Cecil Warren Henke

CECIL WARREN HENKE A PERSONAL HISTORY Memories of my father and mother: My father, Godfried Reinhold Henke, was a tall man. I measured a door he had to duck his head to go through and it measured 6 feet 6 inches. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland where his parents lived for a few years after they left East Prussia before they went to Wheatland, Wyoming. His father, Richard, and brother. Otto, stayed in Wyoming and had a cattle ranch. Richard Henke, my grandfather, transported trout overland for fifty miles to stock Sybil Creek so they could fish for trout. My father was a machinist and worked in mining towns. He never owned a car. My mother. Olive Rose Henke, was the last of ten children born to Ellen and Olaf Cedarstrom. She had a twin brother who didn't live very long. She spent most of her life before she married at Pelican Point. She did live in Mercur for awhile where her sister was living and died. Her sister. Nanny, had three little girls and she knew she wasn't going to live very long so my mother promised her she would take care of her girls. I think it was my Uncle Poge who introduced my father and mother. When he would go to Pelican Point to see my mother he would either ride a bike or walk from Lehi. They planned to get married and they got as far as the courthouse when she backed out. She said she wouldn't saddle him with a ready-made family, meaning her three nieces she was caring for. He went away and she didn't hear from him for five years. When he came back he told her that if she wouldn't marry him he wouldn't ever marry anyone. By then they were a little older than most couples, so my father was 42 years old when I was born and my mother was 37, and I was their first child. They had just one other, my sister Theda, who was six years younger than me. My birth and Childhood: I was born in Salt Lake City on August 13, 1915. Shortly after my birth my family moved to Lehi. My three cousins seemed like sisters to me. They were teenagers when I was born so I had plenty of people to take care of and spoil me. My mother wanted to have roots. She didn't want to travel from mining town to mining town so she stayed in Lehi and my father came home when he could. One time when my father was working in Magna we went on the train to visit him. When we were expecting my father home we would hear the train whistle and we could tell just about how long it would take him to walk from the station to home. It was two blocks. He always had candy bars for us. After my father worked at Magna, he went to Ruth, Nevada to work. While he was there, he was in a boiler one day repairing it when someone turned the steam in on him. He was burned very severely. He spent months in the hospital. After he was released from the hospital he was able to do limited amounts of work because his legs had been permanently damaged when he was burned. Before dad's accident it seemed like we were pretty well off. Afterwards, we had some pretty slim times. The depression had started and almost everyone was having bad times. I liked to hunt and fish and my Uncle Thor Cedarstrom and cousin, Roger Cedarstrom, were my heros. I spent as much time as I could at my Uncle's ranch at Pelican Point. I worked on the ranch putting up hay and herding sheep. One summer when I was in my early teens, my uncles Poge and Thor went to Denver on business and left me to take care of the ranch. There were about 300 sheep, five or six horses and a few cattle. They were gone a few weeks and I lived alone. One way we got through the depression was that I would screen the sheep manure and bag it and Uncle Poge would take it to Salt Lake to the nurseries and trade for vegetables. He would stop in Lehi on his way back out to the Point and leave vegetables for us. I liked to hunt and I didn't realize until I was older that what I brought home was a good part of our living. I worked on the railroad, ten hours a day, for one summer. My dad left home to see if he could find work. He finally started working for a cousin in East Ely, Nevada, Bob Birch, who had married Lucille, one of the girls my mother helped raise. Bob was starting a garage but he could only pay enough for his board and room, so I didn't have a father living in the home with me for quite a few of my growing up years. He did come home and spent the last year of his life in Lehi with us. ' My mother and I were baptized the same day, when I was ten years old. We neither one was active. I did take a religion class and Seminary. I always prayed and believed in God. My best friend in Lehi was Rex Zimmerman. He lived three houses down from me. We went hunting together and also double dated. Deer season was the biggest event of the year. One of the most faith-promoting experiences I had was one deer hunting season. I was about sixteen years old. It was a warm October day. My Uncle Thor and cousin Ernie and I left Pelican Point early one morning on horseback to get some deer that had been killed the day before and left in the lake hills above Pelican Point. We were dressed light because we didn't expect it to take very long to load the deer and bring them down the mountain. We had the deer loaded and were about ready to start back down when a sudden storm came up. It turned very cold. The wind was blowing and it was snowing some of the biggest snowflakes I have ever seen. It had taken us longer to find the deer and it was late afternoon. Uncle Thor, who was familiar with the mountain, led the way. He stopped at the head of a canyon. He admitted that might be on the Cedar Valley side where there are a lot of rock ledges. We were suffering from the cold but did not dare to start down the canyon until we were sure it was the right one. Neither Uncle Thor nor Ernie had any matches and I had only three. We gathered twigs and the wind was so strong and the snow so wet it seemed like an impossible task. I had one match left. I was shivering violently as I knelt over that little pile of wood trying to shield it from the wind and snow. All three of us knew we could not survive the night. Neither Thor nor Ernie was religious and I do not know if they knew