Finding Out About A Blessing in the Past

As I was driving to a neighbor’s house on July 21, 2018 to help them move, I wondered what blessing the Lord would give me for this act of service – not that I was doing it to earn a blessing or reward. I would have helped anyway, because we’re all in this together. But, I have been noticing lately that I seem to receive some blessing every time I help a neighbor or do a little family history work. But, even though the blessing thought had occurred, I was not actively or alertly watching for a blessing.

47 Life History -- 2004 Visit to Dad and Ginnie Merrick

Garrett, Ken, Mel with John Merrick seated

In 2004 Garrett, Cheryl, Ken, Bev, and Stephanie visited Dad in Akron, Ohio.

48 Life History --- Retirement Activities

I graduated from BYU in April 1978 with a degree in building construction.   However, interest rates were so high at this time that not much building was occurring, and having been seven years at the Post Office, we decided that it was not a good time to go into building construction; so, I’ve been at the Post Office ever since.



In January I began studying real estate in earnest in preparation for my post-retirement career.  We listed the land for sale, but the economy, especially real estate, is down; so, the chances of its selling are poor.  I registered our PINC Property Investment Company LLC 
with the state so that we can transfer the house title into it.

44 Life History --- Postal Career

I started working at the Post Office in Salt Lake City on 7 September 1971, while I was still getting used to new contact lenses.  I worked in the Parcel Post Annex by the railroad tracks.  I learned quite a few un-required schemes, did my job well, especially as a caller on the truck unloading belt, on the parcel post carousel distribution, and as an occasional expediter, and earned a quality step increase.

30 Life History --- On Leave in Japan 1970

Tokyo Japan at night. It was Christmas season.

45 Life History --- 1990 Mom's Funeral

Ken and I flew to Akron in August 1990 to attend Mom’s funeral.  Mel and Kathy did a fine job of handling all the arrangements.  I gave him $500, in hopes that it was an appropriate amount to help with his expenses.  We renewed acquaintances with many relatives, especially enjoying Aunt Peggy, as usual, and Aunt Floy Rollyson Hilbert.

43 Life History --- Brigham Young University 1971

At the first of June 1971 I packed up all my goods, departed the army and headed west for BYU.  I located a private apartment and began job searching, part of which included taking the postal test.  I enrolled in BYU in civil engineering, but changed to building construction a year or two later.  Lon Wallace was my primary instructor; he was a good teacher.

39 Life History --- Touring Florence, Italy

After Rome, I went to Florence where I stayed for a few days.

Italian town

38 Life History --- Touring Rome Italy

Trevi's Fountain

The train traveled through Switzerland at night, and I viewed the Italian countryside during the day.  I visited the USO near St. Peter’s Square and found a small room in the vicinity.  I had dinner at a nice basement restaurant with two American girls who were teaching in  Germany, whom I met on the train. I visited the traditional Rome historical sites, including St Peter’s basilica, and attended Easter Mass in St Peter’s Square - along with about a hundred other people.  I arrived early and got a position near the front, where I got a good view of the Pope and the visiting dignitaries. I was in Rome for a week.

Easter at St. Peter's in Vatican 1970

37 Life History --- Touring Germany 1969

I rode the train to Frankfurt Germany where I visited some church members who had known the Rufs before they left for the US twenty years earlier.  The finest week of my journey was learning to ski at Bertschesgaden in southern Germany.  I did pretty well for only one week of skiing.  And, boy, did I eat well!  I also took the salt mine tour on the little train, and visited Saltzburg Austria and one of the “Sound of Music” set locations.  I hated to leave but had to head south in order to visit the Pope at Easter Mass.

lodge stayed in Berchtesgaden Germany

ski top

36 Life History --- Touring Paris

The Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

Paris was my second stop.  My French was weak, but sufficient to allow me to get along well.  I saw the Follies Bergere, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the cathedral at Chartres, many other sights, and loved the Versailles palace. I spent about a week in the Paris area.

