--Background Journal----Personal Journal-- --History & Travel Journal Book 1-- --History & Travel Journal book 2-- --Family Journal----Privacy Journal for my Descendants--

After graduation in 1956 I went to work selling magazines, where I traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, Lincoln, Grand Island, Omaha, Kearney, North Platte, Kimball, Scottsbluff, Boys Town, Chimney Rock National Historic Site, Nebraska. Lincoln Nebraska is the capital of the state and home of the University of Nebraska. You can see the towering 400-foot shaft of the modern Capitol for across Nebraska's prairie. Omaha Nebraska is a railway center, and the state's largest city. From Omaha the first transcontinental railway was built across the prairies. Points of interest include the Union Passenger Terminal, the Union Stockyards, and meat-packing plants. The Joslyn Memorial, tribute to the founder of Nebraska Western Newspaper Union, houses an art gallery and a concert hall. Salt Lake City Utah is the capital of the State of Utah, home of the University of Utah, and one of the most beautiful cities in America. Wide and shaded streets, green lawns of beautiful home and spacious grounds of the Capitol are in sharp contrast to the encroaching desert. The Capitol itself holds a masterful exhibit of the resources and the means by which this green empire has been wrested from an arid wasteland. Famous all over the world are the beautiful Mormon Temple and the Tabernacle with its great dome put together with wooden pegs; in its auditorium a 10,000 pipe, hand-built organ is played every noon in public concert. Nearby are Great Salt Lake and the Great Salt Lake Desert. After selling magazines I went to Rosemead, California to my uncle Wayne and aunt Delta Evans Bertrum's home. Los Angeles is a great city in the center of far-flung orange groves and other agriculture and of an important oil-producing area. It is rich in manufactures, with a fine harbor, and its superb beaches are an unexcelled resort attraction. Fine residential sections, handsome gardens and parks, flowers are exotic masses of color--for these Los Angeles is famous. Catalina Island is famous Resorts Island where fishing and boating are prime attractions. Hollywood is the famous world motion picture capital. Pasadena is the home of the famed Rose Bowl. Here each January 1 the Tournament of Roses take place. I also whet to Coloma California, the site of the Sutter's Sawmill, where discovery of gold in 1848 precipitated the California gold rush. Placerville, a few miles south, was a typical "rip-roaring" camp and a station for Pony Express, Overland Mail, and freight. San Francisco is the city of the world, of the hills, and of the sea. The Golden Gate Bridge links it with the mainland to the north; the Bay Bridge connects it with Oakland, across San Francisco Bay; by a narrow neck of land its peninsula joins the mainland. Twin Peaks Scenic Drive offers a superb view of the city, bay, waterfront, and suburban cities across the bay. The Redwoods all along the northern half of California coast are spectacular. From Mill Creek Redwoods State Park in the north to the Big Basin Redwoods State Park south of San Francisco, the coastal area is a series of state parks and groves. William Kiven Wakley was born on 23 January 1957 at Downey Idaho. In 1958 the Boise-Stanley Highway Association was established. Voters defeat "Right to Work" initiative. Cory Ray Wakley was born on 16 May 1958 at Downey Idaho. In 1959 Brownlee Dam was completed on the Snake River. I had a secret crush on Sallie Fay Hess from Malad Idaho around this time. Cherished Friend: God must have known there would be times we'd need a word of cheer someone to praise a triumph or brush away a tear. He must have known we'd need to share The joy of "little things" In order to appreciate The happiness life brings. I think he knew our troubled hearts would sometimes throb with pain at trials and misfortunes or some goals we can't attain. He knew we'd need the comfort of an understanding heart to give us strength and courage to make a fresh, new start. He knew we'd need companionship Unselfish...lasting...trues, and so God answered the heart's great need with a CHERISHED FRIEND.... Like you.
