Gordon Elmer Douglass Autobiography

Gordon Elmer Douglass’ Autobiography

I was born in Eureka, Juab County, Utah.  Eureka means, “I found it” and Utah means “High up in the Mountains.”  I always have loved the mountains and spent many hours as a boy hiking up to Eureka Peak or Cole Canyon Cliffs.  My Father (William Douglass) was an avid sportsman and I really enjoyed it when we would go to Payson Canyon, Fish Lake or Bear Lake to spend our yearly holiday.

My earliest memories were the summer before my third birthday.  I was in our fenced yard on Leadville Row.  I saw a brown dog lying by the fence.  I wanted to pet him.  I went to the door to see if Mother would let me pet him.  When she saw the dog, she brought me in the house, seemingly quite frightened. (We had frequent rabies scared in Eureka).  The other memory was of our family walking up a dirt road.  When we got to a railroad track we stopped and looked back to see our house, and mother told me that we wouldn’t be going back to it.  I started to cry, but Mother reassured me by saying that we were going to a nicer house to live.

Our new home was the property of the Chief Consolidated Mining Company in an area of town called “Fitchville”.  The mining executives were allowed to live in these homes.  One trouble with living here was that many of the boys in town picked on those of us from Fitchville.  I lost my first fight in the first grade, but my Dad told me that if I ever got in another fight and the other boy didn’t come out of it worse than I did that he would lick me too.  I did what I could to avoid fights, but I wouldn’t let anyone bully me.  I would simply get in the first punch and get the fight over in a hurry.  My year in the fourth grade was the worst.  A boy named Dick just wouldn’t say quit.  I had to beat him up two or three times a week.  I was really thankful when he finally moved out of town.

Quite often some of us boys would smoke the bark from fence posts.  Once we managed to get some real cigarettes.  I got sicker than I had ever been in my life.  This was a good experience for me, because from that time to this day, I have lived the word of wisdom and have never taken the Lord’s name in vain.

In 1929, when I was 11 years old, the Great Depression hit.  Dad eventually lost his job, but we stayed in Eureka waiting for the mines to open up again.  The Eureka bank failed.  I had about $12.00 in the bank and the bank could only give me about $3.00 back.

One summer day the “Red Cross” sent in a load of white flour for the use of families who were out of work.  My oldest brother Mack had gone down town with a friend who got a sack.  When Mack found out that we were eligible for the free flour, he brought home a 50 pound sack on his shoulders.  Mother scolded him good when he came in with it.  She didn’t like taking charity.  Mack picked up the sack and said, “I’ll take it back”, whereupon Mother said, “Oh no you won’t!"  Half the town saw you bring it home.  You’re not going to let the other half see you take it back.”  So we used the flour and were thankful to have it.

Dad finally decided that in order to get work we would have to move to Salt Lake City.  We moved in September of 1932 on the day before school started.  In Salt Lake City, I attended Roosevelt Junior High, Bryant Junior High, and East High and finished my junior year at the University of Utah.

I worked at two jobs for 25 cents a day until I finally got a job while in high school, which paid $5.00 per week.  I gave up the chance to play football the second year in order to keep this job.  When football season was over and just when I was going to ask for a raise in pay, we got a new manager, who cut my pay to $4.50 per week.  My father encouraged me to resign, because he thought they were taking advantage of me.  So I resigned.

There was little hope of getting a job after I graduated from high school.  This worried me because I needed money to go to the University.  I prayed about it and went down town knocking on doors, asking for work.   One day, I remember particularly, I went to the “Utah Power and Light Co.”  The personnel director was Adam S. Bennion.  He treated me as if I were royalty.  He was gracious and sympathetic, but told me that his responsibility during the depression was to employ married men with children.  I was amazed that a man in such a high position as he would be as cordial to someone as young as I.

One day as I was looking through the morning paper want ads, I saw a notice for a bus boy at the Temple Square Coffee Shop.  I dashed down town, but my heart sank as I got to the Hotel Utah.  There was a lineup of boys from the corner of South Temple Street and West Temple Street, which extended around the corner of Main St.  I had ten cents in my pocket and I said to myself that I would even spend the ten cents if necessary to try to get the job.  I walked right up to the front of the line and went in the restaurant.  There was one seat at the counter, which I took.  One waitress wore an orange colored dress and the others wore yellow.  I figured she must be the head-waitress so I asked to see her.  Rather than telling her how much I needed the job, I told her how much I could help the restaurant.  I got the job and kept it for the three summers while I was going to college.  It paid $35.00 a month the first summer and $30.00 per month after that (did he mean $35 or $25? Not sure)

Each time we moved, I immediately went to Sunday school and Mutual.  This was the best way to make friends.  The finest people that I know are church members.  My testimony was shaken at one time by a priesthood leader who said, “When the Lord said He created the world in six days, He meant just what He said.”  About a year later, the same conflict arose in my mind from what some of my school teachers had said.  I prayed each night for the entire week.  My Sunday school teacher (Leon Miller, a recently returned missionary) came in and started to teach from the lesson book.  All of a sudden he stopped and said he had been prompted to talk about something else.  He then told of how a day of the Lord’s is as a thousand years to man.  He then said that the days mentioned in the creation were not a 24 hour day, but each day represented an unspecified period of time.  He also told how geologists had discovered that the earth in its evolutionary development had passed through six or seven periods of time.

Elma Brown, a new girl in the 27^th ward invited me to a party at her home one night.  Here I met a beautiful girl with a sweet spirit.  I called her on the phone one day, but she didn’t remember me.  One day, when our ward was having a canyon party, I asked Elma to invite Kathleen Donaldson.  This she did and several years later Kathleen became my wife.

