have was a house to live in. We lived in three different rental units until Daddy could get a house built. World War II was still on and building materials were scarce. Daddy built the first house out of 12 inch by 12 inch by 4-inch terra-cotta tile. The inside walls were made of scabbed together 2x4's that were four feet long. We moved into the house in 1946, scarcely before the house was finished. Uncle Don Robinson and Grandpa Ray Robinson came over several times to help Daddy finish it. The last thing to be completed was the flush toilet. We had to dig a big hole for a septic tank. They didn't have fancy backhoes then. Daddy and a hired hand had to dig it by hand; one shovel full at a time.

We made almost a thousand dollars off of the walnut crop the first year we had the place. That was the best we ever did as long as I was home. We always had a big garden and it seems that we always had a milk cow, some chickens, hogs, and some beef animals. We had some wonderful berries that were started from plants Ray Robinson had in his back yard. Fruit trees included cherries, apricots, peaches, figs and pomegranates. Several years we planted sweet corn which we sold from a stand in front of the house. Jerry and I got the money to buy our school clothes.

The family lived there from 1946 until 1963 when the family moved to Pima Arizona. I was on a mission in Texas when they moved.

The Effect of World War II on Our Family

By the time Daddy and Mama met war was raging in Europe, and everyone was anticipating that the United State was going to get into it eventually. Mama and Daddy were married on July 4, 1940. Jerry and I were born on April 6, 1941. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor eight months later. Two children were enough keep married men out of the draft at the beginning of the war. Later on toward the end of the war, Daddy was called up for a physical, he was given IV-F (unqualified for service due to physical disability) status.

Daddy always had a job. We always had a garden and animals we could slaughter for meat. So the war didn't take its toll on our family as much as it did on some families. There were times when we had to wait for ration stamps to come in the mail so we could go buy groceries. I don't remember running out of gas because we didn't have gas coupons. Farmers were not required to have gas coupons. Because we lived on a farm we were considered farmers. There must have been times we couldn't go somewhere.

The main deprivation of the war I remember was getting wooden toys for Christmas because steel was needed for the war effort. At least that is what Mama and Daddy told us at christmas time. We always had plenty to eat because we lived where could have animals and a garden.

Mama was pregnant with Carol Ann when we lived in the "Old Fashioned" house on Alpine Road. The house was weatherbeaten and drafty in the winter time. We had an outhouse for a toilet. Winters are usually wet in California. The road from our house out the road was dirt-mud if it rained, and about 200 yards long. There was a parallel driveway about 50 feet to the south of our house. It was much more reliable when it rained because it was paved with gravel and we had a driveway that connected to that road. Daddy was worried about getting Mama to the hospital in February. He was planning to use the safer driveway to the south of us. The neighbor who used that driveway to get to his house had dug a trench across our driveway that lead to the gravel road. Daddy almost came to blows with him over the incident. Mama and Daddy solved the problem by letting Mama stay with her parents until the baby was born.

This was a trying time for Mama. She had three little kids, pregnant with the fourth, and living out in the country with no transportation most of the time. She asked Daddy's sister, Rosa May (Swan) Boyer to come and stay with her until the baby was born. Aunt Rosie was very gracious. Her husband was in the service and she was alone with her daughter Jullie. They came and spent several weeks with us, and really helped Mama through a difficult time.

Daddy's Plastering Business

I don't remember how Daddy got into the plastering business. I know he had to take licensing exams several time and I remember that he built his own plaster mixer. I do remember him telling Mama on a rainy morning that the "boss" had cancelled work for the day because of the rain. Then they hugged and kissed. More than anything this event symbolized the entrepreneurship Daddy loved so dearly. He probably never heard of the word, but he knew better than any man I ever knew what it meant. It was difficult for him to work for someone else.

He would work hard all day and then go out at night and figure new jobs. So it wasn't uncommon to put in a 15-hour day. I remember him taking Jerry and me out with him to figure jobs at night. On more than one occasion he would go out to bid a simple patch job no larger than a large framed picture and he would end up re-plastering a room or two.

He was in and out of the plastering business several times, either because winters in California were too wet for plastering, or capital or due to illness. In 1953 he went to work for the Stockton State Hospital as a cement mason, repairing deteriorated masonry or putting in new sidewalks, tile showers or floors, and brick walls. He worked there until 1960 when he had an apparent heart attack that turned out to be a hiatal hernia. The doctors treated him like he had a heart attack and the treatment nearly killed him.

