ORLIN ROMRELL OLESON
A BRIEF AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Having been asked by our Prophet to keep a history of the important events in our lives, I make a few notes of my past life as I remember them. Having been born of goodly parents, Oley Charles Henry Oleson and Fannie Amelia Romrell, I do hereby give thanks to the Lord for my life here on this earth in the period of time when the gospel is here on the earth and for having been blessed to be a member of His church.
I was born in Hooper, Weber County, Utah on March 3, 1904, the first son of my parents. We lived in Hooper for one year after my birth, at which time my parents moved to South Hooper, now West Point, Davis County, Utah and this community became my home until 1962.
Being a bright lad, I knew my age before my second birthday. One of my earliest memories is the birth of my brother, Horace, I being about two and one half years old at the time. Mother had a hired girl or lady helping her at the time of his birth. She stayed two or three weeks and cared for the baby. When she left I remember asking mother, “Why did that lady leave her baby here?”
The land was in a primitive condition when we moved here, being covered with cactus and Russian thistle. It was in those early years when I could hardly walk that I was watching Father pump water for the cows near the house. I must have got in the way of a large cow so she gave me a push with her head and tipped me over. I do not remember receiving any harm from it.
A few years later I remember being in the field with Father. When he came home for dinner he let me ride one of the horses home. As the horse neared the barn it began to trot. I had all I could do to hang on. The barn door was open and the horse ran right in. The door was not high enough for both of us to go in so I was scraped off his back. I hung to the roof of the shed as long as I could, then dropped off.
When I was a child of 8 or 9 years old, my father was driving horses on a wagon and had a potato digger tied behind the wagon. The tongue of the potato digger was tied behind the wagon. I wanted to ride on the digger tongue which father let me do. We had not gone far when I fell off sideways. I turned over on my stomach just in time for the wheels to pass by. The digger
wheel had large lugs or blades on the wheel about ten inches apart and about three inches tall. The wheel passed over me in the small of my back. One of those lugs would have gone right through my back if it had struck in the right place. But because of the blessings of the Lord the wheel passed over my back with one lug on each side of my back and did not hurt me at all. I got up and went home on the wagon with a thankful heart.
The first work I can remember was raking hay. Father had just bought a new foot dump rake, so I drove the horse around the yard to try it out. From then I went on to other team work such as cutting hay and plowing, driving three horses on a riding plow. After my brother, Horace, was old enough to handle the horses I took over the cows, milking them night and morning, separating the milk and feeding the calves (the skim milk went to the pigs). Separating the milk was done by a machine that separated the cream from the milk. The cream was sold or mother made it into butter which was sold in order to buy other groceries. After the chores were done it seems like my whole life was taken up hoeing weeds and hoeing around tomato plants so they would grow better.
It was hard labor as I remember it, but was made pleasant by day dreams of the future. I remember we (Horace and Lee Thurgood and I) were thinning beets when we heard and saw the first airplane that came to Utah. It came in from California across the lake having followed the railroad as a guide to Ogden.
After enjoyable childhood days in the West Point School, I went to the North Davis High School for a time, then located in Syracuse (about three miles south of our home). The building is now destroyed.
Being the oldest boy in the family it was my pleasure each evening to take a short walk with my mother. At such times she would tell me of the prophet Eli who worked in the temple and how Samuel, while still a child, helped in the temple. I grew up with a desire to be like Samuel. All my life I have had that desire. Because of Mother’s teachings I began early to work in the Church as an officer in the Deacon’s and Teacher’s Quorums, and was a regular attendant at church.
Because of living apart from the neighborhood gang, I was left out of many pranks of boyhood days, which now I am glad of.
During these years I looked forward to preparing for a mission. While serving in the presidency of the Aaronic Priesthood quorums I enjoyed reading the Book of Mormon through before I was 18 and there received my first real testimony of the gospel. As I read the words of the prophets about people here in America and of the coming of the Savior in 600 years and then followed with the fulfillment of these prophecies and the events that took place at the Savior’s death, I was very much impressed. I knew that the boy prophet could not have done it on his own.
On November 11, 1924, I was called to serve as a missionary in the Canadian Mission presided over at that time by Elder Joseph Quincey, and the experiences I had the following two years greatly strengthened my testimony. In December 1924 I left for the Canadian Mission and the Winnipeg District. I had a very active and faithful companion, Elder Levit, who helped me to get started.
