12 Oct. 1929
Mary Ellen and Sherman, who was 14 at the time, had a new home and a man in the house. Gene, at last, had a home of his own and a family. How proud he was to have a son. He and Sherman liked each other, and each took on the role of father and son readily. They were at last a happy family.
Gene continued working for the Utah Power and light Company and in 1930 he was transferred to American Falls, Idaho and worked there as a lineman patrolling from American Falls to Jensen Pass. In June 1932, he was temporarily laid off the job, so they moved back to Malad.
In the settlement with Oscar, Mary Ellen had been given their home on the East of town, right next to Gene’s mothers home. They lived here and Gene and Sherman dug a basement under the house and fixed it up quite nice. Working conditions were very bad and Gene and Sherman went to work on the Old Ford Farm in St. John pitching hay for $1.50 a day. They both decided there must be an easier way to make a living. They took the back seat out of the car, knocked out the back end and had a truck of sorts, and began hauling fruit from Brigham City, Utah to Malad. Gene was able to make two trips a day and was clearing around $7.00 a day. When the peaches and tomatoes came on he traded the car for a Dodge truck and continued to haul and sell fruit. At times he was called to help patrol the power lines in Preston, Montpelier and Malad. He often worked with a man named Bill McClure. In the fall of 1935, he was called back to work steady for the power company. In February 1936, Gene , Mary Ellen, and Sherman moved to Preston, Idaho. Grandma Dalton was very sad to see them go and cried, and they remembered how bad the roads were going over the divide.
One year, while working in Grace, Idaho, a man who owned a Lewellen Setter, gave Gene a pup. He grew to be a beautiful black and white dog, one of their best friends and a bum. He was fascinated by trains, and would sit by the track and watch them go by. When a passenger train stopped he was there to greet anyone who got off. The conductors on the trains thought this a nice gesture and began saving scraps of food for him . Soon, he knew what time the trains came through and which men fed him, and he was always there for his treat. He also became a bar-bum and would go into the bar, sit and beg for a drink of beer, or an ice cream cone (yes bars did sell ice cream.) Even after they moved a few blocks away on the main highway to Pocatello, Ranger, the dog, continued his collection rounds.
A few years later they bought a home and an acre of ground from Earl Hansen. There was a half basement with an old school house set on the foundation and Gene moved his mother’s house from Malad and added it to their house. He was able to hire a man from Inkom to move the house in sections and haul it to McCammon for $15.oo. There was enough lumber left to build a garage on the south of the house. They worked hard to plant flowers, trees and a big garden. How good it was to have a home of their own and grow vegetables and have a cow. Ranger continued his friendship with the train people and was known by everyone in town.
Gene and Sherman loved to hunt, and their next dog was Queen, a Springer Spaniel they bought from Bill Barnard in American Falls. She never missed a hunting trip, and could flush out a bird, hold a point and find the downed bird with almost perfect form.
About this time, Gene bought 300 registered Suffock sheep. His nephew, Joe Dalton, who had a piece of property on the East Fork of the Salmon River, let him pasture them there each summer for two years and he stayed with them part time and hired a man to take care of them some. He showed some of his sheep at fairs, and then sold them for a good profit.
Another faithful dog was Tiny, a cocker spaniel. She was always afraid of guns, and became Mary Ellen’s dog from the day Gene brought her home in the pocket of his jacket. She was truly tiny, coal black and loveable. During her lifetime she produced one pup who they gave to Betty Jean. She named him Sandy and he lived with them for 13 years, was hit by a car and killed. Tiny continued to be Mary Ellen’s companion and even slept beside her bed.
