Both Loved the Land

Daddy

A full 65 years after my father's accidental death in 1947, my daughter, Amy, at a family reunion bought the book "The Last Season" by Eric Blehm at the Duck Creek Visitor's Center.  I was struck by the many similarities in the two stories. I didn’t know Eric Blehm's book would help me to heal from a catastrophic experience in my childhood. I didn’t even know how much I was still hurting or how many questions were left unanswered.  I wonder if my brothers and sisters, deep in their psyches, feel the same way—even the one-year-old who couldn’t have understood or remembered anything.

As I read about Randy Morgenson, a National Park Service backcountry ranger, so many tucked-away memories resurfaced in regards to Daddy.  I unintentionally searched for answers all through the book, like I was going to better understand Daddy’s life and death.  My father, a sheep rancher in southern Utah, like Randy, died on the job. My brothers and sisters then ranged in age from 1 to 18; my mother and father had been married not quite 20 years.

I didn’t want the book to end.  It was my personal therapy session.  I read every word, even the author’s notes and acknowledgments.

It helped me to feel closure after all these years.

I found answers to questions I didn’t know I had.

My brother, Lynn, wrote our family’s equivalent to Blehm’s tribute to Randy Morgenson, explaining the beauty and tragedy of Daddy’s life and death, in “I Remember May”.  He traced Daddy’s last few days and explained what he was doing and how he was feeling.  Even though Lynn was only 14 years old, he was insightful beyond his years and his story has been a comfort to all of us as we have groped to come to terms with a father of eight being killed at the early age of 43.

Mama took the brunt of it and skillfully nurtured, protected, and supported us, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

That’s why I didn’t even know I still harbored hurt.

In so many ways, Randy’s life parallels Daddy’s. 

BOTH FOUND

SUCCOR AND REBIRTH IN SOLITUDE,

spending more than six months of every year

sleeping in tents or some primitive dwelling,

or even in the open;

eating simply;

walking long distances.

DADDY:

In a letter to Mama, when she was pregnant with their first child, dated Jan. 13, 1929, Daddy wrote: “You should trade legs with me if yours bother you.  I've herded sheep enough now that I have a pretty healthy pair of shank ponies, I don't think they would pain you much.” (2)

From Lynn’s essay:  Daddy's physical ability could have been his greatest achievement.  He could walk farther, longer and faster than anyone I knew.  He kept a sharp axe and cut mountains of oak wood for our wood stove at home.  He was always carrying fifty pounds of salt on his shoulder out to the most remote places on his range so the sheep would do better and they would not congregate around the water so much. (1)

Daddy was on Cedar Mountain when he wrote this to Mama just before they were married:  “All my experience so far (or most of it) has been out in the hills.  I wouldn't even want to go to town if it wasn't for you.  I think more of a horse than I do of all the automobiles made.  What do you think you will do with a man like that?  Most everybody that knows me knows I like horses and the hills, but nobody knows how much I like them (unless it's Son (his best friend)).  I told you once before I should have lived fifty or a hundred years ago.  I think it would have been the most fun in the world to have lived where there were no towns or wire fences, just open country.  That's not just a dream either.  I've tried it enough to know what it's like.

But, of course, I know that girls do not like things like that.  There is nothing in it for them.  Most girls like cities (the further I can get away from them--the cities--the better).  So I "ax" you again, what are you going to do with such a man?!!?  Sheep Herd July 29, 1927 (Cedar Mountain) (2)

RANDY

At 54, Randy had spent most of his life in the Sierra.  This included twenty-eight full summers as a backcountry ranger and the better part of a dozen winters in the high country as a Nordic ski ranger, snow surveyor, and backcountry winter ranger.  Add to that an enviable childhood spent growing up in Yosemite Valley—where his father worked for the park’s benchmark concessionaire, Yosemite Park and Curry Company—and Randy had literally been bred for the storied life he would lead as a ranger.  PAGE 7

