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1927 Alma 2017

Alma Laverne Riggs

August 29, 1927 — December 10, 2017

Alma LaVern Riggs, jr., 90, finally accomplished the deepest wish of his heart to once again be with his sweetheart when he quietly slipped away from this earthly existence on Sunday, December 10, 2017, following several months of struggle with the ill-effects of old age.
LaVern (also known as “A.L.” in his youth) came into mortality August 29, 1927, born the last of four children and the only son of his parents Alma Laverne Riggs and Dora Marie Winborg Riggs.
Practically from the time he could walk and speak, he was a constant companion with his father Alma, who was a field man for the Amalgamated Sugar Company. Duties of his father’s position included monitoring the sugar beet crop being raised all over the valley, requiring that he drive around to visit with each of the farmers. Alma was also put in as the first mayor of Nibley, and was also involved with the irrigation company. Through all his young years. A.L. went with his Dad in the old truck.
The family had a farm of their own as well, where they raised sugar beets, peas, canning corn, hay, and wheat to provide for the families needs in cash from crop sales, and food for the family and the animals, including horses, dairy cows, pigs, chickens, geese and sheep. A.L. was involved with all of those from a very young age. His first daily chore was to accompany his Dad or Mom as they herded the gaggle of geese and the sheep down to the lower corner of the home place, to pasture for the day. And later on he learned all the ways of caring for the many animals on the farm, as well as planting, cultivating and harvesting all of the crops. Between those chores and going with his Dad in the truck he was truly immersed in farm life, and developed a strong love of all aspects of the farming, and a true knack for making it work well.
His young years were during the Great Depression. He said that he hardly even knew what that was, because the farm provided almost all the food needs for the family, as well as some cash for other things. Every once in a while he was allowed to take a couple of fresh eggs with him on the train into Logan to the Piggly Wiggly and trade them for a few pennies fun money. Everyone learned to be thrifty and innovative, using whatever things they had to make other things they needed.
Lavern was always working, out on the farm and in the shop. He loved building things. He even constructed a shop on the farm from cinder blocks, doing all the work himself. It was during one of his build projects that an accident occurred in which his hands were severely burned, requiring several months to heal during which time he was forced to keep his hands in a certain position and to keep them very clean. He could not use them for anything. He said this was the most embarrassing period of his life as others had to help him with things you usually do for yourself, especially when a young nurse from up the street whom he had known from a young age was assigned to help him.
Lavern put his resourcefulness to good use when he engaged in a design/build project with his high school shop teacher to build a manure loader. They had seen one in pictures and figured out how to make it work. His teacher had excellent resources from war surplus and Lavern used the rear-end of an old truck and its wheel hubs to manufacture a lift mechanism that mounted to the power take-off of the Farmall H tractor they had on the farm, some pipes and hydraulic cylinders to shape the lift frame and bucket. It worked very well and he soon found himself busy hiring out to farmers all over the south end of Cache Valley cleaning their corrals. At least they only had to pitch it off the wagons instead of both ways.
Lavern took over more and more of the farm responsibilities. During WWII his Dad took a job in Ogden working at the 2nd Street Depot, so was gone all day most days. His skills on the farm increased, and his interests focused very strongly on those needs.
He was invited to be examined by the U.S. Army for possible induction into the service in 1944, but was sent home, primarily due to his burn-scarred hands, which had regained only a portion of their original flexibility and it was judged he would not be able to handle a rifle properly. He also had a heart murmur that had become ordinary to himself, but brought his health into question by the Army. (He was called up, some years later. But when asked if his status had changed and answered that he had been married, he was dismissed.)
During his senior year at South Cache High, he began dating girls and going to dances. There were other activities, but dancing was his favorite. About a year after graduating in 1945, he was introduced to a vivacious blonde at the 4th of July, 1946, party at the Dansante, in Logan, Utah. His friend brought Gladys Farrell over because she wanted to see his burned hands, but it took only a look or two for both of them to decide they needed to get out onto the dance floor. Thus began a romance that kept them together for more than 60 years.
