Life Sketch of Milburn Hix

LIFE SKETCH OF MILBURN GREEN HIX

(Given at His Funeral by Polly Mortell)

Milburn Green Hix was born August 3, 1913, in Grant, Idaho, the fifth child of Rolla Constantine Hix and Eda Ellen Webster Hix. He joined 3 older brothers and one sister: Leland Webster, Severn Eda, Ray Constantine and Lowell Rich. Two more sisters and 1 brother were born after Milburn: Edna Almeda, Max Gayle and Zelda Irene. His brother, Leland died July 19, 1917 at the age of 13 and his brother Gayle died August 16, 1926, five days before his 9th birthday. Both Leland and Gayle died of ruptured appendix. This left six children of Rolla and Eda to reach maturity.

Milburn was born in the family home approximately 1/2 mile East of the Grant Store. His parents owned 33 acres there. When Milburn was about 3 years old his dad homesteaded 160 acres in Monteview. They had to live in Monteview on the property for over 6 months out of each year to call it a year and had to live there 3 years to claim the property. His dad farmed in Grant and the family lived in Monteview. His dad would drive out about once every 2 weeks. One of the kids would have to go with him. It took 8 hours from the time they left Grant if they had a real good team of horses. They took the cows out every spring as they needed the milk to drink. Taking the cows was a 2‑day trip so they camped overnight on the road.

While living in Monteview, Milburn started the first grade. There were a lot of people homesteading so there were a lot of kids attending school. They had one teacher who taught 8 grades in one very small room. He and another boy were what they called beginners. There wasn't even a chair for Milburn to sit on and they didn't get a book either so they sat in the comer with the teacher paying no attention to them.

Fortunately for Milburn they only lived there for a couple of weeks after he started school. Then they moved back to Grant in 1919 and he continued his schooling there. They finally sold the place in Monteview in 1948 for $1800.

Milburn appreciated good health as he was growing up except for a few minor setbacks. When he was about 8 or 9 years old, his school had chalk and eraser carriers the full length of the blackboard. He was running and holding onto an eraser and seeing how fast he could run along with the other kids when he got a huge sliver in his finger. It went clear past his knuckle. The teachers all tried to get it out and couldn't. They sent him home and no one there could get it out so he had to wait a few days until it festered and could be pulled out. It had gone beyond his knuckle and broken off right by the knuckle. It took another 2 or 3 weeks before the rest of it came out above the knuckle.

At about that same time or a little later he had another experience with his teeth. A couple of teeth came in just in back of his front teeth. They became decayed and started to ache. He went to the dentist and sat in the chair. The dentist said "it will cost a dollar and a quarter if I deaden them and it will cost a quarter if I don't." Milburn told him to just pull them out. The dentist reached in and pulled one tooth but they never caught up with him to get the other one out.

His dad was able to purchase another 7 acres west of the home in Grant so they had a full 40 acres to make a living on. His dad had a stroke at age 26 and was partially paralyzed on the right side. He limped on his right leg and had a hard time writing. But he still worked hard and was able to do most of the things necessary to support his family.

The land was rough, all gravel, so they raised beets year after year. Every fall they would dig beets for about 3 weeks with his dad walking along behind the horse pulling the beet plow, one row at a time, for the whole time it took to dig the beets. Millburn, Ray and Lowell topped the beets and then their dad helped them load the wagon and take them to the dump. The hardest part was the cultivating. Just as soon as they came up in the spring, they started cultivating them.

Day after day, Millburn rode the black mare down the rows pulling the cultivator. He had to guide the mare so she didn't step on any of the beets.  His dad walked behind the cultivator, holding onto the handles to guide it between the rows of beets. They cultivated the beets three or four times each summer, day after day, they were out in the field. They raised 12‑15 acres of beets each year and would usually get about $ 1000 for the beets. That was their sole income but was a lot more money than a lot of the people had.

They tried to raise potatoes, but they had a hard time selling them and didn't get much out of them. With the beets, they would have a contract and you would get paid so much a ton for the beets they delivered. A lot of farmers would have to pay to have their beets, weeded, dug and topped, so they had to put out a lot of cash. But with all of the boys working on the Hix farm, they didn't have to hire any help. That is why they were able to make more money than most. They raised some hay and had a couple of cows.

In the early 30's Challenge Creamery came to Idaho Falls and they bought milk from different people that had cows. That helped raise some extra cash. They sometimes got $7‑8 a week for the milk from them. They traded cream, butter and eggs for groceries and always had a garden and pigs and chickens in addition to the cows. They could always find something to eat which is a lot more than some people could say during the depression years.