A Smile: I hope you woke up this morning with a big smile on your face. .I hope the sun is shining just for you and the birds are singing their very best songs ... I hope your coffee is hot and tastes just right and the cats are purring contentedly, and the mailman waves a cheery hello and there are no bills in the post ... I hope that your day is filled with lovely surprises and friends call you up just to say "Hi" ... I hope you feel on top of the world with a spring in your step all day ... I hope just everything goes your way ... I hope everything is well with your world, a place for everything and everything in it's place ... I hope you can enjoy all you do and you are complimented on the way you look and you can laugh and talk and share to your heart's content ... I hope you have all you wish for yourself and those dear to you, and all your dreams come true ... and at the end of the day I wish you a perfect moon shining just for you, a snug and cozy bed with the softest of pillows and I hope you sleep like a lamb with a smile on your face ... I hope you have a perfect end to the perfect day and I hope that every day is just as wonderful in it's own way

I went back to Idaho and worked on the Cunningham Farms in Downey Idaho and with my brother La Mont at Holbrook Idaho in Oneida country for a farmer until I went into the Army on the 29th of April 1958. I went on a tour of Idaho before I went into the U.S. Army. Boise is the Capital and largest city in the center of a rich agricultural and mining region. Twin Falls is the center of a great-irrigated agricultural region. Sun Valley is a world-famous winter sports resort, popular also with summer tourists. To the northwest is the Lost River Range that includes Borah, Idaho's highest mountain (12,662). Also when I was a Boy Scout we came to this same area just northwest of Borah to a place called Big Lake. The Primitive Area of the Selway-Bitterroot, the Frank Church River of No Return, and the Gospel Hump Wideness Area is in central Idaho, 4,422,000 acres in Boise, Challis, and Sawtooth National Forests; access is by pack-train only to rugged mountains, gigantic precipices, and sheer canyons. Hells Canyon of the Snake River is a spectacular canyon along the Snake at the Oregon boundary. From four to nine miles wide and almost 8,000 feet deep at some points, its walls are red, purple, and yellow. Crater of the Moon National Monument is a volcanic area of craters, cinder cones, lava flows, and stalactite caves, resembling craters on the moon. Idaho Falls is in the center of a rich farming region.
One of the most beautiful places in the world was at Deer Cliff Inn up Club River Road and FR 407 in the Cache National Forest when I live in the 1950's. I went to Deer Cliff about every weekend that I could go there in 1957. Deer Cliff is a cliff that years ago a heard of deer came running over the top and fell down into the canyon and they all died. Deer Cliff is by Franklin Idaho.
At Weston Canyon, a familiar site in eastern Oneida County is "Standing Rock" located on Highway 36 which connects the Malad Valley with Weston in northern Cache Valley. In 1843 John C. Fremont and his exploration party passed through the canyon after their exploration of Bear River and Great Salt Lake. Fremont noted the ecology and geology of the canyon as well as Indians living in a limestone cave there. In addition, his map maker Charles Preuss made a pen and ink drawing of a huge upright rock which had fallen from nearby canyon wall. Fremont called it the Standing Rock, and it remains just as Fremont and Preuss saw it over 150 years ago. Many travelers enjoy climbing the base of Standing Rock to read the plaque, which has been mounted in commemoration of Fremont's passage. Hundreds of millions of years ago this area was the floor of a shallow Inland Sea. Through time, mud and shells of sea organisms collected on the sea bottom forming, respectively, shale and limestone formations. In time, the land uplifted, the sea disappeared and running water into the present Weston Canyon, southeast of Malad, eroded the shale-limestone mass. Significantly, Weston Canyon lies along the north shoreline of Ancient Lake Bonneville. This lake formed during glacial times. 10,000 to two million years ago, in which glacial meltwater filled the basin stretching south from southeastern Idaho to near present day Provo, Utah and west from the Wasatch Front range to the Utah-Nevada border. Lake Bonneville was the size of Lake Michigan, about 20,000 square miles: Salt Lake City would have been 1000 feet under water. Approximately 15,000 years ago, part of the Idaho shoreline east of Weston Canyon at Red Rock Pass collapsed sending a wall of water about 300 feet high down the canyon to the Portneuf River and into the Snake River near Pocatello. For a period of about 6 months the flood volume equaled 3-4 times that of the Amazon River. With the progressive warming of the climate over the last 10,000 years, the remaining lake water simply evaporated away. Great Salt Lake is today a puddle in the Ancient Lake basin. Various Lake Bonneville shorelines are readily evident. Mountains usually display a series of "stair step" features where the lake cut into them. Sharp mountains to the south of Weston Canyon show these nicely. During the time of the lake, it would have been an island. At the southern end of Weston Canyon heading towards the community of Weston displays an excellent Lake Bonneville shoreline.