1947 found Lavern planning for a big cash crop of sugar beets on the farm. He was very busy with everything on the farm, including the 20 acres of beets, 10 acres of peas and the other crops. His favorite girlfriend, Gladys had moved down to Salt Lake City to work and earn money late in ‘46, and they didn’t see each other at all that spring of ‘47. Lavern had the opportunity to join with the Sons of the Utah Pioneers on their Centennial reenactment of the Mormon Trek across the plains. Lavern was gone eastward for 7 weeks for the Trek, which he described as a very busy travel time with daily events along the way from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Salt Lake City by the 24th of July, 1947. The Trek actually arrived on the 23rd, in time to prepare for the big Pioneer Days events in the city. Fresh from his travels he made his way to the Beehive House downtown SLC, where Gladys was staying, to make final arrangements for them to go on a date to Lagoon later that day. When he showed up there with shaggy beard and dust of the trail all over him, Gladys was a little bit shocked and some of her friends had convinced her that she should never marry a farmer. She curtly informed him that she was engaged to be married. He simply said goodbye and left, deeply disappointed.
Gladys moved back to Smithfield later that year. One of Lavern’s friends informed him that Gladys was back in the Valley and wanted to see him again. Would he be willing to go out with Gladys? Lavern was surprised that she was not married, as she had said, but he agreed to go with her. Thus began a period of serious dating, ultimately leading to their wedding in the Logan LDS Temple on December 15, 1948.
Lavern and Gladys began their life together living with his parents in Nibley, Utah. Housing was very difficult to find in that Post War time. Lavern decided that he would build their home, there on the farm adjacent to his folks home. Utilizing war surplus materials for most of it and doing almost all of work himself, he never borrowed money to build the house. They moved into their new home in 1952. They remained there for the next 25 years, raising their family of four children.
Lavern entered into an agreement with his father to purchase the farm, and from that time forward he more than doubled the acres under his hand, changed the focus of the farm from cash crops to dairy, making all of the necessary changes to establish a farm business that would provide for his family.
Many of those years that he was a dairyman, he served on the board of directors at Cache Valley Dairy. In this capacity he came to know virtually every other dairy farmer in the south end of Cache Valley. And because he continued to be energetically involved with progressing his own farm from the horse-drawn era his father had known into the tractor-powered methods of the post-war years, he was often the first one in the area to have the new equipment. He did a lot of custom work for other farmers as they became familiar with the new-fangled machinery. The third year after he started baling hay, he custom-baled more than 75,000 bales for other farmers. Doing the custom work had become a serious portion of his work. But by the next year or so, implement dealers offered inexpensive balers and most farmers bought their own.
Lavern was a dedicated and conscientious farmer. He paid close attention to all aspects and was known to produce top-quality crops. His dairy herd was well cared-for. He had a gentle hand with the animals and they thrived.
The farm provided an excellent forum in which to raise his family. There were chores aplenty and a solid work ethic became the core learning focus.
Along with the hard work and sweat on the farm was the creative side of life. Lavern was always building things and learning more ways to be creative. Along with farm equipment and buildings on the farm, there were crafts of all sorts, including leatherwork, weaving, copper tooling, fiber arts, model building, wood-turning, whittling and more. Every member of the family became involved with these activities. Each of the children grew up in full acceptance of the idea that they could learn and do anything they wanted to. This became a primary foundation for each one of them as they went forward. Lavern and Gladys never hesitated to include the kinds of activities that would assure that confidence.
Lavern was a very frugal and practical man. He demanded the best, but was not given to unnecessary frills or excess. He always made sure his family was well-provided for, no matter if it took a lot of extra effort. Not given to much emotional expression, he did things to make sure that we new he loved each one of his family. He was always behind their individual efforts in extracurricular things, providing funding, supplies and support.
Lavern had the most amazing memory. Through all of his travels with his father and on through all of his dealings with people, he paid attention and learned about them. In more recent years as he would ride with family around the valley, he always knew about every farm they passed, their names, the kids names, who the kids had married, where they went to, their occupations and a host of details about the farm and everything about that family. His community and camaraderie with farmers was quite valuable to him.
Always an avid reader, he kept abreast of the world of agriculture. But more often he would dig into a good novel. Historical stories were his favorite, along with westerns and mysteries. One of the last enduring pleasures of his life was to read a book.
Lavern was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Gladys, passed away a decade ago. Also by his sisters Velma Douglas, Helen Hansen, and Cloteel Stewart.
LaVern is survived by his four children: John A. Riggs, Emalee Meyer, Peter F. Riggs, Robert L. Riggs, fourteen grand children and forty two great grand children.
Services for Lavern will be held on Saturday, December 16, 2017 at Allen-Hall Mortuary, 34 East Center, Logan. A viewing will commence at 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. followed by a short service in the chapel there at 12:00 noon. Following that will be a brief gathering at Millville Cemetery. Condolences and memories may be shared online at www.allenmortuaries.net .