that I was praying. The Lord had answered my prayers before and he did again. The flame from that last match caught onto the wood and we soon had a dead tree ablaze. A short time later the fog lifted just before the sun went down, and we could see that we were on the right side of the mountain. I have always known that God lives and answers prayers. My Patriarchal Blessing states that my life will be preserved and that Satan will have no power to shorten it. This has been fulfilled. There have been 15 experiences where I could have been killed or injured. I have never had a bone broken or a serious injury. I will tell of more of these experiences in a more complete life story. Roger and Lorene Cedarstrom went to Draper in 1947 to take care of Mickelson's chickens. Roger would go to the point to the calcite mine every day and Lorene and the kids would do most of the work taking care of the chickens. I spent a lot of time there that year helping take care of the chickens. That is also the year I started to date girls. I was about 21 years old. My cousin, Ernie Cedarstrom, is 5 years younger than me so he was the age lots of boys start dating, but I was older. They just stayed in Draper for one year. After Roger moved back to Pelican Point, he hired me to work for him in the calcite mine. Ernest and I went to Cedar Fort one night to take his sister Thelma to a baby shower. There were a group of girls there that we met. One of these was my future wife but at the time I did not remember her. Ernest started to date Florence and I started to date Lucille Chamberlain. We had a lot of fun with them. I used to go almost every Saturday night to the dance in American Fork. I sure did like to dance. One night I went to the dance alone. Florence was there. I danced with her that night and took her home after the dance but did not ask for a date that night. The next Saturday she was not at the dance and I felt very disappointed, but the next week she was there and I took her home. This time I asked for a date. From then on I was not interested in anyone else. It wasn't long until I felt like I had the answer to my prayer, because I had been praying to find the right girl to be my wife. I asked her to marry me about a month before Christmas in 1940. The first time I had a meal at the Cook home, everyone kneeled around the table and had family prayer. I didn't know what was happening. That was my first experience with family prayer. I hadn't been active in the church so I had to start going to church and paying my tithing. I was ordained a priest and passed the sacrament and gave a talk in church because we wanted to get married in the temple. I was ordained an Elder on June 15, 1941 and we were married in the Salt Lake Temple by Steven L. Chipman on June 18, 1941. In April, before we married, I had started working for the Mikelson brothers, the same place where Roger Cedarstrom had worked. It provided living quarters for us. It was an apartment above a double garage and egg room. We lived there until Marvin, Lynn, Norman and Paul were born. My bosses got me deferred from the draft so I was able to stay home with my family during the war. My draft number had come up and I had gone for my physical and I was expecting to get a notice to report when the card came telling me of my deferment. They told the draft board I was doing an important job by producing food. In 1947 we had a little money saved and we felt like it was time to get a place of our own. We bought a piece of land on 13800 south in Draper and built our first coops for 1,000 laying hens. I went to work for Draper Egg Producers Assn. which is now Intermountain Farmers. I had been a home teacher from the time I moved to Draper, but then I was asked to be a counselor in the Elder's Quorum. I was until our ward. Draper 2nd, was divided and then I was made president of the Elder's Quorum in the 4th Ward. I was Elder's Quorum president until January 1960 when I was ordained a High Priest and set apart as a counselor in the bishopric. I served as a counselor for about four years and after that I was set apart as the High Priest Group Leader. We expanded our business as we could until we felt like we had enough laying hens to support the family. I then quit my job at the egg plant. The egg producers in Utah organized the Utah Egg Council. I was president of that council for many years. For two terms I was elected to the Board of directors of the Intermountain Farmer's Assn. We bought a chicken ranch in Heber City, Utah in 1971 and Paul went into business with me. Later Norman joined us. The poultry business took a big blow when the price freeze was put on when the eggs were at the lowest price of the year. At a time when I was feeling depressed because our poultry business was going down hill, the Stake President called me in and asked me to be his assistant stake clerk. I felt totally unqualified. After much prayer I accepted this call. This proved to be the most enjoyable call I ever had. I served under two Stake Presidents until I moved to New Mexico. About the same time, they needed a custodian for a new chapel they were building. I got that job and had some choice experiences when I would be in the chapel early and the visiting general authority would come. I got to visit one on one with several of them that way. In the spring of 1985 I had a complete hip replacement operation. When I recovered from my operation I was not able to go back to my custodian job as I had my 70th birthday at that time. Douglas and Kathleen had moved to New Mexico and had bought a lot with two homes on it. They invited us to come and help in the business and live in one of the houses. We did and we've been here now (April 1995) for almost ten years. We belong to the Aztec 2nd Ward, Bloomfield, New Mexico Stake. We enjoy it here. It's different being a minority. On our way to church we pass four chapels of other faiths. Most of my church service here has been the behind the scenes kind. For awhile I delivered commodities from the , Bishop's storehouse up into southern Colorado. Now I fill the baptismal font and do extraction work. My wife is my home teaching companion.