Malad City was settled by Mormons in 1864m received its name from the nearby Malad River. The stream was known among the early fur traders and trappers as "Sickly Waters". "Sick River", or "Malad." There are several versions of just how this came about.
Trappers became violently ill from eating the beaver caught in this stream. It was thought this was caused because the beaver had been on a diet of wild parsnip, common to the area, which did not harm the beaver but was very harmful to those who partook of the flesh of the beaver. Some reports are, drinking the waters of the stream near the salty mineral spring between Malad City and the present Utah State line caused the sickness. At any rate, the name stuck. Another river in Idaho, near Bliss, also bears the name of Malad.
In the summer of 1843 John C. Fremont's party of 39 men passed the spot where Malad City now stands and found a small encampment of Indians who were not very well fed. Fremont commented on the disappearance of the herds of buffalo caused by the trappers and buffalo hunters who had been so active in these valleys since the establishment of Fort Hall in 1834. When Fremont attempted to buy food from the Indians here, they opened their blankets, showing their starved bodies.
Corbett's Station was settled in the 1870's, this was a stage station in what was then Oneida County. It was named for Mrs. Elmira Corbett who was postmistress and operator of the Inn Langley.
Woodruff was a Mormon community, on the southern end of the Malad Valley, was called Muddy Creek by its first residents, after the creek by the same name that went through it. The name came from the heavy spring runoffs that caused the water in the creek to be dirty. In 1891 it was renamed Woodruff, for Wilford Woodruff, one time president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
At one time the Cherry Creek LDS Ward consisted of four villages, namely, Two-Mile Creek, Willow Springs, Cherry Creek and Henderson Creek. Each village grew up around a spring that flowed from the mountains to the east. No one knows for sure how Cherry Creek got its name, but it is assumed it came from the choke cherry trees that are abundant in the area. Cherry Creek as a settlement dates back to 1865.
In the spring of 1869, when David Jones went to Malad Valley, there were two houses on Muddy Creek and five on Henderson Creek. Henderson Creek was named after a man by that name. Henderson was not a permanent settler, but came up to Malad Valley to raise grain. The first permanent settlers were two men, named respectively Powell and Murdock. The small farming area between Woodruff and Cherry Creek took on the name of the creek that ran through it.
St. John is a farming community located northwest of Malad City. Tradition has it that LDS Apostle Lorenzo Snow had traveled from Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1875 to dedicate a cemetery here. As he was preparing to give the prayer, he asked what name had been chosen. No one knew, but someone suggested Saint John. Everyone agreed, so the name was adopted for the cemetery, the community and the LDS Ward.
Daniels is located about twenty miles northwest of Malad City; Daniels is in farming country originally kown as the head of the Malad. Daniel M. Daniels is known to have settled the first farming operation in Daniels. He and his four sons, Russell, Roy, Dan and Luther, farmed with horses and mowed hay and ran cattle throughout the entire head of Malad. The family called the settlement "The Dugout". While freighting, Dan Daniels had many interesting experiences with the Indians. One trip, on this was to Montana, he met three Indians. They were coming on their horses on a dead run all painted up and on the warpath. They were armed with rifles and one was waving a woman's scalp from the end of a long stick. Luck was with him for they passed right on.
Pleasantview is nestled at the foot of the mountains on the west side of the Malad Valley, it is said this rural Mormon settlement was named for its location which commands a fair view of Malad Valley. As the story goes, A Sunday School and community was suggested by Sarah Jones, wife of Lewis D. Jones, the first Sunday School Superintendent. She is said to have gone out on the porch of the home they were meeting in and looked over the valley and exclaimed, "Oh what a pleasant view!" Everyone agreed and it has been known by that by the name ever since.
John Jones, who settled there in 1890, applied for and was granted a post office in 1896, which he named for his daughter Gwen, named Gwenford. This early settlement was located between Pleasantview and Samaria.
