Bruce Adams Lawyer

-About 1926, Frank was injured again when he was run over by a wagon. The family sold the farm equipment and moved to Camp Point, Illinois. To help support the family, Bruce secured a job before and after school milking cows and delivering milk for Orville Hunsaker, who owned a dairy in or near Camp Point. The family attended the First Christian church at Camp Point and were all baptized there.

-After graduating high school in 1930, Bruce moved to Basco, Illinois to work. While there, in 1931, he visited Carthage, Warsaw, and Nauvoo, areas important in the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

-In August of 1932, Bruce, with Raymond Lucie and Wendall Caldwell, left Basco in a 1931 Ford to travel across the country to work in the fruit harvest at Entiat, Washington. In Denison, Iowa, the car overturned on a curve at a high rate of speed. No one was injured but the Ford was badly wrecked. After repairing the vehicle, they continued on to Entiat. After the fruit harvest, Bruce and Wendall rode a freight train back to Illinois.

-In 1933 Bruce and 3 friends bought a 1928 Chevrolet for $30 and drove again to Washington state to work in the fruit harvest. The Chev threw a bearing in a cam rod 11 miles out of Worland, Wyoming. Bruce and buddies did the repair on the spot, cutting up a belt to make a bearing. Bruce remained in Washington after the harvest and boxed, played basketball, and attended the Presbyterian Church occasionally, but generally the Quaker Church at Central.

-In 1935, Bruce returned home. He decided to go to Chicago and attend the Coyne Electrical School.

-In June of 1936, Bruce graduated with honors and went to work for Johnston Electric in the Chicago business district. While in school, Bruce roomed with 2 Mormon boys, which started an interest in the Mormon faith. Bruce attended the Campbellite (First Christian) church at that time.

-In 1937, he went west again and worked at the Howe Sound Mine at Holden, Washington, becoming electrical superintendent. It was there he met Margaret Evelyn Rice, whom he married the following year. After they married, they moved to Fairbanks, Alaska where Bruce was offered a job rewinding motors for Korla Electric. He worked one year at Korla Electric. Jack Korla, the owner fell and broke his back, becoming an invalid. Bruce decided to go into business for himself rewinding motors.

-In 1939 a son, Michael Bruce Lawyer, was born to Bruce and Margaret.

-In Spring of 1940, Bruce was called to Seward, Alaska to run the power plant for the city of Seward. Later that year, he was offered an Electrician Superintendent job with the United States Engineering Department at For Raymond.

-In 1941, Pearl Harbor happened and Bruce, who was a member of Company C 297th Infantry, Alaska National Guard, was inducted into the regular army. He was later discharged to work at electrical work related to the war effort at the Seattle-Tacoma shipyard and the Puget Sound Bremerton Naval shipyard.

-In 1943, Bruce and Margaret moved to Wenatchee, where he started his own motor rewinding shop. They welcomed two more sons, Gary and Phil, while living in Wenatchee.

-In 1947, Bruce went back to Alaska with the expectation his family would follow. In 1948, the family followed him to Alaska, but Bruce and Margaret were having marital difficulties and divorced in August of 1950. Margaret and the boys moved to Cashmere, Washington.

-In 1951, while dating a Mormon girl, Bruce began to investigate the Mormon faith. In July of 1951, he was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During this time, he also met Shirley Ann Gleave, of Annabella, Utah, who was in Alaska visiting a former missionary companion, Mariam Dalton.

-In May of 1952, Bruce and Shirley were married in the the LDS Salt Lake City temple.

-They moved to Alaska, where they had two sons, Randy and Mark, who were both born in the Providence Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. Bruce’s sons from his first marriage, Mike, Gary, and Phil, visited Bruce and Shirley in Alaska in the summer. They took the missionary discussions and joined the church. Margaret, Bruce’s first wife, also joined the church and later moved with Mike, Gary, and Phil to Utah from Washington State. Shirley and Margaret had a very friendly relationship. As a young child, I remember visiting her and my half-brothers and viewing them all, including Margaret, as part of the family.

-In December of 1955, Bruce and Shirley drove out from Alaska on the Alcan Highway, just before Christmas, in an old Ford car. Shirley was caring for Randy (2 years 9 months old) and Mark (11 months old) and was pregnant with her first daughter, Ann. Days were short and nights were cold. They had to stop for four hours at 4 p.m. one day because the steering on the car was freezing up. They ran out of gas at 9 pm, 16 miles outside of Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. According to the story Shirley wrote, the temperature that night dropped to 75 degrees below zero. As they crested a hill the car sputtered to a stop, Bruce told Shirley, “This is it.” He would have to try to walk to Whitehorse to get gas. There were few, if any, cars on the road at that time of night in the winter. As Bruce started down the road, car lights came around the bend. It was a man who worked on the DEW (Distant Early Warning) line. He was home that night because his wife was ill. He said he felt compelled to return to work that night, so he was on the road and found us. He drove the family into Whitehorse. When he dropped Bruce and Shirley and family at a motel, he called home and found they had taken his wife to the hospital. He immediately dropped Bruce off at a gas station on his way to the hospital and never made it to work. Shirley viewed him as a messenger sent from God to preserve her children.

-In 1956, Bruce and Shirley moved to Granger, Utah. Two daughters, Ann (1956) and Robin (1957), were born at the LDS hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. The family lived on 3800 South, near Granger High School, and attended the Granger Ward. Bruce was active in the scouting program and served as scoutmaster. He also helped build the Granger Stake Center. Bruce was active in the scouting program and served as scoutmaster. He also helped build the Granger stake center. Bruce was always interested in new ways to generate income, including raising nutria and pheasants. He was an athlete and played church softball and worked out with Gene and Don Fullmer at their gym in West Jordan, where he was a sparring partner for both of them.

-In August of 1959, Bruce was in an automobile accident on the way to work, leaving him paralyzed on his right side and with aphasia, which left him unable to speak in full sentences. He was unable to work. Shirley immediately went to work as a teacher and taught for more than 30 years, taking care of Bruce and raising four children.

-Bruce was faithful in his testimony of Jesus Christ throughout his life and to the restored gospel from the moment he was converted and baptized.

Some of dad's favorite aphasia-influenced phrases:

"Verbs bother me."

"Lawyer, hard head."

"Nice day today, inside." (On a very stormy dark day)

"Spilled milk." (Anytime an accident happened.)

"Pretty good boy." (He said this about children and grandchildren, of either sex, but he knew the

difference.)

"Genealogy" (His passion)

"Love you" (usually to his wife and our mother, Shirley)

"Jesus the Christ" (His greatest love, Savior, and Redeemer. This was how he bore his testimony,

short but deep and consistent.)