Frank Fullmer Linford – Brief Life Sketch

Frank Fullmer Linford – Brief Life Sketch

By Donna Linford Putnam
September 6, 2017

Frank Fullmer Linford, was born on Monday, October 7, 1935, in Grandpa and Grandma Fullmer’s home in Logan, Utah. Mother and Dad had gone to Logan for Frank’s birth so Mother and the baby could be cared for by Grandma Fullmer, just as they had done for my birth the previous year.

LaRue Hodges Linford and Dott Fullmer were married in the Salt Lake Temple on September 6, 1933, 84 years ago today. Their first home was in Thane in Star Valley, Wyoming, where LaRue was teaching school. In 1935, they were living in Afton, Wyoming.

Frank was named after his grandfathers, James Franklin Linford and David Franklin Fullmer, both of whom were called Frank.

Frank was my closest playmate and childhood friend. Dad always said there was one year, twenty days, three hours, and fifteen minutes difference in Frank’s and my ages.

We moved several times in Afton until Dad built us a home in 1938 that was close to the high school where he was teaching. This house had a stoker furnace, instead of just a wood-burning stove to heat it. Each winter morning Frank and I would race each other to be the first to sit under the dining room table so we could get dressed in front of the heat vent where it was warm. As we ran toward the heater Frank would call out, “That’s my peter.”

Dad was the oldest of nine brothers. Grandpa and Grandma Linford were living in Star Valley, and Dad’s younger brothers were like older brothers to us. One time Uncle Dale was carrying Frank out to the car and it started sprinkling. Frank looked up and said, “Somebody’s bawling up there.”

Another time, Grandpa Linford bought a new water dipper to hang on the milk can he filled with drinking water. When he came for a drink out of it, he found the dipper bent all out of shape. He asked who had done it, and no one knew. He asked Frank if he had bent the dipper by hitting it against the milk can. Frank (who turned out to be the culprit) told Grandpa, “I didn’t see me do it.”

In Afton, we had a large vegetable garden; we also had chickens, pigs, cows, and at one time a lamb. Frank had a pet chicken named Henrietta. She would come to him when he called her and would follow him around. One day Henrietta was nowhere to be found, but the next Sunday we had chicken for dinner. Frank was devastated and never forgot about Henrietta.

On one of the mountain sides on the east hills above Afton is a star made out of rock or cement and painted white. One time Frank and I, and some other kids, hiked up to the star. We were all under the age of eight. The hillside was very steep and the path was extremely narrow. Below it was a swift running stream of water. Frank was behind me coming down from the star, and I slipped and started to slide down the side of the mountain. Frank grabbed me and held me from falling into the river below. I have never forgotten that incident.

Dad taught at Star Valley High School for nine years, and his students remembered him as being an outstanding teacher. In the spring of 1942, he left the teaching profession and went to work in the construction of Bushnell Hospital in Brigham City. He obtained the position of office manager over the Post Exchange and was also in charge of all the recreational facilities for the servicemen who had been wounded and sent to Bushnell for recovery.

He stayed in Logan with Grandpa and Grandma Fullmer and drove home to Afton on the weekends, until the fall of 1942, when we moved to Logan. All of our household furnishings were moved from Afton to Logan in a cattle truck. Dad drove back and forth from Logan to Brigham City to work each day.

World War II was still in progress when we moved to a newly built home in Brigham City to be nearer to Dad’s work. In Brigham City we attended the Central School located on Main Street in the center of town. It was an old, three or four story building, with wide stairways and a large central hall on each floor. The Brigham City LDS Temple now stands on that location.

Every place we lived, Frank made lots of friends. One day he went to visit a sick friend and brought the chicken pox home to us.

In 1945, World War II was ending. Dad knew it would only be a matter of time until Bushnell Hospital closed down. So, in September of that year, he went into business with one of his brothers. This was the beginning of Linford Brothers Utah Glass Company in Salt Lake City. Later, three other brothers came into the business. Bushnell was eventually converted into the Intermountain Indian School, which operated until it was closed in 1984.

Since houses were so hard to come by at the end of the war, we moved to what was called Verdeland Park in Layton so Dad could be closer to his work in Salt Lake City. The house we rented had originally been set up for Hill Field as Army housing. It had a cement bathtub, among other interesting things.