A Mormon settlement in 1868, located in the southwest corner of the Malad Valley, this community was once bigger than Malad. Early records indicated that the Bible—which its early pioneer settlers named it after the famed Good Samaritan because of the love and charity exhibited, inspired its name. The year that Samaria got its name Elder Lorenzo Snow, then of the Council of the Twelve Apostles, made a trip to the little community to form a Ward, give advice on community and family living, and to form a townsite. He instructed Elder Price, one of the settlement's founders, to make square blocks with wide streets following the pattern set by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. To beautify the valley he gave each family some seeds that he had brought from Italy to be planted on the West Side of each field. The seeds were Lombardy poplar and were supposed to help protect the crops from the hot, scorching sun and wind, and also reach up high enough to receive moisture from the air for the fields.
Over the hill in Pocatello Valley, Ridgedale was named in 1914 because the first settlers located on a ridge above the spring in a dale.
Holbrook is a rural farming community, in the western end of Oneida County, took its name from its post office and a church leader. Tradition has it that the post office, established here in 1902, was called Holbrook, from Heber A. Holbrook, the local Mormon bishop. The settlement of Holbrook dates back to the year 1878, when a Mr. Joyce arrived here and built a rock house in which a shelter and protect his family from the wild animals and Indians.
Black Pine lies in Black Pine Valley along I-84. It's not clear whether the town or the valley first bore the name, which refers to the stand of Black Pine (Pinus Jeffreyi) in the vicinity.
Lost Treasure? – Some still dream of solving the mystery of the "Iron Door". When the stagecoach ran through Malad to Montana there were numerous holdups on the route because of the many miles of wild, unprotected country through which the road passed. Mining activity in Montana and the trade that resulted had put much gold on the move, and a lot of it was carried on the stage between Butte and Salt Lake City.
During this period three tough-looking strangers showed up in a Utah town, possibly Corinne. A fire destroyed several buildings and among the rubble was a bank vault-type door made of iron. The door was still usable so the men purchased it, loaded it on a wagon and disappeared north. There they had a hidden campsite near what is now the Utah-Idaho border in south central Idaho. Somehow they managed to install the iron door over the mouth of a cave in a solid granite ledge where they hid the loot from their robberies.
Regardless of who is telling the story, the next chapter begins with a bang! One of the three robbers shows up at a ranch, weakened from fever and loss of blood, asking for help. When it is evident that his life cannot be saved, he recites the story of the holdup men, the hidden camp, and of the iron door protecting the loot. As most criminals do, these robbers had a falling out and in the fight that followed they were all wounded and one escaped the mine leaving his companions locked inside to die. Then the bad guy slipped away into the great beyond without leaving any detailed instructions to lead the way to the mine.
Located about seven miles southwest of Malad City, the Samaria Mountains have had a history of ""talking" to announce spring ever since the earliest settlers moved into the valley. Even before that the Washakie Indians, who were native to the area, had noticed. They had a legend that it was the spirits talking in the mountains.
Most of the people living near the mountains describe the phenomenon as a medium soft rumble coming from the mountain sporadically during the spring of the year. "It's a sound all of its own," they say. "When you hear them rumble, you know for sure it's them. And when it happens, even the animals perk up their ears and take notice." Ralph Hughes, who has lived at the base of the mountains all of his life and has heard them talk every spring for the last 78 years, likens the sound they make to "thunder a long way off" or to "someone blasting way down in Utah." But when you hear the mountains rumble, you know for sure it's them." Residents along the mountain say that springtime is the season when the mountains come alive—when the weather moderates and the snow begins to melt. Hughes says that over the years he has observed that there seems to be more activity on those years when there has been a lot of snowfall. What sets the mountains "talking" is anybody's guess. Some say that the rumbling could be from an avalanche, the wind, or it might be the ground settling. Others jestingly associate the sound with ghosts that are supposed to be trapped behind an Iron Door mine trying to free themselves every spring.
Since the mountain is located in a highly seismic area, some have tried to connect the rumbling with tremor activity coming from deep within the earth, and indeed this would seem logical given the fact that the mountains are located near Pocatello Valley, the center of 1975 earthquake that registered 6.4 on the Richter scale.
Some single out the fact that the "talking" seems to occur regularly at only one certain time of the year as reason to believe that it has another source other than seismically. "It's possible that the sound might have something to do with the movement of underground water in caverns. The Samaria Mountain is a limestone terrain, which dissolves easily so water that lands on it percolates into the ground. "Maybe in the spring of the year, because there is higher runoff, there is more water going into the caverns. As it does, it displaces the air and possibly that's what is causing the rumblings."