Plastering is hard work and most men are forced to slow down after they reach fifty or so. Daddy stayed with it until he was 71.

Building the Big House

By 1948 we were a family of seven living in a small two-bedroom house. Daddy and Mama decided to build a larger house. The house had three bedrooms downstairs and a large bedroom over the garage upstairs. Jerry and I had built-in bunk beds in two corners of the room. It had a large living room and dining room with a kitchen that was large by any standard. Daddy had been doing some plaster work for a general contractor and decided to have him build the house for us.

The contractor told Daddy and Mama that he could build the house and two rental units for $10,500. They borrowed the money to do it. No contract was signed, but before the house was completed the money ran out. They were left with a house that still needed lots of work and materials to be habitable and no rental units for income. Daddy could do the plastering, but that left the floor covering and much of the finish carpentry. Dad (Ray Robinson) came to help with hanging the doors and some of the finish carpentry. The fireplace was our main source of heat, but the chimney was too short and allowed the smoke to be blown back down into the house. We moved in 1950. The floors were unfinished with only two-inch sub-flooring to walk on. We later put down plywood and linoleum in the living room dining room and kitchen. The bedroom floors were eventually covered with well-worn used area carpets which we nailed to the sub-flooring.

We had a fence around the fireplace and hearth to keep the "little kids" from falling into the fire. We had to step over it every time we had to put wood on the fire. Mama used it to dry diapers in the winter time. On special occasions Daddy would cook steaks on the fire in the fireplace. They were the best tasting steaks I ever ate.

When I left home for the final time in 1962, parts of the big house had still not been completed, but it was home for most of my growing up years.

Daddy's heat stroke on May 30, 1950

Not long after we moved into the big house. Daddy suffered from a heat stroke, which was another defining moment for our family. It was Memorial Day (May 30, 1950) and all of his plastering crew was off for the holiday. Daddy decided to work whitewashing a house in Linden by himself. The task was hard enough to do alone, but the heat that day was the "killer." After working all day he had to help the owner get an errant bull back in its pen.

Daddy ended up unable to work for a while, but worst of all he suffered from deep depression. He battled back on his own without the help of a psychiatrist or drugs. After about a year of being depressed, he realized that if he were going to get better he would have to be the one to heal himself.

He started acting as though he was feeling better. It was a "red letter day" when he started whistling again. Those times were very difficult for us. We could have lost everything, but somehow we all worked together and made it through.

These were the time when Mama became the "glue" for our family.

Mama's Steady Support

How is a mother with the eight children under the age of 13 supposed to hang in there and survive. Mama just did it. She did a lot of crying when no one was looking. She loved Daddy and she loved us kids. Though there were times she was at the end of her rope, and there was scarcely enough left to tie a knot and hang on. She made do with what she had and that was all she could do.

She had four pre-school children at home and still she made time to make 12 loaves of bread three times a week. Homemade bread was cheaper. She hung out the diapers to dry on the line because the dryer was broken and we didn't have the money to fix it or because the electricity bill would be too high.

All of their lives together, Daddy was either really high and enthused about something, or he was very low and depressed. Mama had to be the one to steady the course. She propped Daddy up when he was down and she provided the reality check when he was flying high.

She was the buffer between us kids and Daddy. When we felt that Daddy was getting too hard on us. We could go to her and tell her how we felt and somehow things got better. She never agreed with us. She just listened. She still does a lot of that for her children.

Mama took care of us when we were sick, sometimes sleeping on the couch and letting us sleep with her. Somehow we seemed to get well faster. The four older children seemed to get every childhood disease that went around. We got both kinds of measles, mumps, whooping cough, chicken pox, and had several bouts with tonsillitis. It is hard to imagine caring for four sick children at the same time. By the time the younger children were born medical science had developed vaccines to prevent most childhood diseases.

The hardest thing I ever had to do was to stay home and support the family instead of going back to BYU in 1960. Mama listened to me a lot and helped me get through that difficult time. Her loving care made the ordeal bearable.

Mama's steadiness wasn't one of those "fork in the road" instantaneous, kind of defining moments, but more an entire lifetime of being the anchor we all clung to and relied on to keep from being set adrift, including Daddy.