On July 12, 1925 the North Central States Mission was organized and my field of labor in Manitoba was included in the new mission. I labored there until 14 December 1926 under John G. Allred, the first President of the new Mission.
It was my privilege to labor in Winnipeg and Port Arthur, Canada, and Virginia, Cloquet and Duluth, Minnesota. The Annie Storyack family of Winnipeg was a source of great joy to me and they all joined the Church, for which I thank the Lord.
Soon after my arrival in the mission field, I had an experience that gave me to know that the Lord was with his missionaries, especially me. One experience I want to relate. I was asked to participate in administering to a sick sister, and specifically to consecrate the oil. I had never done this before, but did not hesitate to start, and after calling upon the name of the Lord, I realized I did not know how to proceed. Then a marvelous thing happened. To my ears came the voice of Bishop George R. Bennett giving me the words to use as I had heard this ordinance many times in our ward fast meetings. I repeated the words as they were given to me. The Lord revealed them to me by the power of the Holy Ghost. It was a marvelous experience to me.
After about 7 months I moved to Port Arthur, Ontario for 6 to 8 months. The rest of the time was in and around Duluth, Minnesota. The people in Port Arthur were very hard to approach. I do not feel that we accomplished very much in this city. We did have some families of faithful saints. While in this city I bought a small pearl-handled pocket knife in 1925 which I have to this day (1977). I keep it with me as I serve in the temple.
On 14 December 1926 I was released from the mission field and returned home. I began to teach Sunday School and help my father on the farm. Melvin J. Ballard ordained me a Seventy on 12 February 1928. A year later President B. H. Roberts set me apart as a president in the 136th Quorum of the Seventies on 17 February 1929 where I truly enjoyed the companionship of my brethren for sixteen years. During those years I filled two stake missions and labored in the presidency of the MIA and as Sunday School Superintendent.
In 1944 I was called to be second counselor to Bishop George Q. Bennett replacing Roland Montgomery who had moved to Idaho. Loy F. Blake was First Counselor. Our labors together were pleasant and we were blessed. The Bishopric was reorganized in February 1947 when Bishop Bennett and his wife went on a mission to Wales. For a short time I taught the Gospel Doctrine class in Sunday School. On 6 July 1947 I was called to fill another Stake Mission which was truly a source of great joy to me. I ‘ve never enjoyed anything more in my life.
Soon after my release on 12 November 1950 I was made scoutmaster. While I was Boy Scout leader I took the scouts to the Church Centennial in 1947, one hundred years since the pioneers came to Utah, and took about twelve scouts for three or four days. It was during that Scouting Centennial Jamboree that the “This is the Place Monument” was dedicated. I really enjoyed my work with the boys and considered it a choice privilege. I had many aspirations in the Scouting program when I was called to be Bishop of the West Point Ward in the fall of 1951. I was ordained and set apart September 30, 1951 by Joseph Fielding Smith and served for about seven years with Lynn Criddle and Grant P. King as my counselors. It was very enjoyable and I felt the Spirit directing me in my work.
After my release as Bishop in 1957 I enjoyed my work as the Stake Genealogy Director on the High Council for five years until we moved to Bountiful in July 1962. While living in Bountiful I have served as Executive Secretary and Assistant Ward Clerk to two Bishops. We enjoy our neighbors and friends here in the Fifth Ward. We have lived in four wards and four stakes and have found many friends in each place.
*****************************************
About six months after returning from my mission I received a call from a lady missionary I had met in the mission field. We soon became very good friends and were married about a year later, on August 1, 1928. Lolabell has been a wonderful wife and companion, very faithful and devoted to me and the Church. She is what I call a perfect mother to the children, very thrifty and she always planned well to make our earnings go as far as possible. She is always very pleasant and cheerful to be around. Everybody loves her. She is the kind of person I feel would make a perfect mother in Heaven.
After our marriage, we lived a few months in the basement of Father’s home. After the harvest was gathered I began to build a small four room house on part of the old homestead in West Point. I just finished two rooms and one (white) out-house. It was all bare plaster walls with a few boxes for furniture. We did have a nice bedroom set. It was home and we added to it as the time went on and as we needed more room. All of our children were born while we were in this house. We had to save water for two days to get enough to wash clothes. We planted trees and grass and later built a hay barn and some sheds. We loved our home. Our life in West Point was good and we were very happy.
