William Robert Lay Jr.
Written by Fay R. Lay, wife to Ervin Clive Lay. 

    His family lived in Magna, Loa, Elsinore and Widtsoe, Utah.  There he tried dry farming, but failed because of the drought.  Ervin went to first grade here with a very good teacher from Panguitch, Utah.  Grandma Eugenie Lay was secretary and treasurer of the Relief Society at Widtsoe. "Rob" as I called him owned the first car in Widtsoe, so he took the teacher to Marysvale terminal to meet the Denver and Rio Grande Train.  He was Deputy Sheriff.

    When Rob Jr. fell in love with Eugenie Sudweeks, she was teaching school in Kingston, Utah.  They were married in the Manti Temple.  She had beautiful long curly brown hair.  Her tableclothes were always spotless white and every thing she cooked was done to perfection.  Merna has a crocheted tablecloth she made.  It is beautiful.  She also mad her own clothes and was a good tailor.  She had a good build and was always neat and clean looking.  She was teaching in Kingston. She managed the money carefully.  Raised and bottled many chickens and garden vegetables and fruit of all kinds.  Her cellar was always full.  She sometimes sold room and board.  They were the original part owners of the dairy barn now owned by Paul and Afton Morgan.

. William Robert Jr. LAY was born 2 Mar 1883 in Milfork, Emery, Utah. He died 17 Oct 1970 in Circleville, Piute, Utah and was buried 20 Oct 1970 in Circleville, Piute, Utah. William married (1) Eugenie SUDWEEKS on 8 Jan 1908. Eugenie was born 26 Jul 1883 in Kingston, Piute, Utah. She died 4 Apr 1959 in Panguitch, Garfield, Utah.
 

They had the following children:

   F i. Deon LAY was born 23 Nov 1908 in Elsinore, Sevier, Utah. was buried in Moroni, Utah.  Deon married (1) Earl Andrew PETERSON on 21 Apr 1937 in Manti, Ut. Earl was born 7 Jun 1896 in Ephraim, Sanpete, Ut.. was buried in Moroni, Utah. Deon and Earl had four children.
 

 M ii. Lionel Robert LAY was born 12 Feb 1911 in Elsinore, Sevier, Utah. He died 28 Oct 1923 in Widsoe, Garfield, Ut and was buried 30 Oct 1923 in Widsoe Cem., Garfield, Ut. Cause of death: Killed by falling of a load of sacked grain down between horses and kicked in head.
 

 M iii. Derald E LAY was born 19 Oct 1913 in Elsinore, Sevier, Utah. He died 23 May 1988.  Derald married (1) Laurell OUTGEN(?). The marriage ended in divorce. Derald also married (2) Edith ???.
 
 

 M iv. Ervin Clive LAY was born 19 Apr 1917 in Elsinore, Sevier, Utah. He died 28 Oct 1992 in Castledale, Emery, Utah. Ervin married (1) Ethel Faye RIGBY on 28 Jul 1937 in Manti, Utah. Ethel was born 22 Aug 1912 in FAIRVIEW, Sanpete, Utah. Ervin and Fay had five children.
 

    Rob, was always good to me.  We were good friends.  I spent one evening with him about ten days before he had his heart attack and died.  We talked of his family, old times and looked at pictures.  He watched a lot of television and loved going fishing.  He had a boat and motor, but after he got cancer in his throat and lungs, he did not go as much.  Shepherd Haycork was very good to him.  They went fishing a bit together.  Rob could remember well and was very alert until his death.  Derald always lived at home and helped with the chores, shopping, taking cows to the milk barn to be milked.

    Rob was a good sheep shearer and traveled to Montana, Idaho, etc., to shear in season.  He had his own little machine and was one of the very fastest at this.  He loved to visit with the men and they always enjoyed his company.  He owned a nice 40 acre farm but shearing sheep was his way to earn money in the springtime.  Rob  was a boiler foreman in the Gunnison Sugar Factory.  Rob  was secretary and treasurer for the Hatch Town Damn that broke and kept the records for many years hoping the damn would be rebuilt but it never was and Circleville consequently lost the water rights.