While at McClure Meadow in 1990, Randy wrote, “I live in a valley at 9,700 feet in the High Sierra.  I won’t tell you where it is, for what I have to say about it may entice some of you to come, and there are enough already.  Fortunately many of you prefer your screaming blackened sulfur dioxide cities.  Splendid!  Let not I be the one to draw you out.  The more of you who remain, the more lonely will be my mountains, which is just the way I prefer them.  Nor would I tell those of you who are seeking this country where I live.  Find it yourselves, and it will be all the sweeter.”  Page 179

“What is this infatuation with ‘est’?  Why are we beating our brains on a hard surface to be fastest, biggest, richest, on and on ad infinitum ad nauseam?  I asked (a man) how many Audubon’s warblers he’d seen or hermit thrushes he’d heard and he grinned sheepishly, looking down at his bootlaces.  But this was an unfair question.  Such a hiker has probably never slowed enough to notice, but I continued:  ‘Have you tried meadow sitting or cloud watching?’ ‘Anyone can do that,’ was his response.  “We’re a restless breed, we moderns.  Hardest it is to sit still and be attentive to our surroundings.  Boredom comes to most of us very quickly.”  Page 155

BOTH HAD A HEIGHTENED SENSE

OF DUTY AND RESPONSIBILITY

DADDY

His personal letters divulge how keenly honest he was; how he courageously assumed responsibility; they reveal his love and gratitude for Mama and others; innocuously they expose how brave both he and Mama were.  Life wasn't easy; the separations were difficult; he was lonely and lonesome.

From Whitemore Point on the Arizona Strip, Daddy writes to Mama after they had been married a little over a year:  Bill's going to try and get somebody to take him in tomorrow, if he can't he says he's going to walk.  Gosh, he must love her--at least half as much as I love you.  I guess you think I'd raise hell walking home to see you!  I'd do more than that for you, I'd stay out here for you when I want to come home so bad---------! December 28, 1928 (2)

RANDY

In the backcountry, they were on call 24 hours a day as wilderness medics, law enforcement officers, search-and-rescue specialists, and wilderness hosts; interpreters who wore the hats of geologists, naturalists, botanists, wildlife observers, and historians.  On good days they were “heroes” called upon to find a lost backpacker, warm a hypothermic hiker, chase away a bear, or save a life.  On bad days they picked up trash, tore down illegal campfires, wrote citations, and were called names simple for doing their job.  On the worst days they recovered bodies.  Page 9.

His job was to hike the trails and “spread the gospel” to as many visitors as possible.  He issued fire permits, picked up trash, hung Mountain Manners signs, naturalized campsites, and if there was an emergency—medical, forest fire, whatever—he was to tend to the situation as best he could and radio for assistance.   His mantra:  “to protect the people from the park, and the park from the people.”

He soon learned, however, that his main duty that summer was to collect garbage—gunnysacks full of it.  

BOTH HAD A GREAT REVERENCE

FOR ALL THINGS GREAT AND SMALL,

ANIMATE AND INANIMATE

DADDY

From Lynn’s essay:  Or maybe his greatest achievement was his love and care of all animals.  He always had the best trained sheep dogs.  His cows and horses and sheep were always well selected and well fed.  He took great pride in caring for his animals. 

Years later when I moved to Cedar City as the Iron County Agent, I talked to Cleo about the sheep.  He said, "You know, that was a real fine herd of sheep," and it was.  Through careful selection, Daddy had developed a herd of sheep that was superior to any others around.  You could always tell when someone else's sheep were in our herd because they were smaller and not of the high quality, another reminder of the type of man my dad was. (1)

RANDY

I can’t decide whether I want to spend my next life as a little alpine bird or as a marmot.  We should be careful before concluding that either of these would be stepping down.  Randy Morgenson, Rae Lakes, 1965

“I wish only to be alive and to experience this living to the fullest.  To feel deeply about my days, to feel the goodness of life and the beauty of my world, this is my preference.

“I am human and experience the emotions of humanity: elation, frustration, loneliness, love.  And the greatest of these is love, love for the world and its creatures, love for life.  It comes easily here.  I have loved a thousand mountain meadows and alpine peaks.