Working at the State Hospital

In 1953 Daddy went to work for the Stockton State Hospital as a cement mason, repairing deteriorated masonry or putting in new sidewalks, tile showers or floors, and brick walls. The job didn't pay very well, but it was steady and Daddy didn't have to go out and figure jobs at night any more.

He learned some important people skills by working with mental patients. He was probably one of the best work therapists they had, though he wasn't trained or paid to help patients. He made a difference in the lives of several men. Some of whom were released because they were cured. He worked there until 1960 when he had an apparent heart attack, but turned out to be a hiatal hernia. This event made it necessary for Jerry and me to stay home from college and support the family.

When Daddy left the state hospital he brought Bill Harris home to live with us. We built a separate cabin for Bill to live in. Bill puttered around the place doing simple odd jobs that Daddy had for him. One job was taking the nails out of the lumber from a house that had been torn down and stacking the lumber. The job must have taken him a year. When he was finished he was more pleased with the buckets of nails that he had saved than he was the neat pile of clean lumber he had created.

Working at the state hospital was one of those linking moments because that is where he met Waring Hart who introduced him to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

In the Spring of 1956 Daddy came home from work and asked everyone to help straighten up the house. Some men from the LDS Church were coming over that evening to give us a copy of the Book of Mormon. We all pitched in and helped make the place as presentable as we could, considering that eight children less than 14 years old had been living there for the past three hours.

The men who came to the house that night were named Leonard Meyers and Reid Burt. They didn't bring a Book of Mormon that night, but they shook everybody's hand when they arrived and again before they left. It must have taken 5 minutes each time they shook hands with our family. We thought it was a little weird, but we were honored that they had come to our home and that they thought it was important to shake hands with the children, too.

A man Daddy worked with at the Stockton State Hospital name Waring Hart had given them our name. Daddy and a bunch of men including Brother Hart were standing around visiting during a break from work. Somehow they got around to talking about religion. Daddy said something to the effect that all religions are the same. "All they do is pass the collection plate and let you buy a dime's worth of forgiveness on Sunday and let you be a #*@%!-fool the rest of the week."

Brother Hart spoke up and said, "Swan, you ought to come to my church. They don't pass the collection plate in my church."

Impetuously, Daddy said, "That's the church for me! What church do you go to Hart?

Brother Hart said, "I go to the Latter-day Saint Church. Can I send a couple of men out to your house to give you a Book of Mormon?"

Daddy said, "Sure. Why not? It can't hurt anything and it might do some good."

At one time we had gone to another church. Daddy had taken his plastering crew over to the new church they were building and had donated a lot of labor and materials for the church. Mama had played the piano for several years. But after a while we stopped going. Daddy met the pastor at the county fair one time and he literally consigned Daddy to hell if he didn't come back to church and start paying his tithes and offerings. After that Daddy told us kids never to go to that church again. We never did. Jerry and I went to a different church of the same faith, and even thought about being baptized, but we never did.

It was under this kind of a cloud about religion that Leonard Meyers and Reid Burt came to our home to teach us about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They came faithfully for several weeks, teaching us about the nature of the Godhead, the Book of Mormon, the Apostasy and Restoration, the Word of Wisdom, the Prophet Joseph Smith and everything that goes with the teachings of the Church. Mama, Daddy and "the boys" would sit around our huge dinner table and listen to their message week after week. "The girls" were in the kitchen doing the dishes, but we all heard the lessons. Somehow from the very beginning the message of the missionaries made sense to me.

Finally, the week after Christmas of 1956, Mama said, "We are going to church this Sunday. I don't care if we go to the Latter-day Saint Church or the other church, but we are going to church." We took a family vote. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints won unanimously. We have been going to this Church ever since. [Nobody in our family except me remembers that we went to church in the spring. I remember because our Sunday School teacher, Jess Bonnet, recognized Jerry and me when we back to church in December.]

We were a scruffy looking lot, but the members of the Stockton First Ward made us feel welcome. Our family took up a whole center pew. (We didn't know it, but the row we sat in was the "Old Peoples' row.) We liked going to church where people liked us and made us feel like we belonged. Most of the members were not wealthy, but the gospel had changed their lives and their hearts and they were good to us and we felt it.