    Rob sold his potatoes that year for one and a half cents a pound which was a very good price.  He furnished, hay and grain and a big team of horses for logging.  The year I was pregnant with Robert, Grandma Eugenie Sudweeks Lay kept Merna in town.  She always kept her house immaculate and curls in Merna’s hair.

    Eugenie was a good housekeeper.  Her tables were always covered in snow white tablecloths and a very good meal set upon it.  Some people would stop in to visit and would later make a comment about how delicious her food looked.  Her bread, peaches, etc., were always perfectly done.  She was a good seamstress and crocheted quite a few things.  They too were always some of the best.  She took pride in keeping her home clean.  She kept boarders to help pay for the farm.  When the men would come to shear sheep, she set the table for about 12 to 14 men.  She also kept "Uncle" Brig Sudweeks who was bedfast, for a year or so, until he died.  One of the Salt Lake men sold them some of his miscellaneous furniture.  This was the best she never had a big shiny dining room table, buffet, piano, chest of drawers etc.

    Eugenie taught me how to sew, bottle fruit and, etc.. We were very frugal and took care of all the vegetables and fruit available.  Provo fruit farmers trucked fruit to Circleville to sell.  She always raised a flock of chickens and would bottle a lot of them for appetizing cold suppers.  We also bottled a lot of venison.  We liked it and opened many bottles for a good meals.  Rob and “Genie" always had a good vegetable garden with plenty of radishes, lettuce, beets, onions, corn, squash, etc... She had heavy, curly, brown hair which had grayed when I knew her.  She was slim and neat and could walk to the grocery store with a fast strut when hurrying a block and a half to get groceries for her family and boarders.

    When he and Ervin bought the sawmill at "Big Johns" they both could sharpen the saw etc.  "We’re just naturals at sawing, Skidding the logs with "old Pete", the horse, and all the other parts of the business.  One day Grandpa Lay [Rob Jr.] wanted to give 2 year old Robert a ride on "Old Pete".  He looked up at the big work horse and said " I'm afraid he'll tip over with me". We purchased the sawmill from Mr. White of Beaver Utah for $700 in lumber.

    It was Eugenie's management and thriftiness that helped Grandpa [Rob Jr.] Lay pay for their farm and home in Circleville, Utah.  Many times she washed the children's clothes at night on the scrubbing board so they could have clean clothes for the next day.  She kept "Brig" Sudweeks until his death.

    Grandpa [Rob Jr.] Lay loved to go fishing.  Shephard Haycock would come and go with him in Rob's boat and was a good friend in his latest years.

Ervin Clive Lay
Written by Fay Rigby Lay 1980

    Ervin was born in April 19, 1917 in Elsinore Utah to William Robert Lay Jr. and Eugenie Sudweeks Lay.  He attended his first year of school under Mable Woodard at Widtsoe, Utah.  When his father's crops failed he moved with his family to Circleville, Utah where he spent most of his life.  His father and mother bought a home and a farm here and this is where they lived the rest of their lives.

    Ervin was President of the Piute High School student body.  He and Dr. Cyril Fullmer of Salt lake City won first place at the Utah State Fair with a demonstration and exhibition of sawing and forest products.  They won a trip to Chicago, but it was depression times and no money to send them.  He passed his examination as a certified welder and was an Iron Worker many years in El Paso, Texas, Green River Wyoming, Ely Nevada, Monticello, Provo, and Salt Lake City, Utah, Urivan, Grand Junction and Rifle, Colorado.