35 Life History --- Touring London

Garrett stayed an extra six months in Viet Nam. As a reward he was allowed to hop Army
planes and ride to wherever he wanted for a month. He chose to tour Europe.
This is the first stop on his tour. Garrett spent a week in London.

Heathrow Airport

I saw a play, “Fiddler on the Roof”, visited Stratford on Avon, and other London sights before riding the ferry across the channel and taking the train to Paris.  I rode the subway a lot in both London and Paris.

40 Life History --- 1970 Trip Home After Touring Europe While Serving in Vietnam; Last Assignment in Vietnam

I took my return journey through Paris and London, flew to Philadelphia, visited the folks in Akron, flew thru Anchorage, Hawaii, Cam Ranh Bay, and back to Don Duong in Vietnam.  After a few more months there, I spent my last couple months at Phu Bai near the ancient imperial capital of Hue.

41 Life History --- Last Army assignment - Stationed Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri

I spent the last nine months of my military career at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri, in charge of an engineering heavy equipment training company.  We trained operators for forklifts, road graders, bulldozers, and earth movers.  I also took a drafting course.  I attended church at Springfield several times and renewed old acquaintances.  I started orthodontic treatments at Springfield, and then continued the treatments at the Fort Leonard Wood hospital after learning that they had a resident orthodontist.

24 Life History --- Sight Seeing in Washington

Jefferson Monument and Potomac from Washington Monument

George Washington's Monument

While stationed at Fort Belvoir in Virginia I did some sight seeing in Washington DC.

20 Life History --- 1964 Trips While in College

Josephine my motorcycle 1966

Very shortly after buying the motorcycle, I rode it on a trip to Akron to visit my folks. Mom and Ken had returned to Akron for a supposed visit a year or two after I came to SMS, but we all knew that she had no intention of returning to Dad in Licking. Mel was also off at college. Dad returned to Akron sometime later, and they eventually reconciled. I remember lots of back pains between my shoulder blades on that long motorcycle ride. While in Akron I visited some relatives, and gave some young ones a ride on the motorcycle.

42 Life History --- Independence Missouri Visitor's Center Dedication

 I want with a Church group to the dedication of the Independence Missouri Visitor's Center. It threaten to rain, but stopped during the outdoor part of the program, then resumed afterwards.  They had some wonderful pictures inside. I got to meet Elder Mark E. Peterson and his wife. He was an Apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

15 Life History --- 1962 High School in Licking Missouri

Ken and Gary studying

I enjoyed acting and had some small parts in a couple of the Licking High School plays. The speech teacher was the director. I enjoyed his speech class and the dramatic interpretation class that I later took at Southwest Missouri State College (SMS).

** Life History by Garrett Merrick **

(This history has been broken into sections and pictures added to make separate posts in this blog.
They are numbered in chronological order.)

I was born on 15 December 1946, the second of three sons born to Lillian Edith Conley and Charles Aaron Jarvis.  Melvin Charles Jarvis Merrick, my older brother, arrived previously on 29 March 1945.  My younger brother, Kenneth Ray, came along on 10 November 1948.  My very earliest memory is of lying in bed at night, being scared by ghosts in the closet at the end of my bed.  I solved the problem by closing the closet door every night.

1 Life History -- 1946 Birth of Garrett Merrick

I was born on 15 December 1946, the second of three sons born to Lillian Edith Conley and Charles Aaron Jarvis. Melvin Charles Jarvis Merrick, my older brother, arrived previously on 29 March 1945. My younger brother, Kenneth Ray, came along on 10 November 1948. We were all born in Akron, Ohio.

2 Life History - 1947 - 1950 Early Years Before School

Mel top left; Ken in middle front; Gary front right

Edith with Gary left; Ken center; Mel right

My very earliest memory is of lying in bed at night, being scared by ghosts in the closet at the end of my bed. I solved the problem by closing the closet door every night.