When Milburn was growing up he was quite a prankster. There was a sheep camp sitting by the family home. One day he and Leo Gneiting went out and wired the door of the camp with an electrical devise of some kind. Edna went out to open the door. She received a good jolt of electricity and was jumping around screaming and hollering. Zelda tells me that Milburn and Leo just lay on the ground rolling with laughter.

Edna would get even with him. She would make sandwiches for his lunch to take to school. She would put nothing but ketchup between 2 slices of bread. Then she put them in a lard bucket and put the lid on. Milburn would take them to school and trade with the other kids for roast beef sandwiches.

One year Milburn's oldest sister, Severn (my mother) took him to a mutual play. They had to pay to get in and she only had enough money for one ticket. She told the man at the door that her little brother was partly blind and couldn't see much of anything, so he let them both in for one ticket. She told Milburn to shut his eyes if anyone looked at him.

Grandma Hix always took care of the chickens and raised the garden. Milburn helped her with the garden the last few years before she died and then took care of it himself after her death. They used to raise big speckled white chickens, really pretty ones. One day Milburn was over in Uncle Warren Webster's yard about 5 in the afternoon and several of his roosters were in Uncle Warren's yard and he was feeding them. Uncle Warren said "Look at those beautiful roosters I've got". Milburn knew they belonged to his family, but didn't say anything. That night they came back home to roost on the fence of the pigpen and Milburn caught them and put them in the chicken coop. A few days later, Uncle Warren said someone had stolen all of his speckled roosters. Milburn still didn't say anything and never did know if Uncle Warren really thought they were his roosters or if he was just teasing him.

Milburn was baptized August 7, 1921, in the Burgess Canal behind the home that Inga Dabell now occupies in Grant. He was ordained a Deacon on January 4, 1926. At that time he got to pass the Sacrament which he really enjoyed. He never missed a Sunday going to Church so he could fulfill his Priesthood duties.

Milburn's mother died when he was 12 years old but he had fond memories of her. She was always involved in the church and helping everybody she could. Milburn was reading her obituary one day and they had 10 speakers at her funeral. The article in the newspaper at her death, said her funeral was one of the largest ever held in Grant; all who attended could not get into the church.

When his father decided he had enough farming he sold the place to his oldest son, Ray. Uncle Ray and Aunt Florence lived there and raised their family until they bought the Grant Store and sold the place to the Fergusons.

Rolla died at the age of 57.  Eda was almost 43 when she died. Though the family was not privileged to have their parents long in this life, they left a heritage to be proud of, a good honorable name, good ancestry and a good example to live by. They taught them to be honest and upright, also how to work. Their mother, being the more religious, instilled in them a need and a love for their Heavenly Father. How proud they would have been of their posterity.

In 1932 Milburn went to live with his Grandpa and Grandma Webster for a winter helping to take care of them. He enjoyed this experience very much. They were getting older and couldn't get out much and it was a really cold winter. He milked their cow and carried their water from the Burgess Canal across the road so that they could wash their clothes.

Milburn was an adventurous soul in the next few years. During the depression years, the Government needed a lot of help, particularly in the forests and on the roads. Many people were unemployed, so they opened up what they called CC Camps and hired people to work there. Milburn joined one and went to Victor, Idaho where he stayed for about 3 months.

He and a friend there heard there was a rodeo in Jackson Hole, so they decided to go. They needed a ride so they tried to catch a ride on a gas truck, but they wouldn't take them. Then someone came along in a Model T Ford. They had a whole load of people but they told them to jump on the front fender and they would catch the gas truck and get on behind it. They each got on a fender and road all the way to Jackson. It was quite a ride, the roads were not as good as they are now and there were a lot of hairpin curves.

They stayed in Jackson all day and when they were ready to go back to Victor they were afraid they were going to have to walk the 25‑30 miles back. Just then the same gas truck came down the streets of Jackson and passed them going quite slow. They jumped on the back and rode clear back to Victor. The truck went down the last hill pretty fast. They jumped off and started running and by the time they got the bottom of the hill they were running pretty fast. Luckily they made it without getting hurt.

That fall they moved the camp to Horseshoe Bend. They went from Victor by train to Nampa, over to Emmett and back to Horseshoe Bend which took about two days. There were only tents when they first got there and they had to build barracks. They worked in the hills where the snow was but there was never any snow in their camp. He met a lot of interesting people from around the country and was surprised to find that few of them had done an honest day's work.

They said they had been standing in the bread line for two years as they had nothing to eat. Milburn told them that they were more fortunate than that. They had no money but always plenty to eat, but only because all of them worked very hard for it. The people he met from Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and other places like that told Milburn he could come to their town and get a job easily any time because he was such a hard worker.