More that needs to be said, parts I left out.

I was trying to make it shorter so it would not cost so much to print, so I took a lot of things out. Even on the topics included above I gave the severely trimmed thumbnail version. But Dad was a lot more complex and wonderful than that. (The above portion was going to cost $1100.00 for one day in the newspaper. Just could not afford that. Thank Heaven for social media now, where you can put up as much as you want to for only the cost of your effort and the basic equipment that you used to access it, which you already had anyway.)

Dad was born in the same bedroom of the family home that he called his own bedroom after he and Mom moved there in 1977. The house his father built for his mother in 1920 was Mom and Dad’s home for the last 40 years of his life.

The old truck was a circa 1930 Chevy pickup, with spoke wheels and skinny tires, black. By the time I was around it was pretty beat up, a genuine rattle-trap. It had a skinny little 2-seat cab with horsehair-stuffed scratchy seats, springs sticking out everywhere, and there was a big hole in the floor that I was obsessed with, a little boy scared to fall out and fascinated with watching the ground pass by as we drive along. Was that there when Dad was a little boy?

The family farm has an interesting history that Dad was quite proud of. His Grampa John came into Cache Valley in 1955 with the troup sent here by the LDS church to establish what became known as Elkhorn Ranch. The tall grass in the valley was legendary and lands down around SLC were suffering from drought and overgrazing. He was 15 when they brought the church’s herds up into the Valley. John had a lot of interesting adventures from that time forward. Some years later he had found his bride Dorothea and built a house up near the mountain in Millville. When the west fields were being settled, the church was giving 20-acres parcels to members to support their families. John and his brother James received theirs side by side here on the family farm. The Elkhorn Ranch properties extended west into what is now called College Ward, with its south boundary right along 3200 South here in Nibley. Right across the road. The road we now refer to as 3200 was then called Apostate Lane. Not exactly sure why they called it that. The old fence line for the ranch still stood until the time it was torn down in the 3200 rebuild just a few years back. Dad collected a couple of the old cedar fence posts from that line. The abstract for the original 20 acres lists its succession of owners from the U.S. President (Buchanan), to Brigham Young, to Tommy Jessop (Bishop of the Millville area) to John Riggs, to Alma Lavern Riggs. John developed this ground with lots and lots of trees, several buildings, and a second home. All of that deep history and family associating with the farm was a part of Dad’s attachment to the land. He often said that he felt him here, his Grampa John, who grew up first in an English industrial city, starting work at age 8 in the mill, learned horsemanship and gun skills as a minuteman when he crossed the plains at age 13, and later as a herdsman and all around hand at the Elkhorn Ranch, etc. The point is that John did not grow up a farmer. His grandpa back in the old country still had a small sheep operation so he knew at least a little of rural life. But here in the frontier of Utah, John had to learn it all, had to work and struggle to get by. The land was deeded to him, but he had to work hard to produce a living for his family. I think that Dad relished knowing how hard his Grampa John, who Dad never met, had worked to make this farm a success. Dad built upon that spirit of work and love of the land.

That big sugar beet crop in ‘47 was pretty important. It came as a result of work and planning done more than a year earlier. He had this controversy with his father over whether he should summer fallow that piece of land. Dad wanted to buy a rod weeder and work the land several times in the summer. This was a machine with a horizontal rod about 2” in diameter and twelve feet wide that was driven from one of the wheels. The rod was dropped down on theses two stinger frames at each end to a few inches below the top of the soil and as it was pulled forward over the land, the rotating rod would pull out weeds by the roots, leaving a smooth surface with enough texture to capture and hold rain. The idea was to eliminate as many weeds as possible and allow the land to just hold as much moisture as it could, and rest. The next spring the beet seeds would be planted in a very-well prepared seed bed. The early soil moisture and the significantly fewer weeds allowed for a bumper crop. Sugar beet tonnage was higher than the norm and the crop brought in sufficient funds to buy a diamond ring and start the financial security for his new life with Gladys next year.

Dad had a deep spiritual connection with the land. He would walk out across the acres, looking and feeling what was happening there. When he watered the land, he was there carefully guiding and managing it to maximize his crop, and to not waste the precious resource. He would grab up a handful of soil and feel the life in it and seemed to understand a great deal about what it had to offer and what he could do to improve it. He cared about the quality of life out there. And he didn’t want to waste any of the crop by being sloppy or lazy in the harvest. He learned how to cut sharp, clean corners when doing the hay and grain. When it was our turn we learned how to do that and took a lot of pride in not leaving even a little bit of hay at a corner. That took skill and attention and respect for what we were doing. Dad made sure that we all knew that and followed it, and that we could do those sharp corners without beating up the equipment or over-trampling the land. That was a part of our farmer pride that we always felt about our family farm. We knew that we were involved in something incredibly valuable and wonderful, from the fields into the carefully built haystacks, to the way we took care of the animals. Most of us went through our series of temper explosions as we dealt with the cows, who just seemed intent on doing exactly what we did not want them to do, just to make us mad. But Dad showed us how to be patient, quiet and respectful toward them, to read their personality, their intelligence and work with them rather than trying to power over them with our tempers. Interestingly, I have recently seen an article about animal intelligence and notice that cows are pretty high in the ranking. Dad always knew that. And who can deny that look in their eye when they are feeling contented and being cared for properly.

