Darrell Kunz History
Darrell was born on August 26, 1918 at the family ranch. He was born with a hair-lip, but a very skillful doctor performed surgery on him when he was very young. The only evidence was a small scar under his nose. I only remember my parents talking about it so the surgery was probably done before I was born.
He never liked school very much. Our dad felt like every boy should have a trade and would have raked up the money for them to go to a trade school, but he never succeeded in getting any of the boys to go.
Darrell had the nickname of "Dutch." When he was just learning to talk, Uncle Ern couldn't understand him so he called him a Dutchman and the name just stuck.
Dutch had a group of friends: Leon and Linnell Hadfield, Jesse Scothern, Dale Kemp and other who joined in when they got together to play their instruments and sing. Jesse played the accordion, the Hadfield twins played guitars, Dutch a mouth organ and Dale a banjo.
Jesse was his best friend. He had his own car, which was quite unusual then; most kids couldn't afford a car. Jesse came to get Dutch a lot of times, but if he didn't he would ask Dad for the car. Dad would tell him he could take it if he would take me. (This was mostly to dances.) All of the wards had dances. We would go all over the valley: Fielding, Penrose, Elwood, Bothwell, Bear River City. They always had live bands.
I think Dad thought if he took me, he wouldn't drink as much. But I wasn't much influence in that field. I was always dancing. He would go outside and never let me see him drink, but I always knew and I would ask him to let me drive home. Then we would go to one of the boys or their girlfriend's home to play the instruments and sing after the dance. We didn't usually go to our house at night, because we had babies asleep. However, sometimes on Sunday they would come and our mother would sing and dance with us. She always made them feel welcome.
Dutch would go to the farm and help Dad. When school was out we all went to the farm until it was time for school to start again in the fall. We would always come to town on Saturdays to shop and wash and go to church. Dad and Darrell would have to go back out to milk the cows. Then they would come back in time for church. As soon as church was out in the evening we would have to go back to the ranch for another week.
Dutch always had a saddle horse that he loved to ride. The last one he had was name "Old Jane." She became ill with brain fever and died. Oh, how we both cried! She was such a good horse!
We had a model "T" Ford, and although the ranch was only about 14 miles away, it would take about an hour to drive there and we always had lots of flat tires.
Oh, yes, I have to mention "The Hole." It was a bowling alley under the only hotel in town. They had pool tables and game machines. I think they sold beer, too. If we ever needed Dutch we would always go to "The Hole" to see if he was hanging out there.
When he quit school, he would go to the ranch and help Dad. He also worked for our neighbors, the Stohls, herding turkeys, which he hated. All the boys did it at one time or another and they all hated it, because the turkeys would stir up so much dust that they had to wear red bandanas over their mouths and noses to be able to breathe.
We always had a beet vacation in October. This was so all the farmer could get their sugar beets hauled to the factory. The beets were dug by hand and topped. So it took a lot of hands to do it. So we would have two weeks off from school. During the depression, Dad, Darrell, Eveline and I all went because it was the only job available and we needed the money, but it wasn't a pleasant job either.
Our neighbor in town, Aaron Weese, hauled milk over to Cache Valley. He would go all over the valley and pick up milk cans and deliver them to the milk plant. This was a hard job, too, because the cans were usually ten gallon cans. When they were full they were very heavy and hard to heave up onto the truck. Dutch helped him haul milk.
He did eventually get a car, a Model "A" Ford, that he was proud of.
When Wayne joined our family, Dutch had an old truck. He, Clenton, Eldon, Aaron Weese and Wayne all went to Cutler Dam to fish. They brought the truck back loaded with carp and suckers. They had fished with pitch forks. This was a new experience for Wayne.
Dutch and Clenton came down to Clearfield some time after we moved there. They slept in our garage on cots and worked at the navy base for a few months. We just had a two bedroom house with no basement. So that was the only place for them to sleep, as we had Marion and David in the other bedroom. It was probably around 1948. Wayne can remember Dutch making pancakes on our gas range. He thought it was wonderful to cook on. He had never cooked on a gas range before. This was when I went to the hospital to have David, in March of 1948.
I don't know how long he was in the C.C.C.'s. They had to sign up for a six month hitch. I think he may have signed up for more than one hitch. Then he went into the army. He had to have a physical to go overseas. They said his feet were too flat. They didn't think he could take the force marches so they released him. I don't know how long he was in the army either, but it was while we were in Maryland which was from 1942 to the fall of 1944, I believe.
He married Mabel Bingglei on the 21 June 1944. They were divorced in 1953. He married Thelma Emmance on 23 April 1957. I don't know exactly when they moved to the state of Washington, nor do I know why they chose to go there. She died a few years before he did, but I don't have the dates on that either.
I don't know when he was declared legally blind, but he developed glaucoma. He had a friend of his, Millie Jones write and tell me. She said that he was registered to receive a seeing eye dog, but his name was way down the list. His turn never came before he died.
At the time of his death, he was working in a nursery. He had taken a couple of days off thinking he had the flu. He went back to work on Sunday, because he knew they were short of help, but he hadn't worked many hours when he died of a heart attack.
In his possessions that they sent me was a pass to ride the Seattle Transit system. It said that he could take a seeing eye dog. I think he must have had some vision or he wouldn't have been able to work at the nursery, but it must have been very limited.
The Highway Patrol came to my door to tell me about his death. They wanted to know what to do with his body. I told them to ship it to Tremonton. When his body came it was in a wooden box, but I couldn't see burying him in that. So the rest of the family helped me buy a proper casket. The funeral was at Roger's Mortuary and he was buried in the family plot in Tremonton.
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