Dad commuted every day to and from work. Some nights, he would stay at the glass company (on State Street in Salt Lake) and sleep on a cot, after having worked many hours into the night after work doing the bookkeeping for the young company. Much of the care of the family was left to Mother. Since Dad stayed at work so late, supper was seldom before 8:00 o’clock in the evening.

Frank was very strong and always protected his brothers and sisters from bullies in the neighborhood. They respected him, no matter how big they were. He always said there were only two hits: He hit the guy and the guy hit the floor! When Frank was ten years of age, Dad started taking him to work at the glass shop during the summer. Frank always insisted the reason he was so short was because he had to go to work at the age of ten.

Due to the end of World War II and the return of the servicemen and their families, there was a shortage of housing in the Salt Lake area. On the day school let out in Layton in the spring of 1946, we began our move to an old house they bought on Marion Street in Salt Lake City. We arrived there at 2:00 a.m. the next morning because we had to wait until Dad got home from work to move our furnishings. All of our furniture was piled into the largest room.

All of us children slept in the room in the attic. Mother was washing dishes at the kitchen sink one day, when she saw two legs dangling in the air outside the window. As it turned out, Frank was holding onto a heavy rope tied around David’s waist and letting him down from the second story window.

One story that has always been a family favorite is a time when Mother bought a quart brick of ice cream for dinner. She was usually the one to cut off the slices of ice cream for everyone. However, this time Dad did the cutting of the ice cream slices. There were eight of us in our family by then, and when he got everyone served there was still half of the quart brick of ice cream left. Frank looked at his thin slice of ice cream for a few moments and then said, “I’d rather have Mother do it!”

In a tribute to Mother for her 80^th birthday, Frank wrote about two incidents that took place in his early life. The first was when he was eleven or twelve.

He wrote: “Mother and I would go grocery shopping together, walking two and a half blocks away, carrying the groceries, sometimes 3 or 4 [paper] sacks full, to feed our family. I felt honored that Mom would ask me to help carry them, with her praising my efforts all the way home. She praised so sincerely that I would do my very best without complaint on this chore. I knew she was doing her very best too.”

The second event took place before the three hour Sunday block meetings came into effect in the Church; priesthood and Sunday School were held in the morning, and sacrament meeting was held in the evening.)

He wrote: “The second incident doesn’t speak well for me, but tells a great deal about her. On a Sunday morning, when I was about 14 years old, she called me to get out of bed and go to Priesthood meeting. Dad had gone early because he was in the bishopric. I felt that morning that it would impose on my life style in no small way to go to Priesthood meeting, so that’s what I told her. Right then she stopped getting herself and my younger brothers and sister ready for Sunday School, and she sat down on the edge of my bed to talk to me about going to church. Nothing was said about my duty. Nothing about me going to the dogs. She only said, ‘Your father would be very disappointed if you didn’t go.’ Then she got up and went about her business. Needless to say, I went to Priesthood meeting, mostly because of my Mother.”

Later in life, Frank loved to go to Priesthood meeting and general conference with his son and grandsons.

When we were young, I always called Frank, Sonny. But when he got to be a teenager, he told me one day in no uncertain terms: “My name is Frank!” So he was Frank from then on. Many years later when he and David owned their own business and used a CB radio to communicate with each other in their glazing work, he used the name, “Sonny Boy.”

In Salt Lake, Frank attended Onequa Elementary, Jackson Junior High, and then graduated from West High School in 1954.

Frank was proud of his ancestors and we always went to family reunions. Traditionally, the old Linford Family reunions were held at Bear Lake, where our Linford grandparents had been born and raised. We would camp at Ideal Beach next to the Lake. Our reunion meetings were held in the large, enclosed, wooden pavilion under some big, old cottonwood trees growing on the beach. This area of the beach later became the Sweetwater Resort, ending our reunions there, and they were held at other places from then on.

In January of 1952, our family moved a few blocks away into the new house Dad built on Chicago Street. (We were still in Riverside Ward.)

Frank faithfully served an LDS mission in what was then called the British Mission. He loved his mission experiences and loved England and the people there, and they loved him.

When he returned from his mission, he joined the Utah Air National Guard and became a Sergeant in the Motor Pool. Frank was a gifted master mechanic which continued for his entire life, and he always carefully cared for his tools because they were precious to him.

Pat Tracy worked in the office at Linford Brothers, and she arranged a date for Frank and her daughter, Darlene. When Frank arrived at their home, he heard Darlene say to her mother, “But he’s so short!” That didn’t deter Frank. After the date, Darlene said his short stature didn’t matter at all because she had so much fun on the date.