He came home in April from Horseshoe Bend and for the next couple of years Milburn worked in the hay in Montana during the summers. He also worked for Rube Boam who lived in Grant over on the county line road. This was very exciting for Milburn as he got to take some of Rube's cattle to California and sell them. They loaded the cattle on a car called a drover's coach and headed for California. They stoped in Las Vegas, Nevada. He could see the whole town of Las Vegas from the railroad station that night.

When he got to California the cattle were all put in a corral. The buyers would come along and make offers and each time they sold one they would tell Milburn how much they got out of it. He stayed there all day and they finally told him they would get a taxi when he was ready to leave. He went to downtown Los Angeles in the taxi and stayed in a motel that cost him $50 a night. After picking up the papers from the stockyards the next morning he took the train to Long Beach. He stayed there all day and took a train that night and headed home. That was quite an experience for a young boy from Grant that had never been very far away from home before.

Shortly after that he and Leo Gneiting joined the Army and he was headed back to California. They stayed in Salt Lake for 4 days and then went to San Francisco where they stayed for 2 months. Then they were shipped to Hawaii where they spent two years at Schofield Barracks, 27th Infantry. He did a little of everything. He ran the Headquarters Division of the Communication Section. He was Message Center Clerk and Switchboard Operator. He was also a lineman. He would send four messages an hour and had to decipher and send codes.

When he was in San Francisco a man he met there told him not to let anyone know they were Mormons and that they would get along better. They didn't follow that advice. He always told people he was a Mormon and didn't have any problem with it.

Milburn got home from the Army in December, on Christmas Day, in 1936. There were many changes to the family while he was gone. His dad had died four days after he left for the Army, but they couldn't find him for two weeks to tell him because no one knew where he was. Both Lowell and Edna had gotten married and Zelda was living with Ray at the time. For the next couple of years he worked in the potatoes, then he and Howard Taylor went to Ogden to work for the UIC Railroad living for a while with Aunt Pearl Wardle, his mother's sister.

Milburn had met Vela Cook in the 7th Grade while they were in school in Grant. They became pretty good friends and when they were older they dated a little, After Milburn went into the service, he and Verla wrote some. When he got home they started dating again. One night a bunch of them were going to Terreton to see one of their friend’s parents. They decided to stay overnight in Terreton and Verla was very upset because she was afraid her mother would be worried. Somehow they got word to Verla's mom that she wouldn't be home and they spent the night there. That was the night Milburn asked Verla to marry him.

They were married on December 3, 1938, by George Christensen who was Bishop of the Grant Ward at that time. Their good friends, Ralph Jardine and Artell Randall were married at the same time. They were planning to spend their honeymoon in Malad, but the weather was so bad they stopped in Pocatello and stayed in a motel for 50 cents. They went to a grocery store nearby and bought wieners and buns and had hot dogs for dinner. Milburn and Verla went to Logan Utah, June 1939 and were sealed in the Logan Temple.

When they were first married they lived in Grant in the back of Uncle Joe Ellis' house for the winter. The next summer he worked for Frank Mortensen in Grant and he and Verla lived in a granary. That September Veldon was born and Frank let them move a mile West into a house. They then moved to Coltman, Ucon and back to Grant. Delray was born in April of 1941 when they were living in Grant. He had a congenital heart condition and only lived for 3 weeks.

When Milburn. and Verla lived in the little white house in the back of Wayne Boam's place, Milburn used to pile cardboard boxes up along the back of the house. After they would accumulate, Milburn would move the pile out into the yard and burn them. When Veldon and Deanna were about four, several of the boxes were stacked up against the house. They decided to help Milburn out, so they found some matches and set fire to the boxes almost burning the house down. That caused quite a commotion. Milburn was mad but I don't remember him getting all that excited. With my dad and Wayne Boam involved, I guess he figured that they were upset enough for everyone.

They left Grant and moved to Garfield, then Lewisville, where Garna was born and  back to Grant. They finally moved to Coltman where they have lived ever since.   They bought the 55 acre farm in Coltman in 1947 and moved to the old rock house in 1948. He paid $9,500 for the house and farm. The next year he raised 25 acres of potatoes and sold them for $9,000.00. He was so proud that he almost paid off his mortgage the first year he farmed.

Uncle Millburn never lost his sense of humor nor tired of playing jokes. I remember one Christmas my brother, Jay and his family had cut down my folks a Christmas tree. Dad had it sitting in front of the house leaned up against the porch. One day when no one was home, Milburn came by and took the tree and put it in the abandoned outhouse out in the back yard. He was just going to play a trick on my dad and then tell him about it. He completely forgot about it and my dad went out and bought a new tree. One day Milburn came to the house and my dad was just ranting and raving about the dirty so and so that had stolen his tree. To this day I can't remember if Milburn fessed up right then or later, but I know he was pretty scarce around our house for a while.