Dad served as watermaster for the Blacksmith Fork Irrigation District for several years, many of them during a severe drought. Dad had grown up in all of those fields, had worked in most of them at different times and knew the different kinds of soil and the way the ditches were organized from the headgates at the river right on down to the furthest west fields in College Ward. In those years everyone was struggling to keep their crops in good shape. But some were insistent that they get more water, sooner than any one else and there were often very tense situations. Dad understood how to divide up the limited water and flow it down from the high to the low areas, using the run-off of the higher to augment the streams going to the lower ditches. If you used it properly it would cover a lot more ground. And when the farmers cooperated with his plan they had enough. There was stealing and sneaking and temper galore, but he finally got them to do their part. Most all of them had a reasonably good crop. In spite of the drought.

Dad grew up a member of the LDS Church, married his sweetheart in the temple and retained a strong belief system based on the Church’s teachings. He especially focused on the strong moral code and the high ideals of behavior one should follow with interpersonal relationships. He held several callings through the years, but there were two that were most important to him. When he was a young man, he was called to be the Dance Director for the Nibley Ward. They had a lot of dances in the church in those days, and Dad had a particular liking and skill for dancing. He was to select a couple of other young men to help him. He chose a couple of his friends, one of which was not really active in the church at the time, and another who was not even a member. He fought hard to have these two men in his group. He eventually won out and they had a very successful tenure as dance directors. Those two men grew stronger in the church and had come to credit Dad’s bringing them into the dance calling for helping them get more into the church. The other turned out to be his last calling, as secretary to the Elders Quorum. Of course there were a lot of meetings to attend with this calling, and because many of the meetings fell at awkward times against primary work situations on the farm, it was very difficult for him. He juggled things best he could. There eventually came the time when the cattle got out onto the highway at the west pasture, he had to chose between the meeting and taking care of his animals. He felt he had to go get them off the road for their sake and for the safety of drivers on the highway. The call from the Highway Patrol had been quite pointed: get them off the road! After he missed that meeting, some of the stake leadership brought pressure for him to do his calling and attend the meetings. He felt they were being unreasonable, and he did not see how he could do everything, so he chose to take care of the farm and his family.

Dad loved dancing, and he loved the music. He had trained to play the cornet in his youth and became quite good at it, performing in several events around the area. That ended when the clamp iron on a truck tire sprung off while the tire was being worked on and hit him in the mouth, knocking out some teeth and cutting his lip. He could never get the right buzz going with his lips to make music with the horn after that. But he could sing and he could whistle. He sang duets with a girl up the street and they won a singing contest in the school. But whistling was his favorite, and he would do that often. You could hear his tune while he was working. He collected records of his favorite music. Since he loved to dance, he loved that music perhaps most. Glen Miller was probably his favorite, but all the big bands that did dance music were what he loved to listen to. On one occasion he had gone to see Tommy Tucker and his band where he was chosen at random from the crowd to come up on the stage and “sing for his supper with Tommy Tucker and his band.” He sang “Show me the way to go Home” and acted as if he were drunk, and garnered a thunderous applause for his efforts. In our home we always had music going. Glen Miller, of course, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Percy Faith, Chet Atkins, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, and many more.

Dad was a camera nut. He started taking pictures at an early age using a small Kodak Brownie. His first 35mm camera was an Argus C3, which had the innovative split-image range finder to help focus. He bought an 8mm movie camera and shot many short films of life on the farm, visits and events with family and such. He had several Polaroid cameras, a twin reflex, another movie camera (Super 8 this time), virtually every kind of new fad camera that came out over the years, several SLR 35mm film cameras, and numerous digital. He put together a complete dark room in his folks basement. When he and Mom moved into their new home, the darkroom equipment landed in the hall closet where they tantalized us snooping children trying to figure out what they were. The thing is, Dad could never get past the limited number of exposures mindset he had developed with film cameras. You only had so many shots, so you carefully chose what you photographed. Jumping forward to the practically infinite number of images you can take on digital he just couldn’t let loose and shoot to his hearts content. He did like that he could take the memory chip out the camera, stick it into the printer and put out as many high quality photos as you wanted, by the press of a button.

