Willard Carlos McBride (1918 - 2007)

Born 22 Jan 1918 in Pima, Graham, Arizona, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 11 Oct 2007 at age 89 in Sandy, Salt Lake, Utah, United States

Biography

• Fact: Residence (1930) Graham, Arizona
• Fact: Obituary (14 Oct 2007) Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
• Fact: Burial (16 October 2007) Salt Lake City Cemetery, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States
• Fact: http://familysearch.org/v1/LifeSketch Born in 1918 in the midst of the flu epidemic that swept through the United States, Willard “Bill” Carlos McBride was a farm boy and proud of it. Raised on a small farm in Pima, Arizona, nestled in the Gila Valley, Bill quickly learned the value of hard work and keeping true to the faith.

Stalwart members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bill’s parents, Don Carlos and Emma Hubbard McBride, taught their children to follow the prophet, to pay tithing, to be honest in their dealings.

When Bill was only 14 years old, his father died. At that time, Bill wrote that he felt that as the oldest boy that he should assume the duties of his father and provide for his family. He contracted with a neighbor to cut wood for $2.25. Bill sawed and sawed, wearing blisters in his hands and still was only partially done with the chore. When Bill’s half-brother Donald, older by some years, saw what Bill faced, he had some “sharp words” with the neighbor for taking advantage of a young boy.

As an older teen, Bill worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to earn money for his widowed mother and younger siblings. At the outbreak of World War II, he traveled to Washington, DC where he enlisted in the Navy.

There, he met a beautiful southern girl, Georgia Rhea Sampson, who had also gone to the nation’s capital, looking for work. They married on September 11, 1944. Bill was sent to the Pacific Theater, where he sustained injuries during a torpedo raid on the ship where he served.

He returned to the States and received treatment for his injuries. Recognizing that education was the way to a better life, he went to college and then to law school, supported by Georgia.

Two daughters, Jane and Carla, came to Bill and Georgia in 1951 and 1953, respectively. Later, the family was sealed together for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple.

Bill worked for the Internal Revenue Service and then started a long and illustrious career with the Department of Justice. He rose quickly through the ranks and earned the ranking of a GS-16, the highest in the government at that time. He prosecuted many high profile cases, setting precedents that continue to be employed.

He served in the church in many positions, including that of bishopric counselor, stake auditor, and other callings. When he was called as a High Priest, he was ordained by Ezra Taft Benson, then a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles and the Secretary of Agriculture.

Bill could be a barracuda in court but was unfailingly kind and gentle with his family and friends, generous to a fault. Known as “Grandpa Bill” to his nine (living) grandchildren, he was deeply loved by each of them.

Most mornings, my brother and I (Willard C. McBride) would drive the cows, after milking them, to the "field" for pasture, two miles away, thereafter would go on to school. After school, again, we would go after the cows, drive them home, feed them some, and milk them. I recall one experience which frightened me because I was afraid my brother, Dewaine, had been seriously hurt or killed while driving the cows home one evening. Due to a screeching of brakes on a car going too fast, the cows became startled and quite wild. They turned around from going forward, and ran backwards, tromping my brother, Dewaine, until he was unconscious. It was by the home of Hyrum Crockett, and with the aid of his family, first aid was given to Dewaine and it was found that he was not seriously hurt.

As I have said, much of our food was bread and milk. My mother would make jams, preserves, jellies, etc. from the fruit of the orchard. Often, we did not have enough money to make jelly from the fruit, so my mother would put up in jars the juice from the fruit. Then if we later got a little money, she would make jelly out of the juice. Jelly required a lot of sugar to make it, and often we would not have the money for sugar.

I remember well the delicious and beautiful lovaes of brown light bread my mother made, which we would break into pieces into big bowls filled with milk, take some jam, preserves or jelly in a spoon, dip it into the bread and milk, and this became a fine evening meal in the summer, especially. Also, we would eat the bread and milk, taking bites of onions or radishes, which we grew, and found this fare to be delightful to eat. We grew a garden, although this project was not always successful. In the winter, we had pork from the hogs and beef from one or more of the steers which we would kill (steers, being castrated male animals, which otherwise, would have been bulls.)

At some juncture, my father, either before or after his marriage to my mother in 1914acquired a six acre area of land in the town of Pima, Arizona, where he built an eight room house, including an outside porch, screened in. It was a house mostly of brick, but contained some frame work. On this land, he grew alfalfa, some corn or cane at times, had an orchard (apples, plums, apricots, grapes, peaches, etc.), and it was on this area of land that we kept our cows (at least at night and sometimes during the day). He kept about six milk cows, some calves to sell or to use for beef, some hogs, chickens, and other animals.

In addition, he acquired at 15 acre farm some two miles from the house or our home. This we always referred to as "the field." Here he grew more alfalfa (for hay for the cows), wheat, and some barley. It seemed to be the practice, generally, for the families in Pima to live on a small area of land where they had small fields for grazing of cows, and an orchard, and to have a larger farm or "field" a few miles away out of "town." This was the situation, as may be seen with my father and his family. At times we "pastured," the cows in the fields on the six acrea area where our home was located, but much of the time we would drive the cows to pasture on a portion of the 15 acre farm or fireld two miles from home.

My first memory of life, as I recall, is that of sitting on a stool (a short, 2 by 4 inch board, which was nailed at the top of a board about one inch thick and aboaut 10inches square) milking a cow. We always brought the cows from the 15 acre field every night to milk them in the corral (pen). One of the jobs of my brothers and myself was the milking of the cows, feeding the calves (still on milk), letting them suck our fingers to learn what the milk tasted like, after dipping our fingers in the milk. Of course we milked the cows morning and night. After milking the cows, we put the milk through what was called a separator, a machine which separated the milk from the cream, the cream coming out of one spout and the milk, now removed of the cream, coming out of another spout. We saved enough milk before it was separated for our own use in drinking. We fed the milk with the cream removed to the young calves still on milk, and mixed the remainder of the milk with the cream removed with dishwater and other garbage, to feed to the hogs. In addition, we fed the hogs corn, and a weed in the summer, which we called pig weed, a sort of reddish-color weed, which the hogs liked.

I recall how good it was to drink the warm milk from the cows with hot light bread, with honey or preserves (jam). My mother would bake six loaves of bread every day, which we would consume. One must remember that there were nine children at home for a while, plus my mother and my father, my father's three children from his first wife and six children of my mtoher's by him. It seemed that our mainstay was bread and milk. We sold the cream, or most of it.

(Note: this was taken verbatim from the personal history of Willard Carlos McBride.)

Sources

• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 05 December 2017, 01:06), entry for Willard Carlos McBride(PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:KWCV-NLT); contributed by various users.