Thursday, July 12, 2012
Francis G. Laws, San Juan County Sheriff 1973
Francis G. Laws San Juan County Sheriff
1973
I found the link to this awesome photo on San Juan Mortuary's memorial page. http://www.kenhochfeld.com/utah11.html
Ken has taken some FABULOUS photos of Blanding folks. The photos were taken in 1972-73 and are part of "They Call It Home: The Southeastern Utah Collection." The photos all have this awesome retro feel to them... Made my day to just look through all of them! Check out Ken's website and see who you find!!!!
Here are some of the names: Galbraith, H. J. Kartchner (I love this photo!), Cardon Jones, Von Hunt, Charlie Sipes, Dorothy Nielson, William Riley Hurst, Rigby Wright, DeReese Nielson and his cowboys, Justin and Blanche Black, Olin and Hazel Oliver, Phillip and Mable Hurst, Britta Bradford, Herman Butt, Pearl Butt, Ida Nielson, Iva Hatch, Sam Shore and Son, Gordon Hawkins family, Kelly Laws and friends, Mike Acton.
Please help identify photo, collecting histories for descendants of James Harvey Glines
If you know who these ladies are, please contact Mary Jane at m.vuyk@q.com.
Also, Mary Jane is collecting histories for the descendants of James Harvey Glines. If you have anything to share, please contact her!
Family album cover
Riddell and Lloyd Barton
This photo was contributed by Mary Jane Vuyk of her dad Riddell Barton (on the right) and Riddell's younger brother Lloyd (on the left). Mary Jane writes that the photo was taken "when they were little girls as my dad always said."
Francis Laws eulogy
Francis Gordon Laws
January 19, 1946 – May 25, 2012
This eulogy was given by
Francis Laws’s sister Shirley Trent at his funeral. Thanks to Mary Jane Vuyk
for transcribing it and making it available to everyone.
Francis Laws was born to Parley and Mariam Laws and joined a
big sister, Shirley and a big brother Jamie at home. He was born in what we called the “Old Shaggy
House” in Blanding, San Juan on 19 Jan 1946. Dr. Bayles delivered him
.
.
Francis grew up tagging Jamie around and doing everthing he
did. We lived in Blanding for awhile and
then we moved to Alkali and our Dad dry farmed for several years until I
(Shirley) was old enough to go to school.
Then we moved back to Blanding and bought a piece of land and moved an
old sheep herder’s shack onto it and lived in two rooms until they started
adding on to it.
Francis loved to ride a horse and he and Jamie and their
friends used to go out riding all day with a sack lunch and a water bag. Francis was thrown from his horse on one trip
and Jamie and whoever was with them put a splint on it (they learned how in Boy
Scouts) with their belts and some sticks and brought him to town and Mom took
him to the doctor. The doctor told her that the boys had done a good job of
putting the splint on it.
We spent a lot of time at the ranch and Francis and Jamie
picked up rocks and sticks while Shirley drove the pickup. I received an e-mail from one of the many
friends that Francis had and he remembered raising doggie labs with Jamie and
how much fun they had doing It. Jamie
even remembered the names of the lambs they had. They would get them from Alma Redd.
The boys spent quite a bit of time in Montezuma Creek with
Grandpa and Grandma Black and they had an old car they fixed up and hot-rodded
around down there. They had fun at
everything they did.
Francis went to grammar school at Blanding Elementary and he
graduated from San Juan High School. He
worked until he was old enough to be drafted into the service of our country
and served a tour of duty in Vietnam. He
was always proud to be a veteran. He met and brought his wife, Eleanor and her
two children, Mark and Dana into our lives, and they had three more sons
together, Brandon, Eric and Reese.
Francis and Eleanor lived in Blanding for a few years and he
worked driving trucks for Junior Cosby and Sierra Tree Farms hauling logs off
the Elk Ridge and LaSal mountains. Sometimes he would haul for Lester Crain, hauling
ore from Fry Canyon to the Moab mill through Hanksville. He was paid $30.00 a load and it took all day
to make a trip. Highway 95 was not paved at that time.
When the veterans’ preference law went into effect in order
to hire more Vietnam veterans in the country, Francis applied and was hired by
the San Juan County Sheriff’s office as a deputy. He moved his family to Bluff and then when
John Dufer retired he was required to move to White Mesa. After a year he was
replaced by a tribal police and he moved his family back to Blanding. Soon
after he was approached by Junior Hoggard to drive his water truck to his
drilling rigs on Deer Flats and Francis quit the county.
He drilled two water wells in town. One was for Eleanor and
one was for his mother. He liked his job, but was often required to be away
from home for ten days at a time.
Francis loved to hunt deer and often took his wife and sons
out to Alkali and Bulldog to hunt. They had to gut and skin their own deer and
clean their own fish. He taught them all
he had be taught.
His hobby was to find old vehicles and rebuild the engines,
especially jeeps. His friends soon bought jeeps for themselves and they would
go with Francis and their young families on the mountain and Bluff on dirt
roads. The challenge was to get there and back without driving on any paved
roads.
All the kids learned a new game of tag while riding. They
would stop and gather pinecones to throw at each other. Francis would drive
very fast and park behind big bushes and as the other jeeps passed by his kids
would bombard the other jeeps with pinecones. It was fun until Mark fell out of
the jeep and Eleanor said “Enough!”
Other times, he would take them “sand duning”. After Mark
bumped his head on the roll bar and broke the windshield with the unhurt part
of his head, Eleanor pointed the way home.
In 1999 Francis bought his first truck and went into
business for himself. He hauled locally and cross country. His love of trucks
never waned. He bought seven during his business career.
Francis went to work for Clint Howell on the south rim of
the Grand Canyon and promised him a year, but ended up staying eight years. He
moved his family there for the last six months of the job.
He taught his sons to drive trucks, run heavy equipment and
fix their own cars. He was often heard to say, that if he had all the tools his
kids had lost, he could open his own tool store and retire a wealthy man.
In his later years, he and Eleanor would go in the truck and
see the country, picking up loads to haul on the way. Most of the time they would run with Glade
Young, his good friend. Francis remembered those as fun times.
He had friends everywhere he went, and reunited with them at
truck stops, exchanging news about other jobs and friends. He said the largest
city he had ever seen was Toronto, Canada, and when he went to Southeast Asia,
he had gone so far east, that he met himself on the way. He and Eleanor would
discuss where they might go on vacation and he would say, “No, I’ve already
been there.”
He finally got tired of long hauling and went to work for S
& S hauling asphalt for Staker Parsons. At last he found something he could
enjoy and make money at it. Above all he could stay put for the summer and
retire for the winter. His mother for winter driving was “If I might have to
chain up---I won’t go.” He purchased a camper and lived at the job all over the
states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. After he was diagnosed with
cancer in August 2011, Francis underwent treatment and had to stay home to
mend, but was so sad that he couldn’t go drive. One day Glade, Curtis Perkins
and Scott Marion picked him up and took him to breakfast. “Just like old
times,” he said. His day was not
complete until he received a call from one or all of these close friends.
He worked with or for some good men; Junior Cosby, George
Petty, Curtis Palmer, Junior Hoggard, Clint Howell, Reed Hurst and many others.
They brought jobs and revenue to our county and were willing to teach the young
men to work various trades.
Francis loved his children and grandchildren with all of his
heart and called then on the phone frequently when he was on the road. He
called his wife and told her goodnight and “I love you” every night when he
parked the truck for the night.
His last words were, “I’m going home.”
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