The next day was New Years Eve. We were invited to a stake New Year's Eve Dance. They didn't tell us that the dance was for people over 14 years old. So we took the whole family. Jerry and I were the only children in our family old enough to attend the dance, but no one criticized us, and we all had a good time. Jerry and I didn't know how to dance, but we went anyhow and had great time. Two young women our age, Ann Summerhays (the bishop's daughter) and Diane Bell taught us enough about dancing that we had a good time. We felt like we belonged.

Thursday evening Leonard Meyers and Reid Burt came over to see us. Daddy told them he wanted to be baptized. Mama said she wasn't quite ready. They asked Jerry and me if we wanted to be baptized. After some real soul searching we said yes. So on January 5, 1957, Walter James Swan, Gerald Ray Swan, and James Albert Swan joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through the waters of baptism. Six weeks later on February 23, 1957, Deloris Cavell Swan, Charlotte Elizabeth Swan, Carol Ann Swan, and Walter Allen Swan joined the Church, too. John David Swan, Merri Lou Swan, and Linda Lee Swan were all baptized when they turned eight. We were sealed together as a family in the Los Angeles Temple in February 8, 1958.

A week after Daddy and us boys were baptized, the entire bishopric came to visit us. They sat down with us to welcome us into the Church. They told us about tithing and other things we were expected to do as members of the Church. Daddy told them that he had never heard of tithing before they mentioned it to him that night. For a man who was barely able to feed his family of eight children, giving ten percent of his income to a new-found church took more faith than he had ever experienced. But on pure faith and on the word of a loving bishop from the Lord, Daddy "put it all on the altar" and started paying his tithing. From that day until the day he died he paid his tithing faithfully. "And the Lord blessed him all the rest of his days."

Daddy was used to giving honey to everyone who came to visit us. That evening as members of the bishopric were about to leave, he sent Jerry and me to the honey house to tap off a gallon of honey for each member of the bishopric. They were not used to receiving gifts when they went to visit new members of the ward. Daddy was not used to having his generosity turned down. There was an uncomfortable moment or two, but they took the honey home with them. Today a gallon of honey is worth about $25.

After we had been members of the Church for about six months, Grandy, Daddy's mother, Olive Elizabeth (Moore) Boyer, came to visit us. With tears in her eyes she asked Daddy what had happened to our family because a good change had come over us. Daddy told her that we had joined the Church. They talked about the Church and Daddy asked her if she would like to have the missionary discussions. She agreed to receive the missionaries and soon joined the Church.

Daddy's Illness June 1960

While Jerry and I were finishing our first year at BYU in 1960, Daddy got sick. They thought he had had a heart attack and treated him as though he had had one. In later years doctors confirmed that he never had a heart attack. I found out many years later that Daddy had used a powerful fumigant to kill wax moths in the beehives. Apparently he wasn't too careful and the poison meant for the wax moths almost killed him. The treatment for a heart attack made him sick for about a year. He couldn't work. Jerry and I went to work at Orvis and Clinger, a slaughterhouse and meat packing plant not too far from our home. We were disappointed that we couldn't work in plastering like we had done the year before. I was even more disappointed that I couldn't go back to BYU.

This was a defining moment because it set a new direction for our family. Daddy couldn't plaster anymore and he kept getting calls to come and do a patch or a garage or some other plaster job. Daddy, Mama and Allen made a trip to Arizona. After the trip Daddy decided that he wanted to move to Pima, Arizona, and so they did.

Moving to Arizona in 1963

I was on a mission for the Church in Texas in 1963 when Daddy and Mama sold the place on Alpine Road and moved to Pima, Arizona. Daddy had some bees and he was feeling better all the time.

They lived in a two-bedroom rental unit until they could build their little dream house. Daddy went to the local lumberyard with his list of materials for the new home.

He said, "Sharpen your pencils. I have cash money. Make me your best deal on this list of material."

They gave him their regular prices. So Daddy went to the lumberyard in Safford, a town about two miles away. They discounted their prices about 25 percent and won the bid. But as it turned out, our family lost. The man at the lumberyard in Pima controlled all the construction in Pima and saw to it that Daddy didn't get any of the plastering work in town. Besides that someone put some foul brood in his bees and nearly ruined his bee operation. They lost everything they had and had to start over again.