8 Life History --- I Learned Never to Swear

Probably my most memorable experience at Elm Drive in Akron occurred when Angelo, the older and not very pleasant neighborhood paper boy, threw a ball at me.  I wasn’t hurt much at all, but I convinced myself that I was and that my pain justified profanity in reporting the incident to my mother.  She did not agree that profanity was justified and promptly, and forcefully, washed my mouth out with soap.  I became convinced that profanity is never justified.

7 Life History --- Blue Pond

It was fun to visit the old school with Ken when we returned to Akron in August 1990 for Mom’s funeral.  We also visited Elm Drive.  The house was gone, but it had recently been raining, and the corner was filled with a big puddle just like in the old days.  We walked into the high school field behind the house.  We used to cross the field to occasionally swim in the YMCA pool beyond.  We even found the same hole in the fence that we climbed through many times to get into Blue Pond.  We weren’t dressed for going under this time, so we didn’t.  But, as kids, we spent a lot of time in that ‘forbidden’ swamp.  We especially liked to cross over the old buildings debris and play on the swampy cottontail-filled island.  None of us ever drowned, contrary to the warnings of our mothers.  We did pick elderberries which Mom occasionally made into pies.

5 Life History --- Jarvis Relatives

My other favorite relative was my father’s brother, Uncle Carroll. He would take us for rides in his car. He impressed me with his knowledge of which direction other cars were going to turn; I later learned about turn signals and turning lanes. On one occasion he took us to visit Grandma Jarvis (Bessie) in West Virginia. It was wonderful: the countryside; the steep West Virginia hills, especially in the morning fog; watching someone milk the cow; feeling free and outdoors; Grandma’s garden; and her scrumptious rhubarb pie. Grandma was plump - and also kind and loving. I have no memory of ever seeing her again, though when I was nineteen or twenty, we had some pleasant correspondence.

6 Life History --- 1st, 2nd and 3rd Grades

I never went to kindergarten. While we were still living in the attic across from Grandma Conley, my mother enrolled me in first grade, so I was a little younger than the other kids, not turning six until December. I loved my first grade teacher and was proud that she said I was a smart boy.

9 Life History --- 1957 Mom Remarried - Suffield and Randolph

Arthur John Merrick

I was eleven and we were living on Elm Drive when Mom met and married (a week later), Arthur ‘John’ Merrick, the trash collector.  He took us to a scary movie at the drive-in; I called him ‘Pop’.  

Ken, Mel, Gary Merrick

10 Life History --- 1958 Arizona

We packed up the car, and Dad took us to Phoenix Arizona. We lived for a few months in the Alhambra motel, a rundown hotel which had been converted to apartments. It had lots of cockroaches and other bugs. There were some other families that lived there who had kids our age. Dad invited the LDS missionaries to teach us. I believed them from the first, and the family was baptized on 9 September 1958.  (Mel and Gary with pets)

11 Life History --- 1958 Joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

In the summer of 1958, Dad invited the LDS missionaries to teach us. We were living in our converted-a-motel apartment, the Alhambra Apartments.  I believed them from the first. Their lessons made good sense to me, especially about the Gospel being lost and restored.  I don’t remember much of the lessons, but I remember the feeling that “this is true”.  It must have been the testifying from the Holy Ghost, because I have always remembered my testimony of its truth.  I believe one of the missionaries was named Sidney Johnson.  Our whole family was baptized on September 9 September 1958.

13 Life History --- Providing Chicken Dinner

While on the farm in Licking, I fashioned a make-shift bow. It was pretty puny.  I needed some arrows, so I made some. I found several small straight branches, cut them off some tree (we had a sizable wooded area right near the house), de-barked them, and whittled a point on the end.

This might have been the summer that I was cutting something with the knife blade toward me instead of away from me.  I still have the scar near the knuckle on my left index finger where I got sewed up.

My arrows were not very straight, and my aim was poor, so I didn’t hit much.  I shot at a chicken with no prospect of hitting it, but did.  I had to pluck the chicken for our dinner that night.