    While attending the University of Utah in 1937 he met me, Fay Rigby.  I opened the front door when he came over to visit his friend Cyril Fullmer.  I was teaching school in Salt Lake City at that time.  Before we were married Ervin invited me to come from B.Y.U. Summer School and go on a mountain trip with Cyril Fullmer, "Jerry" Horton and Allen.  We had a good time.  Cyril drove his dad's old truck and we stood in the back of it.  It was a hot July day.  I can still remember how hot I got.  We were married in Junction, Utah July 24, 1937.  When we were first married I taught school the fall of 1937 at the Wasatch Elementary while he went to the Agricultural College in Logan.  He thumbed rides weekends to see me in Salt Lake City.  We moved to Circleville in the summer of 1938 where I taught the 3rd and 4th grades that winter in the Circleville Elementary
School.  He surveyed with Lazone Bagley in Koosharm in the spring of 1938.  They had fun catching fish and sent me some by mail.  He spent $40 of his summer's wages to buy me a beautiful, dainty wedding band set with seven diamonds.  He put it on my finger one evening beneath a tree at the Salt Lake City and County Building.  We didn’t own a car, so we rode the street car to town.

    Teaching jobs were scarce and married men were given preference so we did not let people know we were married.  Ervin went to Logan to school and I taught in Salt Lake City Utah.  We were married Manti Temple the next spring July 24 1938.

    Our children are Merna Fay Lay, Robert Lynell Lay, Clyde Howard Lay, Henry Ervin Lay and David Earl Lay who has preceded us in death.  David was teaching school at Cedar City, Utah and went to Huntington canyon for the summer to work on the new power plant.  He was a "punk" (which meant that he was not a union ironworker) with two other young men who were removing bolts on a walkway for painters to get to their work.  David stepped on a bolt that broke and let him and the iron grating fall 60 feet.  He died on the way to the Price Hospital.  He was married to Mary Ann Black of Panguitch Utah and had one baby girl JoAnn.  He was 24 years old and named best teacher of the year at Cedar City North Elementary School that year.

    We had very little money during the depression years when Merna was a baby we lived in part of the Lay's home.  So we spent many evenings playing three handed "Sluff" and "Chinese Checkers" on boards that Rob and Ervin made.  They each also carved a magazine rack with a pocket knife.   We lived with Ervin's parents until Robert was going to be born April 2nd 1943.  We had one room downstairs and a bedroom up.  I washed some on the scrubbing board and bought our first washer at Smoots store for $60 or $80 dollars.  I was happy to get it.  We had a Sears Silverstone radio, a good looking second hand stove, cedar chest, nice silverware, dishes etc. that I had bought while teaching school.  We only got about $70 or $80 a month but a little money went a long ways.  I paid Ervin's mother $20 a month to tend Merna.

    Ervin was co-owner and operator of Richfield’s first butane dispensary - The La Frenz Gas Co., owner and operator of Lay Frozen Foods Locker for thirty five years, he and his father William Robert Lay [Jr.] owned and operated the Lay Sawmill Co. in Beaver Mountains at Big Johns, Dry Flat and at the Bay Ranch in Junction Utah canyon. We bought it from " Old Man” White for $750 in lumber.

    I taught school in Salt Lake City and saved $200 which I put in Ervin's stocking for Christmas.  This money bought the first truck to haul lumber to Beaver.  Rob Jr. furnished the hay and horses.  They lived in a tent on the mountain until they finally built a small two room cabin.  I was there two summers and at Anderson cabin (Anderson cabin is located by the road going up Circleville mountain by the lone pine tree before you head up the hill).  Merna was playing out in the dirt by the Anderson cabin.  Ervin came up to the house from the "Lone Pine Sawmill" Merna pointed her little finger at a coiled rattlesnake and said "Pitty".  Ervin hurried and killed it with an axe.  There was a high pitched whirring noise coming form beneath the floor under the kitchen stove.  I never did know what the sound was until a year ago on television.  They showed a nest of rattlesnakes!  There was that same sound!  I chill to think we were living that close to them and no one ever got bitten. Afterwards they moved the sawmill down by the lone pine tree.