Mama goes to work

Not only did Mama have to leave her little dream house, but she had to go to work. The family, with Allen, John, Merri Lou and Linda still at home, moved to Bisbee, Arizona to live in an underground house Uncle Oliver had built on the Swan family homestead. When Linda was 12 Mama went to work at the cafeteria at Cochise Community College. After about a year she got a better job working at the Warren Post Office.

Daddy wasn't able to support the family with his bee business. He couldn't get work plastering, something he was good at and paid well. Daddy worked for a while in the copper mine, but couldn't adjust to the night shift hours or cope with a "crazy" man at work who threatened to kill him. So he quit the mine and worked as a bus driver and a custodian for a small country school.

These were difficult times for the family. Once again Mama became the "glue" that held the family together. Mama worked in the Warren Post Office. It took both their salaries to support the family. The repetitive task of sorting mail caused Mama to have trouble with her spine, which later required surgery. After her recovery she returned to the Post Office until they moved to Marana.

Moving to Marana in 1972

In 1972 Allen and Daddy were both under-employed and struggling to support their families. Together they decided to go to Tucson to try their hand a plastering again. They were able to get work there and soon move their families into the area. Daddy and Mama moved to Marana, a small farming community north of Tucson. All of the children had left home by this time. Allen moved his family to a community five miles northwest of Tucson. Together they went into the plaster business again. Daddy got his Arizona Contractor's license and for a few years they made good money.

The move to Marana was an inspired opportunity because Mama and Daddy met George Leaming, a member of the Church, and the editor and publisher of the Marana Messenger. He published several of Daddy's stories in the newspaper and encouraged them to publish their first book. George was the one who took them to the computer store and told them to buy the computer so they could typeset the book "me 'n Henry."

Going on a Mission in Tallahassee, Florida

Daddy's life in the Church was dedicated to missionary work. A year before he died Daddy estimated that he had been directly responsible for bringing 250 people into the Church. In 1981 Mama and Daddy were called to serve as missionaries for the Church in the Florida, Tallahassee Mission. This was their "Zion's Camp." It was probably the most difficult thing Daddy ever did. The Mission President was always working with him to keep him from going home early. By pure faith and dedication they made it through the year and fulfilled honorable missions, baptizing several people. I believe that the mission Daddy and Mama served produced the faith necessary to be successful with their books and the bookstore.

Publishing "me 'n Henry"

One of my fondest memories was to build a nice fire in the fireplace and turn off all the lights in the house and pillow my head on Daddy's arm with the other kids and listen to Daddy tell stories. He often came to our school to tell stories. We all loved his stories. Mama said to Daddy one day that he ought to write down the stories he told us. So he did. She still has the first story he ever wrote down. She collected his stories in a file folder; and then two and three and four file folders. Then she kept them in a wooden orange crate. Eventually she got a real filing cabinet.

"me 'n Henry," was their first book. It is a collection of episodes from Walter Swan's life growing up in southern Arizona. Publishing the book was a defining moment for Mama and Daddy because it would give them the fame and fortune they had only dreamed about. It would prove to be the beginning of the final chapter in their lives together.

After forty years of collecting the stories Mama pieced them together and tried to get a publisher to buy the manuscript. After 23 rejections they decided to publish the book themselves. They knew their chances of making money from the venture were nil, but they forged ahead anyway.

Here is how it happened. After working at jobs he more or less doing what he liked to do; plastering, gardening, and working with bees, he fell on an oil slick at a convenience store and hurt himself so bad, that at age 71, he was forced to retire. Feeling depressed he moped around the house until one day Mama asked Daddy if there was anything she could do to make him feel better.

He said, "Yes. I want to publish the book."

Mama said, "Okay, let's figure out how we can do it."

And so began an adventure filled with excitement and work for the rest of Daddy's life. They bought a used computer for $800, and at age 66, Mama learned how to operate it. Overcoming frustration and computer ignorance, she produced a camera-ready copy for the printing press and the book was on its way to becoming a reality. It was Daddy's eternal optimism and vision and Mama's ability to provide a reality check that made them a success. Put another way Daddy was the forest person and Mama looked after the trees.

I understand as well as anyone in our family the serendipitous miracle of Mama taking something Daddy had written and turning it into something other people could read and enjoy. The chances of two other people collaborating and producing a comparable result are about one in a billion. Though Daddy freely admitted to failing grades in grammar and spelling before he dropped out of school in the eighth grade, he gave Mama credit for getting the book ready for publication. It would never happened without her love and devotion for the man she spent 54 years with. Preserving the essence of his wonderful storytelling skill, Mama says, "All I did was correct his spelling and grammar." Of course, she did much more than that. She retained his speech patterns and colloquialisms, persevering the color that is often lost when a good story is rendered to paper.