“To be thoroughly aware each day that I’m alive, to be deeply sensitive to the world I inhabit and the world that I am, not to roam rough-shod over the broad surface of this planet for achievement but to know where I step, and to tread lightly.

“I would rather my footsteps never be seen, and the sound of my voice be heard only by those near, and never echo, than leave in my wake the fame of those whom we commonly call great.”  Page 324

BOTH WERE WELL READ AND POETIC

DADDY

From Lynn’s essay:  Daddy read a lot and was especially interested in national and international news, politics, government leaders and national events. (1)

As I typed up his letters which are in my possession to share with his posterity, I was amazed at the clarity of the writing.  There was rarely a misspelled word; the grammar was almost flawless and some of the discrepancies I noted may not have been considered erroneous at the time. More than that, he was a poet; his alliterations are especially poignant throughout his letters.  From Toroweap Valley on January 17, 1928, he wrote:  "I hope, Amy, that you don't get tired reading all this stuff I'm writing.  It's more like the history of a homesick sheepherder than anything else." (2) 

RANDY

Randy packed books in to read during the summer.  The last book he gave his wife before leaving for his last summer was “I Heard the Owl Call My Name”.  “Randy always read slowly,” his wife explained, “Because he loved the language, he’d savor the language.”  “He didn’t do anything quickly.  He felt you’d miss things if you went too fast.  You can tell by his writings he was really in tune with the cycles of nature.  You get into those cycles and you become very aware of them, especially when your mind is quiet.  Everything slows down and you can hear things.  You can hear yourself.”

I can’t find the exact quote even though I’ve searched relentlessly, but somewhere I read that Randy would write two lines in his logbook about a harrowing rescue heroically saving someone’s life and two pages on listening to the song of a hermit thrush.

BOTH WENT MISSING

DADDY

From Lynn’s essay:  By mid morning I had finished my assignment and returned back to camp.  Mama had breakfast ready but Daddy was not back yet so we waited for a while.  Finally we ate breakfast without him.  After breakfast Mama cut my hair the usual crew cut for the summer.  Even though it was probably only eleven a.m.  I remember thinking to myself, "If something has happened to Daddy, I will have this short hair cut for his funeral.”  I guess knowing Daddy's weakened condition we were all more concerned than we would have been normally.  At any rate it was not long before Mama decided that I should go for help.  I didn't have a driver’s license but I had learned to drive from necessity in helping move sheep and take care of animals down to the "Green" during the fall when Daddy was gone to the herd.  I was to go to Jack Butler's ranch and if no one was there, go on to Orderville.  Mama and the other children stayed at the camp.

No one was at The Butler Ranch so I drove on to Orderville to find everyone in church. Dad's brother, Uncle Lawrence, and our Bishop (Binnie Sorensen) came back to the sheep herd with me. Uncle Lawrence went out to look for Daddy, going down toward the Gulch in the direction I told him I thought he had gone.  Bishop Sorensen stayed with Mom and the kids and I walked up to Bob Creek to gather the horses.

When I returned with the horses, I found that Bishop Sorensen had taken Mom and the kids home and I was to stay at camp in case Daddy came back.  There was a large pile of oak limbs nearby, left from the previous year's woodcutting.  If Daddy came, I was to set the limbs on fire to signal that Daddy was back safely.  As far as I know, the pile of limbs is still there.  
People were starting to collect to join in the search.

Early the next morning, about 200 men were back to continue the search. (1)

Searchers scoured the mountains.

Daddy’s body was found in two days.

It took five years before they found Randy’s remains and pieced together how he may have met his accidental death.

Hope was high that each would be found alive.

From Lynn’s essay:  Uncle Lawrence, Bishop Binnie Sorensen and I were soon on our way back to the sheep camp with instructions for more help to come if they did not hear from us soon.  As we drove back, they both assured me that they knew Daddy would be at camp when we got there; but he wasn't. (1)

RANDY

All present (in the extensive land and air search aided by search dogs, radio and phone technology, cameras, and all modern resources) half expected their friend to come walking up at any moment, white teeth smiling through the familiar bushy salt-and-pepper mountain-man beard, with a remark like “Who’s the party for?”