One day while looking in a horse magazine, Gene saw a picture of a beautiful, registered, Morgan Stallion for sale. He was 12 years old, deep chestnut with a white mane and tail, Gene liked him, wrote the owner in Shadran, Nebraska, and after a few letters, arrangements for the sale were made. Gene and Sherman took the horse trailer and went to get Chief Wabinski from Dick and Gladys Winters. Coming home they encountered a terrible blizzard in Wyoming, but finally arrived safely home with their precious new friend. Stud fees at that time were $20.00 and later raised to $25.00. Gene rented a pasture in McCammon by the railroad tracks. He enjoyed riding his new horse and made money by using him for breeding purposes. He later sold him to a man named Lew Probart and Chief lived to be almost 30 years old. (A lot of horses and dogs are included in this story because they were a part of his life, and his friends. He hated cats!)
His next horse was a registered quarter horse stallion, and was bought as a colt and broke to ride. Gene bought a silver mounted saddle and bridle in Ogden, Utah from Montgovery Ward, entered Prince in parades and exhibited him as a stallion at fairs and won many prizes. He always remembered the thoughtfulness of one fair judge, Ed Duren from Soda Springs, Idaho who took a picture of them at the Blackfoot Fair and presented it to Gene for Christmas.
World War II came along, and Sherman felt that he probably would not be drafted because of his injured leg from childhood, so on 27 of March 1940, he married Blanche Tarbett at Pocatello Idaho. But drafted he was and ended up in a desert area in North Africa. While there, Blanche had a baby daughter , who she named Judy, and when Sherman came home, he accepted the daughter as his own. The marriage however, did not last and they were divorced.
Mary Ellen’s health was not good and in 1946, Gene took her to a specialist in Salt Lake City, Utah, who diagnosed her problem as Cancer of the Uterus. She received Radium treatments and the cancer was healed, or at least arrested. The heat from the treatments injured many of her internal organs and she suffered a great deal of trouble with her bowels thereafter.
On 6 November, 1948, Sherman married Winona Welkie in Pocatello and they eventually had three children. Ross Gene-born on his grandpa Dalton’s birthday, Sue Ellen, and Phillip Paul. They lived in Pocatello where Sherman worked for Montgomery Ward. Almost every Sunday they visited each other and were a close-knit, happy family unit.
Gene enjoyed his work with the power company as a lineman, a meter reader, and a bill collector, sometimes taking produce as pay. The office was located on a corner on main street in McCammon and some of the people he worked with were Wendell Spencer and a secretary named Suzy.
During this time Gene took classes in First Aid and helped save the lives of two different men. One who was in an automobile accident, and another who had drowned while swimming in Lava Hot Springs. Gene was a good swimmer and enjoyed this sport.
Other pleasures were, of course, his horses. He was a member of the riding club and held several offices in this club. They enjoyed many trail rides in the mountains, and participated in parades during the summer. In the winter, Gene had fun taking friends for a brisk ride in his horse drawn sleigh around McCammon’s snow covered streets. Mary Ellen never did ride a horse, but enjoyed going with Gene as an observer. Many times they joined friends on camping trips into the mountains to fish. Gene was a good fisherman and they canned or froze any surplus they caught.
The deer hunt every fall was a must, and he usually got a nice deer which provided meat for the winter. Roy and Ellen Sorensen of Preston, and Noah and Alta Myers of Arimo were good friends who went with them.
For six years, Gene was the Mayor of McCammon. He got along well with the people and enjoyed his job. Although he was never active in the church, he always welcomed the home teachers, and contributed whenever asked.
When he was 65, Gene had worked for the power company for 30 years, and on 1 April 1957, he retired. That is, he retired from the power company. His garden, horses, hunting, and fishing, camping and visiting were still things he enjoyed doing, and he worked occasionally driving a pilot car for oversized truck loads from Border, Wyoming to McCammon, being paid by the mile. He enjoyed one long trip from Twin Falls, Idaho to Portland, Oregon.
Sad was the day they learned that Sherman had Bright’s Disease. He was sick and in-and-out of the hospital for many months, finally being admitted to the Veterans Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he died on 28 January 1961. He was buried in Pocatello, Idaho.