Milburn and Verla worked hard all of their lives, both on the farm and as custodians for the Coltman Church. They were proud parents of Garna and Veldon, always thrilled with their many accomplishments. And for many years they mourned the death of baby Delray.

Milburn was very sentimental. I remember when I moved to Los Alamos in 1963 with my husband. It was very hard on me as I had lived away from home once already and vowed I would never move again. Veldon was living in Michigan and of course Milburn missed him very much. I had just said a rather teary good bye to my parents and was about to walk out the front door when Uncle Milburn walked in the back door. He put his arms around me and we both started sobbing. Needless to say when I finally got on the road I didn't quit crying until I got past Salt Lake City. Tom threatened to turn around and take me back home if I couldn't pull myself together but I finally did.

With all of their moving around Milburn had become inactive in the church. The people of Coltman just kept coming around though and got Aunt Verla active. They kept her busy but Milburn was stubborn and would only go to church once in a while. When Ralph Wilkins was bishop, Milburn was in a meeting one night and listened to the Bishop talk. He was talking about getting all the young kids to church and contacting everyone every month. He thought if they are going to all that trouble, then surely he could start going himself.

When Eldon Ward was bishop Milburn was put in as Ward Teaching Supervisor. In the section under Milburn they had 100% for 19 months straight. It was published in the Improvement Era. As with everything he did, Millburn always strived for perfection. He was then made the Sunday School Superintendent, a job which he loved. It was hard for him to get up in front and conduct, but he was finally able to do it. Bishop Albert Rasmussen called him to be the Finance Clerk. He worked with Bishop Rasmussen for five years and then with Bishop Ray Stucki for 8 years in this calling. I can remember going to visit them many times on Sunday evening and he

and Verla would be busy making deposits, counting money, and taking care of the books.

They kept asking him to give blessings to sick people at the hospital. He kept putting them off but one night he and Leo Gneiting went. Before they left the hospital they had administered to 12 people. As they would walk down the hall people would yell at them and ask them if they were elders and tell them they wanted a blessing. Uncle Milburn loved and appreciated the members of the Coltman Ward for keeping after him until he got active in the church.

He and Aunt Verla served a mission on the Indian Reservations in both Montana and Wyoming. Whenever you went to visit them they had many interesting stories to tell about their experiences in the mission field.

In January 1982, they started working in the Idaho Falls Temple and it was a wonderful experience for both of them. He never thought he could do anything like that, but I am sure he did a superb job as he did with everything he touched.

Milburn and Verla always raised a huge garden and shared it with everyone. The temple workers from all over the valley would stop for produce, as well as all of his nieces and nephews. He was most proud of the dill pickles he made from his wonderful cucumber patch. He would put a couple of cloves of garlic in them and they were coveted by all.

The scripture Mosiah 2:17 reads "When ye are in the service of your fellow being, ye are only in the service of your God”.  Surely Milburn and Verla were in the service of their God the biggest part of their lives. Everyone you talk to has been touched by their generosity and service. When Aunt Zelda's husband died in 1966, she still had three children at home. He helped her with the farm as well as helping her sons with their Priesthood advancement and being there for them and taking them places.

When my father died in 1968, he and Aunt Verla were constantly at my mother's side helping us through all of the hard times we endured. When Aunt Julia Ellis died in 1970, they helped Uncle Joe with whatever he needed. They went to his home every Monday morning, picked up all of his laundry, took him to the store to buy groceries and sometimes they went to town for lunch. They then did his laundry and returned it to him clean each week. This went on for 9 years until Uncle Joe Ellis died in 1979. Likewise they routinely took the widow ladies in Coltman to Idaho Falls to do their grocery shopping and have lunch. The list goes on and on. When you think about it, this was practically a full time job for them each week.

They still had time for their family. Whenever you would stop to visit them, Aunt Verla was making something for one of her children, grandchildren or great grandchildren. And Uncle Milburn was always sitting in, his chair with a big smile on his face watching his ball game or some other TV program. They always had a new picture or story to tell you about their grandchildren. They were proud of their posterity and rightly so.

Milburn is survived by two children, Veldon (Arlene) Hix, Garna (Dale) Mickelsen, 12 grandchildren, 29 great grandchildren, two sisters Zelda (Ben) Hymas of Iona, and Edna(Gordon) Riniker of Rigby. His beloved wife of 61 years, Verla Cook Hix, died July 25, 1999. When I was relaying the message of Uncle Milburn's death to my daughter she said "it is sad to pass away this close to Christmas, but on the other hand, now he and Aunt Verla will be able to spend Christmas together as always."

To sum up Uncle Milburn's life, one only has to say: he was the best husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle or friend, that anyone could ever have. Those who had the privilege to know him were indeed richly blessed.

Given by‑ Polly Marchant Mortell, December 28, 1999