BOTH WERE IN A WEAKENED CONDITION

BEFORE TAKING THE LAST FATAL STEP

DADDY

Daddy died a couple of years after the war ended, before the economy picked up.  He and Mama were worried about the sheep business and supporting a big family.  Two prominent families, both close relatives in Orderville, had moved their families looking for more prolific farms and Mama and Daddy talked of moving to Idaho or Oregon to join them.  I remember thinking “I hope not.  I couldn’t stand it.”  If Daddy could have held on for a few more years, he would have realized that he was a relatively wealthy man who owned a great deal of land and a healthy herd of sheep. Recovery from the Great Depression and two devastating wars takes time. 

From Lynn’s essay: It was not long after this that Daddy got the flu, a cold or some contagious disease.  After being isolated all winter with no exposure to other people, his immunity was no doubt low and he developed a bad cough and other symptoms.  After a week or two he became quite discouraged because he hadn't been able to shake the cough and he continued in a weakened condition.  About the tenth of May, the sheep arrived at the corral on the road to the Barracks below the "Y".  We were having a lot of rain.  I went with Daddy on the weekend to move the sheep from the Barracks up to the summer range.  We had our two new horses.  We took the sheep up over Mineral to a place just north of the Sorensen ranches where we had to stop for a day because of all the rain and mud.  We set up our tent and had a fire, but we were wet and cold and Daddy still had his cough and flu.  I remember him standing in the rain by the fire with the leather chaps over his shoulders trying to get warm.

When we got home, Daddy collapsed.  He was in such a weakened condition, he couldn't even walk.  Dr. Fen Covington was called and said that Daddy had pneumonia and gave him some Sulfa Drug medication and said he should stay in bed for awhile.  Daddy was administered to and Bishop Sorensen and some of the men close to Daddy talked to him and offered help.  All the family was there and I remember Daddy giving each of us a hug and a kiss.  (And I remember he had a few words of advice--like "mind Mama" or for the older ones, "take care of Mama"--for each of us as we knelt in turn at his bedside.--Jeanette)  We talked about what we should do.  He said he felt he just had to get back to the herd.  The sheep were right in the middle of lambing and he had dozens of small bands of ewes and lambs scattered around the range and he was afraid no one else would be able to find all of them.  It was decided that if Mom and I went out with him and if I would stay with him all the time in case something happened, then he could go back to take care of his sheep. (1)

I have my own theory on Daddy’s condition also.  I am extremely allergic to sulfa, as is my son Eddy.  I think Daddy suffered from an allergic reaction to the medication Dr. Covington gave him.

RANDY

In summers past, Randy had anticipated boarding the parks’ helicopter and flying into the backcountry with the giddy excitement of a child the night before Christmas.  But this season had been different.  By all accounts, he was “in a funk,” “out of sorts,” and conveyed little excitement for the season to come.  Page 10

As Graber’s conversation with Randy progressed, he interpreted the ranger’s apathy and uncharacteristic lack of passion as depression.” “His eyes were blank,” says Graber, “but I knew how to push Randy’s buttons—he’d lobbied for meadow closures his entire career.  I never knew anybody who took a trampled patch of grass more personally than Randy.  And wildflowers—he was a walking encyclopedia.  You could always get him going about flowers, so I brought that up, along the lines of ‘Nice and wet up high, good year for flowers.’

“His response was ‘I don’t find much pleasure in the flowers anymore’.”  Page 12

Randy was struggling with himself his last few years.