I farmed for a few years but began building in the summer of 1936 and have made a living at that vocation to the present time.
I have enjoyed my life and home and family. We have raised seven very fine children: LouJane, LaNett, Elaine, Gwen, Garner, Lucy and Isabell Jean. When Elaine died after an operation on October 24, 1974 it was the first death of about 90 descendants in my father’s (Oley C. Oleson) family. It left a great void in our family that was hard to fill. LouJane filled a mission in the Northern States (1950-52), Garner served in the East Central States (1958-60) and Isabell in Sweden (1968-70). At this date several of our grandchildren have filled missions and we hope for many more. All of the children enjoy working in the church which is a wonderful blessing to us as well as to them. Our family has also been blessed with good health.
Fifty years ago, a short time after my marriage, I took Lolabell to Salt Lake City to look for a lot or spot that I might build a small two-room house that was close to the temple where we could live in our old age and do the temple work for our people that have passed on without hearing of the gospel. We located a lot but did not buy it at that time, nor did we ever. A call came, however, when I was still 55 years old, to serve in the Salt Lake Temple three days a week. At the time of my call we were just beginning to get ahead a little financially. We had a son on a mission and two children still at home and we wondered if we could live on what we could make while only working three days each week.
I had thought of working in the temple when and if I ever retired but hadn’t anticipated it so soon. When we received the call, as we talked it over, we decided to put the Lord’s work first, realizing we might not be here when I retired and if I could not make a living I could leave the temple and go back to work. We have got along fine and the Lord has blessed us to do better than we did before.
A couple of years later we decided to move to Bountiful (closer to the Temple) but wondered how we could live at West Point and go to the temple three days a week and ever get a house built. It all worked out well. It took about six months to get it to the point where we could live in it and finish it later. Since that time I have built two duplexes in Woods Cross, two other houses besides the one we now live in and bought one additional duplex. The part that is so impressive to me is that it takes many people a whole life time to pay for one house, while I never did receive very high wages — from 35¢ to $1.25 an hour, up to the time I started working in the temple, and have never been employed since that time. We were able to pay cash for all of the houses I have built and never borrowed money and have never been in debt for any of them.
The first ten years in Bountiful we, and I must say we, for I could not have done any of it without my wife and the Lord, built a new house or duplex every other year and paid for it as we went along. We have always paid a full tithing and a little extra. The Lord has kept his promise to open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that we could hardly receive it. It has really been a blessing to live this close to the temple and to be serving in the House of the Lord and for Lolabell and I to serve together at least part of the time.
During the last five or six years [written in 1977] we have been able to help missionaries, our family, as well as 12 or more from foreign countries who would never have been able to do missionary work without some help, also some from our own stake through the High Priest and Seventies quorums. We just received a picture of one from Uruguay and one from Chile who are just beginning their work.
At this time of life, we both have to give up the heavy labor and now are doing name extracting or recording the names from Scottish records to be prepared for temple work. It is interesting how the Spirit works with us. We always ask for the Lord’s blessings when we begin reading the names, some of which are very faint after two or three hundred years, and poorly written, but the Spirit helps us to tell what they were supposed to be.
One time I remember very well when part of the name was very poorly written and very faint, so I decided to write the part that I could read, feeling maybe I could then tell the rest. After writing what I could, I looked at the name again. It was just as plain as could be ALEXANDER JACK. So I wrote it down and looked up again, but could not see anything like that.
It is very restful work. About a year later I did the temple work for ALEXANDER JACK and remembered the experience. I felt sure he had or would receive it. When the stake was divided we were released from that work.
About the same time we were called to work in the Temple, six of my friends about my same age died very unexpectedly, all in one year. I began to wonder if I would be next. So to put the Lord’s work first we decided to work in the temple while we could and take what comes.
One of the six died of cancer and was sick for some time. After his death he came back to his brother–in-law, who was very sick with a bad heart and not expected to live, and said “I have been given so much work to do I need help and there is no one I would like to have help me more than you.” The brother-in-law begged off, saying, “I am not ready to go now.” (He had been very active in the Church at this time). “If you will allow me to stay I will take care of your widow and the child so they will not need for the necessary things of life. The brother-in-law soon got well and is still well 25 years later. About ten days after this, his cousin who had just retired and was free to go, took sick and died. I always felt that he went to take the place of the one that was not ready.