12 Life History --- 1961 Licking Missouri

Mel, John, Garrett, Ken Merrick

Dad was a wanderer and in the summer of 1961 decided to become a Missouri farmer. So, we moved to a forty acre farm in Licking, Missouri. The old house had no indoor plumbing or furnace, but it did have electricity! It was my job to get up in the middle of each winter night to put more wood in the living room pot-bellied stove, so the fire could make it through the night. We still needed lots of blankets in the unheated bedrooms. We collected rainwater off the roof into a cistern for drinking water. We pumped it out with a hand pump, and occasionally added lime for purifying.                                               

16 Life History --- 1964 Graduating from Licking High

I was disappointed because Janie Ellis beat me out for Valedictorian by just a hair. Instead, I graduated as Salutatorian (2nd highest honor) from Licking High School in May 1964.

17 Life History -- 1964 SMS (Southwest Missouri State)

After I graduated from Licking High School in May 1964, one of the school counselors helped me get a job as a secretary at SMS and an apartment in Springfield. I was extremely anxious to leave home, so I enrolled for summer term and left Licking just a few days after graduation. Mom was quite sad and concerned, but I knew she understood. I hitchhiked and was picked up by a trucker. I found my way to 920 S. National Avenue, where I shared an apartment with a student several years my senior (I think his name was David). We roomed together for a year, then I shared another apartment in the same building with Tom Tiefke, an LDS friend. Next, I lived with a German family, the Ruf’s, for two years while Gerhard, their son, was on his mission (two years of service as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

18 Life History --- 1964 Friends at SMS

President Murray, Garrett Merrick (back), Ernie Chittim,  John Cochran, Sister Murray, Ruth Chittim, LeMerle Cochran  

In addition to Hermann and Gertrude Ruf, John and LeMerle Cochran were most supportive to me. They had me over for dinner occasionally, gave me good advice, and even financed my motorcycle purchase. I had previously bought a good 5-speed bicycle, and got around quite a bit on it. The Cochrans persuaded me to buy the motorcycle after I informed them of my intention to ride my bike to Ohio. I never rode the bike much after getting the motorcycle, so I sold it to Bell’s in Willard Missouri, near Springfield.  1971 pictures

22 Life History --- Motorcycle Trip to California

Garrett Merrick

LeMerle and John Cochran

One Christmas I rode the motorcycle to visit the Cochrans in Bakersfield CA. They took me to Knotts Berry Farm, and we had other good times. I returned via Phoenix and Albuquerque. However, heading north out of Albuquerque, I made a poor choice and turned east toward Lubbock TX. It so happened that this road crossed a 9000 foot high mountain pass. Unfortunately, it also began to snow when I neared the top! I struggled slowly on until I came to a small town late at night, where I slept behind a gas station. The storm ended, but I still had to slowly navigatge icy roads down to Lubbock. Heading out of Lubbock I slipped and broke the motorcycle clutch handle. My traveling spirit broke, too. I knew some Springfield church members frequently visited Lubbock, so I contacted some church members who knew them and would store my motorcycle until they could haul it back to Springfield for me on their next visit. A young family named Leuck was kind enough to put me up for a couple days before I rode the bus back.

21 Life History --- ROTC

Cadet Garrett Merrick

I chose to enroll in advanced ROTC* (the first two years were mandatory) since it was during the
height of the Vietnam war. For right now I had an educational deferment, but we all knew that most of us would be drafted right after graduation.  If I had to go, I intended to go as an officer! However, my ROTC motivation was low, and I was a rather casual cadet. I rode my motorcycle to ROTC summer camp at Fort Sill Oklahoma. I did well at camp, especially in the physical fitness events. I ran a six minute mile, but just barely.

23 Life History --- 1968 Joining the Army - 1st assignment Fort Belvoir, Virginia; 2nd Fort Benning, Georgia

2nd Lieutenant Garrett Merrick 

 I graduated from SMS in January 1968, with a degree in chemistry and secondary education, and a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers. On my way to Fort Belvoir Virginia for my engineer officer basic training, I visited the folks in Akron. While there I bought a 1964(?) Corvair and got a bumper rack to carry my motorcycle.