“First off, you can’t ignore Randy’s state of mind at the time,” says Nash (his friend and retired supervisor).  “That alone put him at a major disadvantage.  There is no doubt in my mind that Randy’s mind-set had something to do with his death.”  That said, “In the Park Service, we’re often asked to identify the hazards in a certain area.  But how does a backcountry ranger alone on patrol identify hazards when the whole damn place is a hazard?  Any ranger route is a hazard, and in between one hazard and another hazard is another hazard—like a snow bridge.  You’ve got to get across a creek, and chances are its stable.  You’ve done it many times before.  Sometimes you’ve gone around it, but usually you’ve walked as lightly as possible and done it.  But it’s hard to walk softly with a 50-pound pack.  It’s roulette, that’s what it is.  I guess after twenty-eight years of good luck, you’re gonna hit black when you bet on red.” Page 322

 BOTH LOST THEIR LIVES

ON THE LAND THEY LOVED

DADDY

From Lynn’s essay: There were a number of pickups there and a few men.  As I got out of the pickup, they showed me the smoke from a fire to the west down above the ledges.  They said that was the signal that Daddy had been found.  That's all they knew.  Once again I said a silent prayer that he was all right.  We waited on a little hill where we could see all of the area to the west and south, the steep canyons of the Orderville Gulch, North Fork, and on to Zion National Park to the Southwest.  I don't know how long we waited there, but eventually we could see a few men coming out toward us.  They would know.

The first man to get to us was my cousin LaNard Johnson.  He asked me what color of shirt my dad was wearing.  I said he always wore a blue Levi jumper.  He said that he and Grandon Holgate, another cousin, had followed Daddy's tracks along a trail at the top of a high ledge to a point where he could have gone above or below a small clump of oak brush.  He had gone below, and started to slide on the dirt over the sandstone.  He slid about ten feet and over the edge.  The ledge there was about 400 feet high.  They could see something blue at the bottom but couldn't tell what it was.  They directed two other men that were in the canyon, Tiny Gardner and Hugh Chamberlain, to the spot but it was so far down they couldn't tell what they said when they would yell back to them.  Feeling fairly sure that it was Daddy and that he was dead they came back out to where we were.

Mom's brother, Uncle Fred Heaton, was there and he, LaNard and I got in a car to go talk to Mama and the family before they could get the news from someone else.  As we drove along, LaNard told me about the area and what he thought happened.  He said if Daddy would have gone above the clump of oak he would have been all right, but when he went below, he lost his footing and started to slide.  As he slid, he grabbed for the clump of oak but only managed to get a handful of oak leaves.  When they found him at the bottom of the ledge, he still had the oak leaves clutched tightly in his hand.  I also know that if Daddy had been well and strong, as he normally was, he would never have slid over the edge of the cliff.  He had probably walked in similar places hundreds of times before, but this time he was weak, this time he didn't make it-- and the lives of my mother and her eight children changed forever.

The funeral was attended by a very large crowd, more than the historic old Orderville Ward chapel would hold.  I think it was quite a shock to the whole town to have such an accident happen to a young father with a large family. (1) 

RANDY

According to one scenario, snow topped ice covering a deep pond, rather than a small stream which Randy attempted to walk across.  If Randy had punched through, he would have dropped deep into the freezing water because of the weight of his backpack.  The current would have pushed him immediately away from the hole in the ice.  After a few frantic attempts to resurface, his hands would have been numb from the freezing water, making it nearly impossible to unbuckle his waist belt.  He would have been trapped with his backpack on, under the ice, for little more than 30 seconds before panic, hypothermia and lack of oxygen ushered in death.  Page 320

Perhaps Randy was having a glorious day in the Sierra when he met his demise.  Flowers were blooming along the edges of snowbanks and new grasses were sprouting up.  Birds were singing, ground squirrels foraging, marmots lazing in the sunshine, pikas chirping.  If so, he may have been lulled into a sense of bliss.  For twenty-eight seasons he’d strolled through these mountains—across chasms, along lakes, over snowfields—thousands of times. Page 323 

Randy and Judi didn’t have any children.

Daddy and Mama had eight.

The one regret Judi had was that they didn’t have children.

  
      1. From “I Remember May” by Lynn J. Esplin

2.From Daddy's letters; mainly written from the sheepherd to Mama from 1926, the year before they were married, through 1929, after their first baby was born.

3.The Last Season by Eric Blehm