David gives a speech on his 94th birthday

2 Nov 1939

"I guess I'm the oldest one here. I have lived here a long time. I came to this county in 1871, came over where Granger Ward is now.

It wasn't Granger Ward then, it was, "over Jordan".

Lucerne: plant that is harvested, dried and used to feed animals.

I came over here and took up a quarter section of land. I had the first lucern patch in this part of the country, on the north part of the quarter section. It was a good lucern patch until the water came out, it came through the gravel and stuck clear up. It was salty, it killed the grass and the weeds as it ran. I stayed with it.

Some of them moved away, but you know it was a hard job to make a living.

I put in grain, it came up , when I watered it it killed lots of it. What the first watering didn't kill was all right after that. But it was a hard job to get enough to make a living. I didn't want to go through it again. Then the road through here from the school house half mile east was all swampy. You get in and go right down to clay.

Then the county got tall willows and put down and put dirt on top of the willows. Then I let them have some of my land in the high places to haul dirt to put on the road. They gave me 5 cents a load for the dirt.

Time went on and some of them moved away and sold out. I didn't sell out. I thought it would be a hard job to pull up stakes and go somewhere else to make a living.

I stayed with it and I have done just about as well as the rest of them.

They remind me now some of the how I used to dig ditches. I dug more ditches than anybody in Granger Ward. If I hadn't I couldn't have make a living. I drained that water off to raise crops. When the water came up it killed the lucern

but I still stayed because I couldn't pull up stakes and go somewhere else to make something out of nothing.

It was hard to work to make a living out of this land. The animals would get on the crops. They would come from a long way and find my lucern patch and trample it off. I'm living today and I don't know why.

I have been nearly killed and nealy frozen to death but I'm here yet. When I was 21 I was a machinist in the old country. I went with two others and went to Newfoundland. We didn't make much of it. It was a cold country. I have seen potatoes grow there but not ripen. When my time was up after two summers and a winter my boss said "what are you going to do?" I said, "I'm going home and not coming back". I didn't want to go to that country any more. It was too cold.

I went back to England. Then some of my friends joined the Latter Day Saints. I went to a meeting and I was convinced that they had the truth. I joined the church and I worked for money until I came here and I had to save 16 pounds or a little over and it took quite awhile. Some of them had been waiting 20 years to come to Zion. But after I came they came right along. They found that they couldn't be sent here by the Church. They had to work for money to come here, and when I came here I was here for a year when I saved money to send for my sweetheart.

She came with a man from the Eighth Ward and she stayed there. She said if she had money she would go back home. She didn't like it because of the polygamy. The man where she lived had three wives and another man that was on a mission and came back there had one wife and sent for two more. Plenty of girls there thought if a man had a good clothes while he was preaching the Gospel and he sent for them they could come to marry him.

My wife went to live close to the Eighth Ward, where the County Building is now. She stayed there for a while and the man came and said to his wife, "want my best shirt fixed up because I'm going out". He went out and brought another women into the house and he was married to her. I'm telling you it was a tight time. They were putting them in prison for polygamy, 6 months and $300. I knew one man who went on a mission and he had two wives, one in each room and the wives had to take in sewing. The poor women and children had to suffer. The man was in prison and didn't know much about it. The women and children hand to do what they could to get along. I could have gone into polygamy if I had wanted to, but I didn't want to. My wife was willing and the young woman in the house was willing, but I wasn't. If a man can't keep one wife how can he keep three?

I had the first lucern patch and I had to fight away the animals. Cattle used to be branded and there wasn't much money left. But I had a hard time of it.

Some of them pulled out and left.

This man was a neighbor but he was dead years ago. They are pretty nearly all dead but me. They have gone on to the other side. I have been very nearly killed very nearly drowned, very nearly frozen to death, but I'm not dead yet. I had my arm broken in a machine in the factory and if the other boy hadn't knocked off the belt, it would hove pulled my arm out. I went to the doctor to have my arm set and I was worrying for fear my dad would give me a licking for having it broken.

I have lived here in Granger Ward before Granger was born. It was all Dearden then, a branch for many years. Some went to Brighton and some went to Taylorsville.

There was one man named Cook, and when the teachers came from Brighton he would say he was from Taylorsville, and when they came from Taylorsville he would say he was from Brighton."

GRANDPA'S SPEECH GIVEN BY GRANDPA AT A PARTY IN HONOR OF HIS 94th BIRTHDAY, AT THE HOME OF HIS DAUGHTER MARY ALICE WARR JONES

David Warr was proud that he raised his family in this area. He worked very hard every day of his life. His life was full of struggle, but he continually pressed forward. His wife and one son died due to the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920. He lived to be 99 years old and impacted so many lives.