“Johnny” VAY SIMPER

Vay was Born on December 9th, 1925 to John and Mary Simper in Vernal, Utah. He was the 5th of six children and the 5th of six sons. His earliest memory was when he was a year and a half old. He pulled a stool up to their old, wood burning, stove while breakfast was cooking and a lid fell on his hand. He was burned very badly. He carries a scar to this day from that burn.

When he was four years old they moved to Taylorsville. He entered school at the age of five. He attended Plymouth Elementary where he went to Elementary and Junior High. He taught himself how to read while tending the cows and sheep and horses out on the farm so he skipped the second grade. His favorite subject was math.

When he was fifteen he went to Granite High School. He earned money during that time thinning sugar beets in the springtime and in the fall he would pick them and top them. He had to make up the school he missed while working in the beat fields because there were no breaks to for farm work. During his 9th grade year, he had a Seminary teacher who said, “Brother Simper, while you are in my class, what name will you go by?” He chose the name of his father, John, and he was known by John for many years thereafter.

John was on the High School swim team, but the High School didn’t have any swim meets because of the war. He swam for what was called the AAU – The American Athletic Union – They had a few competitions and they swam at the Deseret Gym. He has some medals of races that he won. He was also in the Drama club. He worked for a short time after he graduated from High School at Camp Kearns and then was drafted into the Army during WW11. He did not like the army. He says that all they did in the army was, “wake up, eat, do foolish stunts in the boonies, eat, and go to bed”. He was trained to fire a howitzer, but he never fired a shot in combat. When his artillery battalion went to Europe, the war was just winding down and coming to an end. They were not allowed to talk to anyone or do any sightseeing. He missed his brother, Lorin, in Le Havre, France by an hour or so. He was discharged in April of 1946.

After returning from the war he was called to serve in the Northwestern States Mission. This mission included the upper part of Oregon, all of Washington, the panhandle of Idaho, the western part of Montana, all of Alaska and the western part of Canada. He spent 6 weeks to 2 months in Oregon and the rest of the time in Montana. He met his wife, Helen Marler, in a railroad town called Lima, Montana. A companion, by the name of Christian Johnson, introduced them. Elder Simper, spent a lot of time at the Marler household. Sometime along the way Elder Simper was put in as the Branch President of the little branch there in Lima. He liked Helen’s mother, Zella Marler, so very much that he always said that he would like to
marry her most eligible daughter, which he did. John was released from his mission in November, 1948, in Portland Oregon. He traveled from there to Lima Montana to see his gal. Their first date was on Thanksgiving Day. They went to a dance.

John started going to Utah State Agricultural College, in Logan, Utah, in January of 1949. He used his VA benefits to attend school and his major was Agriculture. He has always been very much of a joking man and he says that there at Utah State he studied “How many potatoes grew in a hill in Afghanistan in 1925”.

John and Helen were married on September 2nd, 1949 in the Salt Lake Temple. They first lived in Logan, Utah where Johnny was going to school. Their son David was born in Logan. Johnny didn’t graduate from college because he found out that the GI bill was changing and going to do away with their Work Training program. He realized that for him to stay in college he would miss out on about four years of funding. He got a temporary job in Salt Lake City, at Fredrickson Construction Company, which became permanent. He worked there for over 20 years, where he learned estimating. He worked there until it closed in 1970.

Vay and Helen moved to Taylorsville on 3400 W. just off 4700 South, down the street from his parent’s home. They purchased some land and had their basement dug by his parent’s workhorses. About 8 years later, they sold some of their land to build the upstairs on the house. They raised 10 children; David “J” (Now goes by DJ), Lorna Ann (passed away January 17, 1996), George Allan, Donna Jean, Glenna Marie, Diane Priscilla, Robert Lynn, Kelly James, Byron Vay, and Loran Andrew, (goes by Andy).

There in Taylorsville, they had 3 acres of land and wide open spaces for the Children to roam and play. Johnny owned a cow for many, many years and would milk the cow twice a day. The family loved the milk, cream, and butter that the cow supplied. On Sundays, they would make ice cream. He has always been a great tease and he has nicknames for all his kids. John had an old hand crank tractor and he let the kids ride on it with him and he always liked the children to sit on the harrow to weigh it down. John walked very quickly and would laugh when his children would walk with him, as they had to skip or run to keep up with him.

He always loved to play when the work was done and his own children and the neighborhood children had a blast playing with him. He would wrestle with his boys all over the house and Helen would always say, “Take that nonsense outside”. He loved to read or tell stories to the children at bedtime. He would read the stories with different voices and put the children’s names into the stories. The 3 Little Pigs were sometimes Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, and sometimes they were Diane, Glenna, and Donna and sometimes they were Mike Jones, Kelly and Robert etc., depending on who the children were at the time.
Some of the kid’s favorite stories were “Little Black Sambo”, the Mother West Wind Stories and Uncle Remes Stories, one of their favorites being, “De Tar Baby”.

Vay retired in 2008 from Horne Construction, where he worked for around 35 years as an estimator. He was still farming his land up until just weeks before he died.
He has always been very active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served as a veil worker in the Jordan River Temple, as a substitute counselor in the Bishopric, in the Stake Mission Presidency, as Sunday School President and the calling that he held for the longest time was, Executive Secretary of the ward, in which he served for about 17 years.

He always worked hard and would run very quickly. We always said that he was the energizer bunny, that he kept on going, and going, and going. It was always been hard to catch up with him. He fought colon cancer in 2008 which came back to take his life. He died on July 22, 2016, and he will be greatly missed.

Vay has gone by a lot of names in his life, of course, Vay, John, Johnny, Dad, Fat Dad, Pa, Father, Grandpa, Grandpa Goofy, Great Grandpa, Brother Simper, Mr. Simper and as he put it, “Just don’t call me late for dinner.”

Sept. 4th 2009 – written by Donna Bawden, a daughter
Edited July 2016 by Donna Bawden