Uncle Wesley Leon Hurst - A Sweet Man

Grandma and Wesley

Grandma Ethel Speas was the eighth born in her family, the second daughter. Her sister Nora and her brother Conrad had passed away before Grandma could meet them, leaving six children in the busy family. When she was two and a half years old, Grandma was thrilled at the birth of a little brother, Wesley, her own little doll to hold and feed. As Wesley grew they became best buddies and playmates. Decades later, it was clear to me, that for the rest of Grandma's days, Wesley was her favorite sibling. 

Ethel and Wesley's mother died when Wesley was only three and a half years old.  Little Wesley was cared for by his grandparents for a time, until his father remarried when Wesley was five. Their father followed their mother to the spirit world seven years and one day after her passing. Wesley stayed to help provide and care for his stepmother and family until he graduated from the eighth grade at age fourteen, at which time he found employment and went out on his own.

Wesley playing  with his young children

The stories Grandma told me about Wesley convinced me that he was nearly perfect. Apparently, his children thought so too. 

When he was 91 years old, his daughter Leora shared this poem at a family reunion:




 
 

God knew that there should be fathers to make the family complete.
An example to look up to and guide the little feet.
God knew there should be fathers to speak a kindly word.
To listen with attention when a child’s voice must be heard.
God knew that each and every boy needs someone close each day,
To lead with love and gentleness lest they should start to stray.
He knew each girl needs someone to wrap around her heart,
Who’d make the sun come shining through whenever tears would start,
Who’d teach his children how to smile through happy times and sad,
And so in His great wisdom, God created you – our Dad!

Wesley's Family in 1943

Wesley not only fathered his family, he was also the father, the Bishop that is, of the Springdale Ward, Burley Idaho Stake, during  the fearful days of World War II. Of this time, he wrote:

"... they were trying years. The War was on and very difficult to officer the ward with so many leaving for service, but some way we made it through."

During this time food was rationed, beginning with sugar, for the first time in U.S. history, as explained in the newspaper article, Why "War Ration Book No. 1"? by Richard M. Boeckel:

"War Ration Book No. 1 - first in the history of the United States - will shortly be issued to consumers. It will limit their purchases of sugar - beginning around the middle of March - to 12 ounces per individual per week. Use of sugar by industrial consumers has already been limited to 80 per cent of the amounts they used in 1941 and will be further restricted after family rationing is placed in effect.

The reasons for sugar-rationing are fairly well known to the American people. Japanese occupation of the Philippines has cut off the supply formerly received from that source. Sugar cargoes from Hawaii will be cut about in half by the need to conserve shipping, and by the diversion of labor to military work. Considerable amounts of sugar must be used to meet minimum requirements of other nations fighting the Axis, and some may be sent to Mediterranean countries and the Near East to replace supplies formerly received from Japan.

Sugar experts assert that very much larger supplies of sugar can be obtained than the amounts estimated by the Office of Price Administration, but large quantities of labor, materials, machinery, rail transportation and shipping-space would be needed to raise the supply to the 1941 level of consumption. In these circumstances, Washington may be content to allow present conditions of shortage to continue for an indefinite period."

 

 Wesley's family saved one of their  partially used ration books:

As his daughter Leora poetically concluded, times of want and sorrow add beauty to life that could not be seen otherwise:

Your life was not always sunshine – not all light and joy and cheer,
You have had your share of worries and days of doubts and fear.
Seems like life is just a pattern like patches on a quilt, 
And the bits of shade and sunshine are the squares on which its built.
All the sunshine squares are pretty, and the shadow ones are plain,
But you know just how much brighter is the sunshine seen through rain,
And you know the pretty patches simply never would be seen,
Were it not for all the plain ones sewn so neatly in between.