    We lived in a big army tent at first on Dry Flat.  Grandpa had a bed in the corner and we in another.  I stayed in the Beaver Mountains that year until December 19th, I would put several layers of clothes on and go out into the trees and watch the men.  I always loved life and people wherever I was.  I so enjoyed this and loved watching.  I liked the small of the wood and watching the big boards fall as Ervin or his father ran the saw.  Rob was a very handy man and a hard worker.  He taught Ervin a lot.  They could fire the big boiler, sharpen the saw, build the house, etc.. There wasn’t much they couldn’t do when it came to fixing things.  Rob had an old fashioned blacksmith anvil which they brought to the mountains and put in to the shed.  One summer they ran three work shifts - Lawrence Nay, Whitey Dalton, Old Man ??? from Joseph.  Horace Carter, Reed Munson, Harry Price from Junction were some of the men who worked for us.  One summer the Lay boys from Escalante worked for us.  Ervin made out the checks.  He hauled lumber after work to Beaver to pay for the mill.  I can hear the old truck yet as it hummed coming up Grindstone Flat about 2:00 o'clock in the morning after he had unloaded the lumber.

    Some of the men's wives lived at the sawmill in tents or little shacks.  I really learned to know and enjoy Neva Munson.  Their little boy, Ronald, was Merna’s age. Clyde was born September 23,1944. I didn’t go to the sawmill much that summer.  One time I was riding down on a bouncing truck loaded with logs. my stomach hardened up with contractions.  I always felt lucky I didn’t miscarry with him.

    We had a good house at Dry Flat with a big long kitchen and a bedroom.  The men played poker with chips some nights just for fun, I always enjoyed watching.  We had, a straw tick for Merna's bed and a good old fashioned black stove with a tea kettle humming and steaming.  We had a tin wash dish on a powder box and carried water from a boxed in spring.  About a block down at the foot of the hill.  I carried water in buckets to wash diapers etc.  Robert Lynell had some rocking tigers he would carry all over the hillside.  One day we were in Circleville on Grandpa's and Grandma’s lawn.  He decided he could go with out the Tigers.  He ran and ran in big circles, laughing all the time.  He was really happy!  Clyde Howard Lay says “he remembers when Robert ran.”  He was a babe in arms.   Merna was old enough, about five to take a pan and gather toad stools.  She brought some that were just beautiful in red, purple, brown, etc... and big around as a basketball.  Some were mushrooms I suppose, but we didn’t know them well enough to identify which was which.

    My brother, Clyde Wix Rigby from Fairview, Utah, went to Snow College in the winter and worked for us the summer.  We paid my brother, $1 or $1.50 a day and board.  He carried off the big slabs from the saw to a pile.  He was very likeable and a good worker.  Horace Carter of Minerville was also one employee that summer.  He made many good hotcakes for breakfast.  It was slim picking’s these years.  We ate a lot of venison and potatoes.  The men would take turns shooting a deer and sharing it with all the e camp.  Clyde was so innocent and good.  One morning he came into our cabin and said "Ervin!  Ervin!  I've shot a deer!  Now what do I do?" He thought he should take a turn.  I forget what Ervin told him but he or they together took care of things.

    Ervin purchased the Piute Cafe from Morris Johnson for $ 5,000 and sold it in 1976 for $11,000.   One year Ervin made a deal with our neighbor, Niels Mortenson.  Ervin was to manage Niels' garage and he was to work for us for $300 a month.  Ervin worked hard.  He took our cafe windows and put them in the garage and bought new ones for the Piute Cafe.  He bought and hauled large round gasoline, oil and butane tanks from Salt Lake City Co-op Company and set them up.  He bought 2 gasoline pumps, fluorescent lights, etc. to improve the business, after he had worked at it about a year Niels backed out.  He said "It's difficult to work for someone when you own the property".  Ervin had failed to have him sign a contract.  Ervin was patient and after a few months Niels did sign a paper saying he would pay the balance of the Co-op account, but
Ervin had lost a lot of time and money.

    The children and I went to Green River, Wyoming (1952-1953), Grand Junction, (1956-1957), and Rifle, Colorado (1957-1958), to be with him.  He was working for Corn Construction and others.  I taught school most of the time. We came back to Circleville when Bart Applegate died of a heat attack in 1958.  He was running our locker plant so we needed to get home to take care of things.  We had even been thinking of buying a home in Grand Junction, Colorado.  We liked it there.

    We ran a charge account at Kenz Store (Delburts) for our sawmill groceries and had a difficult time paying if . We finally got the sawmill paid for and bought a nice big red Chevrolet truck.