One time when Frank went to see Darlene, another “suitor” was standing on the front porch. After a short discussion, Frank literally removed him from the porch. Frank always said he had to work twice as hard as others to make up for his short stature.

Frank and Darlene were sealed for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple on October 16, 1959. They first lived in Salt Lake City, where their two amazing children, Sue and Steve, were born. Frank was always so proud of their many accomplishments and loved them with all his heart, and then he loved his grandchildren and great-grandchildren as they came along.

The family moved to Bountiful in 1967, where Frank served in many church callings. He was a counselor to Bishop Merrill Tuttle in the Bountiful 16^th Ward, Sunday School teacher, assistant clerk in the high priest’s quorum, and Sunday School President, to name a few. He was a faithful home teacher and never missed. He loved serving in the Church. Above all, Frank loved his Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ, and always wanted to serve them to the best of his ability.

In about 1979, Frank and his brother David left employment at Linford Brothers and started their own business called, The Glass Company, which is located on Redwood Road. After Frank retired in 2001, David continued to run the business, and after David’s retirement in 2007, his son Michael took over.

Frank had a great sense of humor, and people loved to be around him. He got a kick out of teasing children and teenagers. His laugh was not loud and robust, but amused and mixed in with his voice when he talked. My daughter Lynne remembers a time when she was a child and was at his house. He came in the kitchen door, and with his quiet laugh he said, “Well, I just knocked down the carport with my truck!” Instead of being angry he chose to laugh, even though he knew he would have to repair the damage.

Frank loved people. My daughter Debbie remembers when I had major surgery four years ago, and it was going longer than expected. She was nervous and pacing and Frank came up to her, hooked elbows with her, and said, “Let’s walk.” He asked her questions and got her talking and assured her that everything would be okay. She said she will never forget his kindness when he saw her distress and showed love and concern for her.

Frank loved going to car shows. He loved to rebuild automobiles from the inside out. When any family member or friend needed help with their cars, Frank always took care of the problem. Rick’s boys, Aaron and Brady, had the opportunity of helping Uncle Frank rebuild his own small Chevy truck at his home. He loved the boys and they loved him, and learned from him. Although he was short in stature, he was a giant in character and spirit. I can still hear him saying, “I’ll be Frank!”

Frank was a handyman at all kinds of repairs. He always said his fingers were like pliers. He had an unusually strong capability to work with his hands and could repair and craft anything. Family and friends often relied on his skills in times of need, and he willingly complied with their requests for help. He loved construction and loved working with glass and mirrors. He installed many mirrors in LDS temples, and they had to be perfect.

Frank was an avid reader. He loved the scriptures and read them to our sister Janice during quiet times while the two of them were serving as volunteers at the front desk of LDS Hospital. He loved reading Church books to learn more about the gospel, and he loved reading novels, especially Louis L’Amour books, and had a collection of them. He loved good music and had a Bose radio that he often listened to.

Frank and Darlene had the opportunity to visit the Holy Land with some friends, a trip they thoroughly enjoyed. With permission, he brought back some seeds from a Cedars of Lebanon tree and planted one in his yard, and it grew.

Frank loved his friends in the Bountiful 16^th Ward. He loved ward campouts, ward dinners, and any gathering with all his friends. He also loved going camping with his parents and brothers and sisters and their families. He loved to interact with people of all ages. He loved his dogs and missed them when they were gone. He also loved his garden where he grew beans and tomatoes and other vegetables, which he shared with others.

Frank loved Darlene deeply and cared for her and attended to her needs through her many years of poor health. After she passed away in January 2015, he was extremely lonely, and his own health began to decline more rapidly. Later that year, he moved to the Elk Ridge Assisted Living Center, where he made many new friends. Wayne, a special friend there, is from Star Valley, and he and Frank had lots of talks about their memories of Afton.

On the morning of Thursday, August 31, 2017, Frank was released from the terrible pain he had been enduring and peacefully returned to his Heavenly Father. He was reunited with his Sweetheart Darlene, along with his parents, his sister Janice, and many other loved ones. His body will be laid to rest beside Darlene in the Bountiful City Cemetery until the Resurrection.

In closing, I’ll quote a line from one of my favorite songs:

“May the Good Lord bless and keep you…..till we meet again.”

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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This talk was given at Frank’s funeral service on Wednesday, September 6, 2017, by Donna.