Shortly after this canyon party, I joined the United States Naval Reserve.  The navy sent me as an apprentice seaman to the old U.S.S. Wyoming for a cruise from New York harbor to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Norfolk, Virginia and back to New York Harbor again.  This was a one month cruise and was handled just the same as if we were from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.  I was a squad leader while on this cruise.

I came back to Salt Lake City for one month and then was sent to Northwestern University at Chicago, Illinois as a Midshipman for three months.  When I graduated, I was commissioned as an Ensign in the Naval Reserve.  I came by train to Salt Lake City and was able to delay a few days before going on to San Pedro, California.

The U.S.S. Oklahoma was at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii so I was given orders to report to them U.S.S Pennsylvania for transportation to the Oklahoma.  My complexion was very fair after three summers of restaurant work and three months of school at Northwestern.  My first day on the U.S.S Pennsylvania we got underway and the ocean was quite rough.  I went to the ward room and ordered a large breakfast of juice, cereal, ham & eggs, milk and hotcakes.  There were three young officers sitting at a table across from me.  One of them got up and sat in a different seat so that all of them could look my way.  I felt conscious that they were talking about me because they looked my way so often.  Pretty soon, one of them got up and ran out of the room.  When I started on the ham & eggs another of them ran out of the room.  The third officer cam over to my table with a grin and asked if he could sit with me.  H mentioned that I was pale and wondered if I was seasick.  I told him why I was pale and he laughed and asked if I had noticed the other two officers that were sitting with him.  He said they had a bet on how much of my breakfast I would eat.  They both got sick when they were talking about eating the ham & eggs.  I said that I was sorry to disappoint them but I felt fine.  I then finished my breakfast and walked out.

When I reported aboard the Okie (USS Oklahoma), I was assigned as a Communications Watch Officer.  The Okie was an old time battleship steeped in traditions handed down from the British 200 years ago.  I was amazed at the old fashioned ideas and attitudes the Captain and other high ranking officers had.  They thought that a battleship was virtually unsinkable.

My life was spared when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.  Although I had only stayed ashore two other nights during the year I had been in the navy, this third night had not been planned.  Through a series of coincidences, I went ashore and through more coincidences, I stayed ashore.  The idea of going ashore on Saturday December 6, 1941 came as a result of listening to the still small voice and had been mentioned in my patriarchal blessing several years before.  About two months before Pearl Harbor was attacked, I met an old friend of mine from Eureka named Keith Taylor.  He had given me his phone number and told me that if I ever needed a place to stay that I could stay with him.  By coincidence, Keith is now a member of this High Priests group in the 17^th Ward of the Salt Lake Stake.  Sunday morning when I heard of the attack, I immediately took a taxicab back to Pearl Harbor.  It is impossible to explain my feelings when I saw the Okie and realized that perhaps two or three thousand men and officers were still aboard.  Later I found out that there were about seventeen hundred lives lost on the one ship.  Only half of our ships were allowed to be in port at any one time, but this particular weekend the entire fleet was supposed to be in port.  Many people believe that someone high in our own government purposely conspired with the Japanese so they could have this victory.

Miraculously, the aircraft carrier, “Enterprise” wasn’t able to get into port because of rough seas.  After the U.S.S. Oklahoma was sunk, I luckily got orders to this ship the “Enterprise”, which the men called “the Big E” or the “Lucky E”.  Coming from the Okie to the Big E was like coming from darkness into light.  The men loved Admiral “Bull” Halsey, whose flag was aboard the Enterprise.  I was assigned to the Enterprise, but my orders were changed and I was then assigned to Admiral Halsey’s Flag allowance.  I was immediately assigned as Flag Division Officer.

While aboard the Big E, I received nine battle stars and two special letters of commendation.  I also received the Presidential Unit Citation, which was awarded to all crew members and flag members aboard the Big E.  Rear Admiral Raymond A. Spruance gave me the first letter.  This one was for my work as Communication Watch Officer during the “Battle of Midway”.  My second letter was for a volunteer mission for the “Guadalcanal – Tulagi Invasion”.  I was promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade right after the Battle of Midway and to Lieutenant right after the Guadalcanal Invasion.

The Enterprise came home to get some battle scars repaired in the early summer of 1943.  I was sent to Annapolis for a couple of months for a post graduate course and then to the new U.S.S. Wasp, which was being fitted out at Quincy, Massachusetts.  On the way back east, I stopped in Salt Lake City long enough to talk to Kathleen about the letters we had written to each other.  We were married in the Salt Lake Temple on July 16, 1943.

Aboard the U.S.S. Wasp, I wrote the entire chapter in the ship’s organization book on “Communications.”  This was accepted by the Executive Officer exactly as I had written it.  I was then transferred to Radio Honolulu and Radio Guam.  I was on Guam when World War II ended.  I had been overseas 54 months so I was one of the few naval officers who had enough points to be discharged and sent home that first month.

As soon as I got home, I enrolled back at the University of Utah to finish my last year of school.  My eyes wouldn’t take the strain and I had to quit after one quarter.  I took a job at the post office temporarily until my eyes were stronger.  I stretched this temporary job out for almost 29 years and retired as a supervisor on December 31, 1974.

The gospel of Jesus Christ and the life of my Mother have always been my guiding light.  I bear testimony that the gospel is true and I tell those who follow after me (especially my descendents) that if you will study, pray and attend church that the truthfulness of the gospel will be made manifest to you through the power of the Holy Ghost.