    Chase and Lucille Murdock from Beaver, Utah and one little daughter, Judy lived with us in the big tent at Dry Flat.  We got to be very good friends.  Merna and Judy were about the same age.  They had a separate smaller tent for sleeping.  His father owned a store and Post office, school buses, and a service station in Beaver.  Ervin had met Chase while delivering lumber to the Horn Silver Mine at Frisco, out west of Milford.  Chase decided he was tired of working for his father so he came to work for us.  Ervin was a pall bearer at his my mother's funeral and Chase was a speaker at Rob's [Jr.].  He told of the snowy mornings and pulling their heads back under the covers at the sawmill.  Ervin hauled a lot of lumber to Horn Silver Mine and they couldn’t pay us, but kept promising.  The finally owed us about $1000 which was a lot those days.

    Mr. Carl Haynie gave Ervin a tip to buy Horn Silver Stock,  Rob and Ervin were gamblers at heart but we owed growing bills etc.  So "Genie" and I talked them out of buying stock.  It went temporarily from 170 to 560.  I never did live this down.

    I laugh when I remember one day when Lucille was making bread.  It wouldn’t rise.  Come to find out she had poured boiling water on the yeast cake.  When they moved back to Beaver that fall their truck tipped over on the steep hillside and broke a lot of their furniture.  Chase died the other day (1981). I was sorry I didn’t know until after he was buried.  Lucille will miss him a lot.  He ran the store and service station in Beaver for years after his father and mother died.

    Grandma Eugenie Lay died first.  She had heart trouble and Dr. Sims Darggins said she wasn’t taking the medication he had prescribed.  She had misunderstood him about taking it.  Grandpa Lay was lonesome and listened to television a lot.  His son Derald lived with him.  He had bought a truck and hauled coal to sell to people in the valley.  When Grandpa died they left a will leaving everything to Derald.  I suppose they thought Ervin could manage for himself.  I taught school most of these years, always paying $250 a month to the Richfield Bank for money we had borrowed for these ventures. Derald was also left the farm which he sold to Scott Smith.  Ervin propected a lot and spent much time and money doing this. I never complained: but always felt as if he were trying and doing his best.

    He was away from home weeks at a time Green River, Wyoming. Ely, Nevada. Monticello, Salt Lake City, and Provo, Utah. Grand Junction, Urivan and Riffle, Colorado doing iron work. He was a certified welder.  We owned about eight big Lincoln Welders that we rented to different companies.  One company took out bankruptcy and claimed three of our welding machines, because we didn’t have them registered at the Utah State Capitol.

    We lost our part of the Butane Gas Co. in Richfield because we didn’t check on it for several
years.  When Ervin asked the lawyer, Verniein about our papers, he said he didn’t have them.  We think he did, but we neglected the business too long.

    For years we shared many placer clay claims on Marysvale Peak with the Henry brothers from Marysvale.  For awhile it looked as if we could sell for $8,000,000,000.  A geologist flew out from New York City to look at it and said we needed to do more development on the land.  When we got our divorce, Ervin lost interest in his mining claim.

    We sold our half of the sawmill to Grandpa for $4000.  In a month or two he sold it to "Shine" Fullmer for $13,000.  They moved our sawmill house to another location for their summer home.

    I was always happy and busy with the children, teaching school, playing Bridge occasionally and running to the locker plant.

    Grandma Fay told of how everyone loved Grandma Eugenie Sudweeks Lay's redberry or bullberry pie . It was heavenly.  Bullberries grow on bushes with long thorns.  They are gathered by placing a tarp underneath and then beating them with a club to get the berries to fall.  Then they floated the berries in a tub of water to get rid of the wormy and dried ones.  Grandpa Rob [Jr.] Lay's sisters always thought they had a treat if they could have some redberries when they came to Utah from California for a visit.  The berries grow down by the Sevier River. When Grandma Eugenie Lay taught school in Kingston, Utah.  She had gone to Beaver Acdademy to school.  They were good parents and worked hard to give them the best they could.

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created 10-24-1998