Another hypothesis has to do with temperature changes inside under ground caverns. "If there are underground caverns and the temperature of the air inside them is changing." It might cause air to be forced out through a narrow crack, which might cause the noise."

The most watched TV show during the 1950's was in 1950 Texaco Star Theater. 1951 Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. 1952, 1963, 1954, 1956 I love Lucy. 1955 The $64,000 Question. 1957, 1958, 1959 Gunsmoke. Some of the musical's initial Broadway runs during the 1950's was The King and I, The Pajama Game, Gypsy, Guys and Dolls, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and My Fair Lady. Some of the movie during the 1950's was A streetcar Named Desire, East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, Giant, Julius Caesar, On the Waterfront, Roman Holiday, 20,000 leagues under the Sea, The Band Wagon, Carmen Jones, Mister Roberts, D.O.A, The African Queen, Rio Grande, The Moon is Blue, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, Rear Window, A Place in the Sun, Cat on a Hot tin Roof, Shane, Vertigo, The Day the Earth Stood Still, High Noon, Ben-Hur All about Eve, Born yesterday, An American in Paris, The Greatest Show on Earth, Come Back, Little Sheba, From Here to eternity, Stalag 17, The Country Girl, Marty, the Rose Tattoo, Around the World in 80 Days, The King and I, Anastasia,The Bridge on the River Kwai, the Three Faces of Eve, Gigi, Separate Tables, I Want to Live, Room at the Top, and Bedtime for Bonzo. Some of the Pop and Rock song of the 1950's were 1950, Goodnight Irene, It Isn't Fair, Third Man Theme, Mule Train, Mona Lisa, Music! Music! Music!, I Wanna Be Loved, If I know You Were Comin' I'd've Baked a Cake, I Can Dream, Can't I?, and That Lucky Old Sun. 1951 Tennessee Waltz, How High the Moon, Too Young, Be My love, Because of You, On Top of Old Smokey, If, Sin (It's No Sin), Come On-a My House, and Mockin' Bird Hill. 1952 Cry, Blue Tango, Any Time, Delicado, Kiss of fire, Wheel of Fortune, Tell me Why, I'm Yours, Here in My Heart, and Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart. 1953 The Song from Moulin rouge, Till I Waltz Again with You, April in Portugal, Vaya con Dios, I'm Walking Behind You, I Believe, You You You, The Doggie in the Window, Why Don't You Believe Me, and Pretend. 1954 Little Things Mean a Lot, Hey There, Wanted, Young-at-Heart, Sh-Boom, Three Coins in the fountain, Little Shoemaker, Oh! My Pa-Pa, Secret Love, and Happy Wanderer. 1955 (We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock, Ballad of Davy Crockett, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, Melody of Love, Yellow Rose of Texas, Ain't That a Shame, Sincerely, Unchained Melody, The Crazy Otto, and Mr. Sandman. 1956 Don't Be Cruel, the Great Pretender, My Prayer, The Wayward Wind, Whatever Will be, Will Be, Heartbreak Hotel, Lisbon Antigua, Canadian Sunset, Honky Tonk, Moonglow and Theme from Picnic. 1957 Tammy, Love Letters in the Sand, It's Not for Me to Say, Young Love, Chances Are, Little Darlin', Bye Bye Love, All Shook Up, So Rare, Round and Round. 1958 Volar'e (Nel Blu, Dipinto di Blu), It's All in the Game, Patricia, All I have to Do is Dream, Bird Dog, Little Star, Witch Doctor, Twilight Time, Tequila, and At the Hop. 1959 Mack the Knife, The Battle of New Orleans, Venus, Lonely Boy, There Goes My Baby, Personality, The Three Bells, Put Your Head on My Shoulder, Sleep Walk, and Come Softly to Me. What some of the cars cost new during the 1950's was 1951 Nash Rambler $1,732, 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air $2,238, 1953 Kaiser Manhattan $2,650, 1957 Ford Thunderbird $2,408, 1960 Chevrolet Corvette $3,872, and 1956 Cadillac Series 62 $4,711