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Monday, July 7, 2014

1926 Ogden, Utah my Dad's Dad (Vern & father George) owned a Livestock Commission Company.

This is the only picture I have of my dad taken with his dad.  If Dad’s memory is correct this picture was taken eighty seven years ago this month. It's hard to see but, Grandfather George Tomlinson is wearing a long sleeved shirt and tie and Dad has hot looking wooly chaps on.  Also, Dad's hat is not worn like a cowboy would wear a hat he has it more on the back of his head and not forward like a real cowboy.   I wonder if his Dad coaxed him to pull his hat down to look more like a rugged cowboy. The picture’s caption is in Dad’s own handwriting.  The Newspaper article featured here was in the Ogden Examiner of the evening of 31 March, 1926 that I just recently found.  I was so pleased to find it because if verifies just what Dad writes about this in his personal history only he remembers it happening in 1928.   It would be a few years later [1931] when his parents separated.  At that time they were living in Stockton, California.  Dad moved with his mother and sister to live with his grandparents in Albion, Idaho.  Dad would never see him or hear from him again.  His father George died in 1959 while living in Fresno, California.
The arrow reads:  Vern W. Tomlinson aged 13; son of George Tomlinson of Ogden secured 51 cents per pound for this Hereford yearling steer, a total of $504.90.
This is what Dad wrote about raising a Hereford Steer:


My Dad’s business was managing or owning a livestock commission company.  He bought and sold cattle, sheep and hogs to others on a commission basis.  In January 1928, [1926] Dad noticed that a calf had been born to a young cow Herford, that was a part of a carload of fat cattle entered in the Ogden Livestock Show.  Dad bought the calf for $25.00.  He also found a Guernsey cow ready to freshen in a day or so.  In two days the Guernsey cow did freshen and both calves were put with her to feed on rich Guernsey milk.  I was declared the owner of the Hereford calf and the other calf was converted to veal after a couple of months.  Dad found a fine pasture with plenty of grass in the Huntsville area and the Hereford calf with his adopted mother spent the entire summer growing and getting fat.  In September the cow and calf were brought to Dad’s place in the Ogden Stockyards, put in a more confined corral, and fed grain, chopped hay as well as the rich cow’s milk.  In January the calf, nearing eight hundred pounds, was entered in the Ogden Stock Show where he won first place in the junior division.  Since the Salt Lake Stock show was in early March it was decided that the steer should be entered in that show.  He was, and he won the prize for the open class, and also he was declared “Grand Champion” of the show.  He was sold at the stock show action for fifty one cents a pound.  Over $500.00 of the money was deposited in the Utah Savings and Loan.  All of the money was to have been used to pay my tuition at Utah State Agriculture College in Logan.  Unfortunately, this period of time was the beginning of the “Great Depression” and the Utah Savings and Loan soon folded its doors.  All of the money for my college education was lost.  I received a great experience but no money.

It makes me wonder if the money had not been lost and Dad did go to college at Logan, what he would have set his sights on; the livestock business or a school teacher.  I can't imagine Dad being anything but just what he did; a schoolteacher/ administrator.

Renée

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