Dad loved the beauty of nature. Most of his pictures are landscapes showing how incredible nature exhibits its glory all around us here in Utah. It’s likely that he developed this appreciation during his youth as his family took numerous road trips, all over the state and up in to Idaho and Wyoming. His folks took those trips a lot, and when he had a family, we did it also. We used the back of a truck to haul us up through the hills and around to all the backroads. One year, Dad had purchased a new Ford one-ton and built a new bed on the back-- a convertible one that would be set up for hauling hay on a flat bed, or grain with the short sides, or cattle with the cattle racks. One especially fun occasion we put the old green rocker and a big overstuffed chair into the back of the truck, along with pillows and cushions and food stuff and all of us kids. Grandpa Alma always had the nicest chair in the back, Grandma Dora was in the cab with Dad and Mom. We took off west to the Wellsvilles. Up roads and cow paths that are closed now since it has been made a Preserve area. But we went high up the side of he mountain and up behind Sugarloaf to Skeeter lake where we had a fine picnic with fried chicken, potato salad and apple pie. Us kids chased around among the ferns and tried to avoid the stinging nettle as we tried to catch the darning needles: small dragonflies in red, blue and yellow colors. And there seemed to be millions of pennybugs.

Our family would take these back-of-truck rides several times each summer. Most of roads we used to travel have been closed now. But Dad still loved going on rides. For the last 16 years of his life he and Mom would go with one of his children on a Sunday drive, looking over the land and searching out new corners where we had not gone before. It was like he was watching over all those farmers that he had known all his life. He would tell his stories and I would take pictures of the barns and herd and all of it. On one especially ambitious trip we went all the way to Jackson Hole, walked around to the galleries for a couple of hours and home again in one day.

Many times on those rides we would come upon people out and about and we would stop and have a conversation with them. Dad could do that with almost anyone anywhere. Shopping or eating out or wherever. He always took interest in the people around him and would talk with them.

All of that appreciation of the beauty in nature came home as well. Mom was the most interested in gardening, but Dad would jump in and help. He always prepared the ground and helped with the planting. The weeding and watering fell to Mom and us kids because those months were full of farm work for Dad. But when it was time to dig the potatoes or carrots or pick the tomatoes, Dad was there in it. And there was always a large area dedicated to flowers. Lots of cosmos and several rows of gladiolas. Dad usually picked the bulbs for those and planted them. Mom and Dad both loved the glads. And in the yard around the house there were lillies, iris, poppies, tulips, hyacinth and daffodils. A huge honeysuckle in the corner of yard, bridal wreath, several lilacs, flowering crab trees and others. As if that were not enough, there were always a lot of planters around the porch and yard full of brilliant annuals. Geraniums and petunias were Mom’s favorite and Dad would always make sure she had enough to fuss over for each summer. In the house were african violets and gloxinias, sometimes an azalea and christmas cactus. Mom would do the day to day on most of these plants, but Dad was often right there with her for the hard work. He loved those things as much as she did.

Dad always said he never learned how to play. What he actually meant was that he had no liking for just lying about and doing nothing. He was invited to go with family and friends for some basking on the beach, both at Bear Lake and in the Bahamas. But he never went. No use for golf or other sport types of pursuit. The farm work kept him plenty fit. Fun for him consisted of the rides, the crafting, visiting relatives, and reading a good book

Mom and Dad both loved making things. This was their fun. They had great enjoyment in making beautiful things as gifts and ornaments for the home. Dad would make them and Mom would paint them. They made an excellent team, and they made hundreds of different kinds of things through the years. He only stopped when his eyesight grew too bad and his hands were no longer strong enough. Mom was gone by then, and a lot of the fun had gone out of the making. But he always encouraged us kids as we continued the traditions of making things.

Every rose has its thorns, and Dad was not free of his prickly side either. We all ran up against that from time to time. Dad could say the most cutting things and it would hurt. But then he could be happy and encouraging and give, give and give, some more. Mostly he was the latter. But we learned how to work through those tough moments. He was human. Complex and intelligent, strong and demanding, compassionate and supportive, opinionated and tough. His temper could flare hot, but he kept it pretty tightly under control. Mostly he found ways to let us know that he loved us and appreciated us. Sometimes that might come with difficulty because of the sting of his words. But if we kept in the game and didn’t get scared away by his gruffness, we soon found that he was kind and loving. Just the kind of man you’d really love to have as a friend and father.

He was my Dad, and my best friend. For all of his ups and downs, I loved him and I still do. I’m going to miss him a lot. Just hope I can be half as good as he told me he thought I was.
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