In 1962, the Daltons bought a new car, and went to the World’s Fair in Seattle, Washington. They traveled slowly, for Mary Ellen’s health was not too good. They visited Rose Dalton and her family (brother Will’s widow) in Walla Walla, Washington. Then on to North Bend to stay with sister Irene Woolslayer and her family. They enjoyed fishing, clam digging, and just visiting with all the Daltons who came to a little family reunion.
Gene had always stayed in touch with his daughter, Betty Jean, who had married Lynn Richards, on 7 June 1944, and they lived in Malad, Idaho and had three children, Gay Lynn, Joan, and Jerry Calvin. They enjoyed visiting with them occasionally, as well as renewing friendships with friends and relatives in Malad.
Gene enjoyed the hours he spent on his horse, Price. He worked for a lady named Mable Kasiski keeping track of her cattle range on the Big Onion south of Lava Hot Springs, Idaho, and helped Noah Myers haul grain in the fall.
Mary Ellen’s health became worse and the remission time of her cancer was at an end, it became active once more and rapidly worked through her body until it came out her back near the spine in a large running sore. Seemingly most of the organs inside her had been partially destroyed and every opening from her waist down drained constantly. Gene cared for her at home and washed the bedding and her clothing several times a day, keeping her clean and comfortable as possible. She died on 6 July 1969 and was buried on 9 July 1969 in Malad , Idaho.
Betty Jean’s family had grown up and she had left her husband for a few months and moved to Anchorage, Alaska, and so Gene took his first plane trip there to visit her. They had a wonderful time seeing glaciers, picking wild raspberries along the road, seeing moose, salmon and just having a good visit by getting acquainted with each other as father and daughter.
He returned home, but living alone in the home he and Mary Ellen had enjoyed was just too hard, so he sold it and moved into a rented apartment in Malad. This was a lonely life too, as most of the friends he had known there had died or moved away, and it was too easy to fall into the habit of having a drink with the boys.
On 28, August 1970, Gene married Hazel Mamie Davis Harris, a lady he had known for years in McCammon. She had a home in Pocatello, and they lived there for a time, then bought a mobile home in Idaho Falls and lived there for a few years. They moved their trailer to Pocatello and after seven years of marriage they divorced on 14 December 1977.
Gene then sold this trailer and moved to Soda Springs, Idaho with Betty and Lynn. Later he lived in the Divine Apartments on Main Street, then moved to Malad for a few months. Now he was 87 years old and his health wasn’t too good. His niece Faye Ward helped him by doing his laundry and shopping, but there was no one else to care for him so he moved back to Soda Springs into the Fountain Terrace Apartments, built especially for Senior Citizens on 1st West and 4th South. It was a nice new apartment, but Gene longed for the friends and relatives he had once enjoyed.
Gene got up from his recliner and turned the television set off. He enjoyed watching the wrestling matches, and the musical shows, at least it was a noise in the house. His Social Security, and retirement checks had come, so he put on his hat, got his cane, and walked the few blocks to the bank. Across the street he ate lunch, crossed the street again, got his haircut at Athy’s Barber Shop and started for home. At the grocery store he bought a sack of groceries, but was too tired to make it home. Mr. Moldenhauer was always thoughtful and gave him a ride. It was good to rest and have a little nap. Tomorrow, he thought, he would clean his apartment , he liked it to always be clean– and Betty would be down to take him for a ride. He had sold her his car a few years before, when his eyes got too bad for him to see very well, and last winter he had bought her a new car. They had enjoyed a trip to California for his birthday in March, and had stayed with his niece in Huntington Park. Elizabewth was a good woman and he loved her.
Gene felt tired, but he guessed it was alright. Ninety one years old was a long time to use a body, and he hoped he would live to a hundred. Well maybe a few years longer anyway. If only his health would hold up, he didn’t want to bother anyone, and the Good Lord willing, he would just keep trying.