In 1938, Byron graduated form the 8th grade at the Sunnydell School. He told me he was the smartest boy in his class. Later, I learned he was the only boy in his class and there were two girls besides him that made up the entire class. The following year he started high school at the Archer school. Byron was always interests in leaning. He especially loved anything mechanical. He could always take anything apart and put it back together again and it work as well or better than before. He was going to school in Archer at the time they consolidated the school sin Madison County and he went his last year of school in Rexburg at the Madison High School. Eh took welding classes, auto repair and some diesel classes that he took full advantage of later in his life.
While he was growing up on the farm, he enjoted all the fun things that farm kids do and even that thngs they did that were called work. He was not afraid of work. He helpd with the cows and horses and any othe animals but enjoyed most of all, ridng his bicycle and later a motorcycle.
He told of the times that he and his frined, GFrank Weekes, rode their bikes all the way to Kelly Canyon. He loved to fish in the canal with his borhters and his dad would go with them and they would fish in the Snake River. He told of the time when he and Lorin and friends were playing in the field near the canal on their farm and he got to close to a skunk and his mother made him take his clothes off and scrub with soap in the canal until they could stand to have him near again.
They enjoyed visits from family, especially his Uncle Steve Taylor and his wife, Aunt Mim and their children, Doris and Dene. The families would visit, pick huckleberries, fish and go camping.
His father’s cousin, John Gillsepie, and his wife, Annie, and their daughter Elaine cam from Tooele, Utah to visit and he looked forward to their visits. The Taylor family settled in Tooele, Utah when they cam e west and John, his grandfather, had left that area nod came up to Idaho, into the Teton Valley area, and then returned to Sunnydell to settle.
The family always looked forward to the visits from family and friends. All the children played together and in later years were still able to continue their friendships after many years being apart.
On December 7th, 1941, World War II started. Byron and his friend Ralph Beck were working in Tooele, Utah. He had gone to Utah after he got out of school. He knew that Gillespie family there and went to find work. He stayed width them a few days until he got work and then he and Ralph doing a place to live and worked in several places in the area until they were both called into the service of their country.
Byron was called to serine in the U.S. Navy. He was proud of the Navy and made the most of his opportunity to learn while there. He was at Boot Camp at Camp Farragut, in Northern Idaho near Coeur d’ Alene. While Byron was in the service he missed his family a great deal. He wrote letters almost daily to his Mother and she saved every letter. After boot camp, Byron was sent to the Aleutian Islands and many placed near as ask. He told of arriving at Dutch Harbor, Alaska when the fires were still warm after the Japanese troops had fled when they done the American forces were nearing. Byron serves on the USS Vega, an attack cargo ship, and he told of how flsa he was threat he was on an old ship. While they were in Alaskan water he told of watching several of the newer shops that had been hurriedly build a beginning of the war. The men on the Vega watch some of the new ships did not prove to be as safer as the older ship he served on. He was proud of his ship and the men he served with.
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