Kirt Roper (1895-1979)

Kirt Roper (1895-1979)
Born	May 8, 1895 Oak City, Millard, Utah
Died	November 16, 1979 Orem, Utah, Utah
Resting place	Oak City, Millard, Utah
Father	Alvin Roper
Mother	Martha Lydia Lyman
Wife	Wanda Belle Alldredge
Children	Beryl Larry Lane

Early Life

Kirt Roper was born to Alvin and Martha Lydia Lyman Roper May 8, 1895 at Leamington, Millard County, Utah. He was the Tenth child in a family of ten children. He was named and blessed by his uncle Apostle Francis M. Lyman. His mother wanted him named Kirtland and he suggested Just Kirt and that was it. When he was very small, he moved with his family to what is known as Fool Creek Flat where his father took up a homestead farm, which was about four miles south of Leamington, Here he spent his early childhood. He seldom had anyone his own age to play with, His dog and gun were his playmates. He understood nature more than he did people and it was hard for him to be confined to a school room where it came time for him to go to school.

His father bought land and established a home in the town of Oak City, which was eight miles south of Fool Creek Flat, but he still spent the summer on the farm where he learned the early arts of farming. He earned his spending money by drowning quimps which are rodents resembling gophers, which live in the fields causing damage to crops. The country put a bounty on them at 1.5 cents a head, there was also a bounty put on jack rabbits at 1 cent an ear. He also learned to trap predatory animals such as the coyote and bobcat. His father played the violin by ear and he used to get him to whistle the different tunes until he got the ones he wanted to play. He rode with his father and mother to Leamington at night where his father played for dances for one dollar a night, He was put to bed in the buggy to sleep.

He also used to ride in the same buggy with his mother when she delivered freight from Leamington to Oak City for her brother Fred Lyman who owned the town store.

When he was 6 years old his father decided to go to Bluff, San Juan Co. Utah to look over the country with the intentions of settling thee. Some of their relatives "the Lyman families had preceded them there. But hen his mother saw the vast wilderness of that country she said “Alvin you stay here if you want to but I’m going back" so they did and moved back to Oak City where they lived out the rest of their lives.

At the age of 16 years his father died of cancer. His mother began to rely on him a great deal. He was very near to her and absorbed her good teachings of kindness, honesty and clean living. In the course of his tender years he attended church with his parents. Always shy and timid about taking part in public, he was Baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints at the age of 8 years of age and accordingly was advanced in the priesthood through the years. He says he and his cousin were the first boys to pass the sacrament in the Oak city Ward. He remembers how frightened and timid he was.

He enjoyed sports in general but especially basketball and baseball in which he participated.

War Service

When war broke out in 1917, he enlisted in the U>S> Army April 17, 1917. He was the only young man that enlisted voluntarily for service in the Army from his home town of Oak City where he served for eighteen months. He was never called for duty overseas duty to an accident which broke his ankle. He spent some time in the hospital and was honorably discharged 7 September 1918.

This poem written by one of his army Buddies in 1918 and has been filled away with his army discharge. It expressed his feelings at that time.

ONLY A VOLUNTEER Why didn’t I want to be drafted and be lead to the train by the hand, and put in a claim for exemption – Why did I hold up my hand? Why didn’t I wait for the banquet? Why didn’t I wait to be cheered? For the drafted man got all the credit while I only volunteered. Nobody gave me a banquet, nobody said a kind word, The puff of the engine the grind of the wheels Was all the goodbye that I heard. Then off to the training camp hustled To be trained for the next half a year and In the shuffle forgotten, I was only a volunteer. Perhaps some day in the future When my little boy sits by my knee and Asks what I did in the great war and His little eyes look up at me I will have to look back in those eyes That at me so trustingly peers And tell him that I wasn’t drafted That I was only a volunteer.

{That little boy of his Volunteer his service in the Second World War in 1941}

After his return home from the Army Kirt sold his share of the farm and purchased the General Store in Oak City but due to poor management and his free heartedness’ he went broke.

Marrige

On March the 28th 1921 he married Wanda Alldredge in Salt Lake City, Utah. They moved to Salt Lake City in September of that year, where he took vocational training, which was put on by the government for disabled veterans of World War One. At the University of Utah for two years.

Their marriage was solemnized in the Salt Lake Temple December 21st 1921. Their first child was born in the LDS hospital. A son named Dern Alldredge Roper. A second child was born there May 24th 1923 in the Holy Cross Hospital a daughter named Beryl.

After finishing school they returned to Oak City where a third child was born September 29th 1924 a daughter named Glenna.

He build him a little shop here and applied his trade which was Black smithing and trapped fur bearing animals which didn’t reimburse him very well. So in 1925, he got a job with the Union Pacific Railroad at Lynndyl, Utah. He bought a home here where we lived for 24 years and raised our family. Two more daughters were born here. Dawn was born August 23, 1927 and Mary Beth was born July 14th, 1934. And a son born Nov 2 1937 named Larry Lane and died with Whooping cough Feb 1938. We managed to struggle through the Depression of the 30’t and it was a struggle. He was laid off his job at the Railroad, but got a job trapping for the Government , until he was called back to work on the Railroad at which he worded at various kinds of jobs. He was never lazy, always willing to do more than his share of work.

About this time he found himself visiting the town pool hall all too frequently and some how it dawned on him this was contrary to this teaching. So he happened to see and an advertisement in a magazine of the “North Western School of Taxidermy; It offered a course in Taxidermy for ten dollars, We could hardly afford the ten dollars but we did and it paid off in more ways than one. He had a hobby which took care of his spare time and which he liked for it dealt with specimens of nature which he understood and loved. He became quite an artist at it and mounted many Deer Heads, Cougar Head birds etc.

He has never been with out a hobby since, raising flowers, collecting sun colored bottles from the desert, leather craft, collecting odd shapes of different wood stumps and twisted branches and making beautiful ornaments of them and painting pictures by number.

Friends and relatives were recipients of such. Fishing and hunting are the delights of his life while he lived at Lynndyl and raising our family he always held some position in the Ward, Ward teaching, Scouting, temple work, Genealogy and in Sunday School, Superintendent for a short time. Much of his work at this time was night work or out of town. During the second World War he often worked sixteen hours a day.

In 1947 the Union Pacific Railroad decided to by pass Lynndly doing away with their terminal there and so he was left without a job. In the fall of 1948, he obtained work at Provo, Utah still with the railroad. The children had all married expect the youngest daughter Mary who was fifteen years old. So with her we moved to Provo in 1949 where we lived until his retirement at the age of 65, May 8 1960. He retired as a stationary engineer and is a charter member of the U>P> old timers club 72034. The day of his retirement his fellow workers presented him with a Bicycle and a lovely fishing pole.

In 1962 we moved to Springville, Utah where our daughter Genna and family live. He was ordained a High Priest in the 18th Ward Springville Stake, 1965.

Photo Gallery

References

• Brief History of Kirt Roper, written by his wife Wanda under his direction (1966, Springville Utah)
• United States Census, 1900 (Line 14)
• United States Census, 1910
• United States Census, 1920
• Utah Marriages, 1887-1966
• Utah Death Certificates, 1904-1956