In 1989 I invited them to come to Kansas to do a few programs for the librarians and trustees in the Central Kansas Library System. They came to tell the librarians about the book and how they put it together. Mama said at the end of her talk, "It was sort of like having a baby. It was Daddy's brainchild and I did all the labor." Daddy agreed and the audience laughed.

The first 1,000 books came off the press in September 1988. A pre-publication offer to friends and relatives brought in about half the money they needed to pay for the first press run. They had to borrow the rest. Mama had visions of 800 copies of the book being stored in their living room, but the first 1,000 sold out in a month. The second 1,000 took a little longer. They took a deeper plunge and mortgaged their home in Marana to pay for 5,000 more copies.

Opening the One Book Bookstore

When only a few bookstores would take a chance with the book, and his arrangement with the Boot Hill Grave Yard and Gift Shop fizzled, Daddy's only option was to open his own store and sell the book himself.

Some people wonder about the potential for a store that only sells one book, but Daddy didn't worry. He averaged 500 books a month. Mama and Daddy got the name of the name for the store from the owner/editor of one of the Bisbee Newspapers. When they learn that Phil Negrie, a columnist from the Arizona Republic newspaper was coming to visit them, Mama hurried up and made some signs for the front of the store that said, "The One Book Bookstore." Phil did an early story on Daddy and the bookstore and put on the front page of his newspaper. Erma Bombeck read the article and mentioned in her syndicated column. From then on Daddy and Mama and their One Book Bookstore were famous.

The first store was in a display window of the former J. C. Penney store in Bisbee, Arizona. Daddy said, "In fifteen minutes I sold enough books to pay the first month's rent." The second store was just two doors down and had lots more room. With a lot of help from publicity on television, radio, magazines, and newspapers, Daddy sold over 30,000 copies in five years.

Though more books from Daddy's typewriter made it into print, the One-book Bookstore only sold one book-"me 'n Henry." The other books were available at The Other Book Bookstore, which is in the next room. The other books include:

Adventure Stories

How to be a Better Me

The Old Timers Cookbook

"me 'n Mama: How we raised eight kids and survived."

Charlotte helped Mama and Daddy edit and typeset the second, third and fourth book. Mama edited and co-authored "me 'n Mama." She published her own autobiography, and George Ray Robinson and Charlotte Tessie Page: Their Ancestor, Themselves and their Posterity.

Everyone who visited the One-Book Bookstore and met Walter Swan, whether they bought a book or not, they walked out feeling good for having been in the presence a first-class storyteller. He never missed the opportunity to shares a little of his homespun philosophy (Mormonism) with them.

They made a lot of money from the books they sold in the One Book Bookstore, but they didn't let it go to their heads. Mama probably knows how much they made, but that doesn't matter. What matters is how they used it. I don't know how many grandchildren they helped get ready for their missions or helped while they were on their missions. Whatever was asked for was freely given, without hesitation.

Always be kind. Have a good attitude. And never give up.

Daddy first heard these words at a Church conference. Gordon B. Hinkley was the presiding authority. He said to the leaders, "If you don't remember anything else from this conference, remember this: "Always be kind. Have a good attitude. And never give up." Daddy remembered the words. He wrote and asked for permission to use them in connection with his bookstore. President Hinkley responded with a personal letter to Daddy's request. He gave permission to use the quote in connection with the work he was doing. Mama and Daddy had posters and bookmarks made and gave them away by the thousands. Some of those posters have opened doors for the missionaries around the world.

Maybe one of the reasons Daddy remembered the words President Hinkley said was because they exemplified the way he had lived his life. The words are now engraved on his headstone. Walter James Swan passed away 30 October 1994 in Hereford, Arizona.

If you would like to buy a copy of:

"me 'n Henry"

"me 'n Mama" or

How to Be a Better Me

Contact:

Deloris Swan

4048 W. Yorkshire Dr.

South Jordan, UT 84095-9636

Phone: 801-282-6577

Send your comments about this page to: jswan8@cox.net

Last Modified 26 January 2005