STORY OF FAITH - DENTON MOULTON
Dad tells of three times that the Spirit testified strongly to him. He tells of his experience in Samoa in WWII when he heard that he was all that President Roosevelt had to delay the Japanese. It was a few weeks after Pearl Harbor, and every day they were down on the beach in foxholes or up in the observatory with high powered binoculars searching the horizon. The C.O. called them in in small groups and asked them to fight to the last and not surrender, and as he said that, Dad heard the voice of the Spirit tell him that he would not have to give his life in the War. Many years later, he went to a reunion in St. Louis, and at all the tables the men were talking about that meeting with the C.O. Dad realized that they didn't have the Spirit or Comforter to help them to get through it. He was very glad he never had to look down the barrel of his rifle at another human being.
Dad mentioned the time that he was riding on the railroad car ready to jump off. A man put his hand on his shoulder and told him “I wouldn't do that if I were you. This train will stop in a few minutes to take on water and you can get off and walk back.” I did, and got back to Hoburn in time for work. Later I recalled that I had walked the length of the railroad car when I got on in Salt Lake, and no one else was on board.
I told that story many times before I realized that I had seen a Heavenly messenger. Many years later I was reading in the Doctrine & Covenants about the keys to discerning spirits, and I relived the experience in my mind. I felt the hand on my shoulder just as if it was the first time, the Spirit testified to me, and I knew I had received a visit from a Heavenly messenger. Mike Francis told me I never knew anyone who had a visit from one of the three Nephites.
I was on the roof in the west part of Magna, almost to Garfield on a drain call. Marian & Joe were both on their missions. I saw a car drive into the back of the house and park by my van. It was Lonnie Ayers, who was a counselor to my Stake President, Bob Arnold. I had just heard the water run out of the line, so I knew the drain was clear. He climbed up onto the roof, and might have asked me if I was all done. When you hear the gurgling noise, you know it was working OK, running fast. I said “Yes, all I got to do is do the paperwork.”
He asked me “Can I help you put your tools away?” I asked him to roll up the cord and the foot control switch and take them down. I took the drum down and went back up for the 5/8 machine.
He asked me to come and sit down on the seat in his car. He had something he wanted to tell me. He told me about Marian's accident in Australia. When I first seen him get out of the car, I said to myself “Something terrible has happened.” The Spirit said to my mind "It ain't a gonna be as bad as it sounds." The vernacular was my choice, but the message was God's choice.
The message came from the Church missionary department but I wasn't home. I can't remember what happened after that. Bob Arnold, my Stake President, came over and talked to me for about 2 hours. He told me that I should pray that Marian should die. I told him that I couldn't do that. He told me that it wasn't the Spirit of the Lord telling me not to do it, but it was me telling me not to do it. He told that if she lived she would be a vegetable and that someone would have to change her diaper every day. I wouldn't be able to go on a mission.
I remember going with Bob Arnold and his dad when he was a priest to go rabbit hunting, and he had shot a hen pheasant. They hid it in the trunk of my new Studebaker so his dad wouldn't smell it. I came home and locked my trunk because my saw was inside it. When the boys came to get the bird, it was locked, and they had to ask me to open my trunk. I gave them the bird and they went up to the ditch and cooked it. Carl & Albert Andre remembered that experience as one of their favorite jokes.
The Spirit told me that this was not the young kid who shot that pheasant talking, but it was my stake president, and I had better listen to him. I did what he asked, and it was the hardest thing I ever did.
This was before the block schedule, so early the next morning I went to priesthood meeting and J.D. Christensen (the bishop) called me up to tell the latest about Sister Moulton. I had hoped to sneak in late and sit down in the back. I stood up and told them what my stake president had asked me to do, and said that I had done it. I said that I was feeling tired and needed to go home and rest. I remember the silence that fell over the meeting after I spoke, and don't recall any meeting with that stillness.
I went home and they called from Australia to say that Marian had woken up from her coma and was not a vegetable, in fact, she could remember everything right up to her accident.
I went back to priesthood meeting and told them she was OK. Mike Francis congratulated me, I had passed the test of Abraham.
LIFE OF DENTON GRANT MOULTON as told by his son Grant E Moulton
Dad was a great storyteller, and his life is best illustrated by some of the stories he told. Dad was born in 1920 and by the time he was a young teenager the Great Depression was in full sway. He learned early how to work hard and endure hard times. As Grandma said when I asked her what she wanted when she was younger, “I just wanted to know where my next meal was coming from”. Dad said that sometimes all they had to eat was bread, potatoes and water.
Dad told of early successes in working with his hands. He built a shelf for his Mom as a young boy, and repaired the shed roof with tin cans he found at the dump, cut up and flattened. He missed an entire year of school as a young man due to illness, but even without that he was never a social animal. He had read the Book of Mormon for himself and knew it was true, but did not attend church much as a young man because of the way he was treated by the others his age. His self esteem increased a bit as he accomplished a few things like setting the record for rope climb that lasted most of the day. I did that same thing with the same result at about the same age, and it was probably the only success either of us ever had in sports or PE classes.
Dad tells of a time when he and some of the other guys were swimming and of course they were skinny dipping. The other guys hid his clothes just before the girls showed up. One of the girls was kind and put them where he could get to them. That sounds a lot like the bad dream too many of us guys had about going to school only to realize we forgot to put on our pants. It sort of sums up his lack of acceptance by his peers. He didn’t do much to improve that when, after seeing the disastrous results of the cool kids’ attempt to create a mirror ball, he and the shop teacher repaired it after they left. Again, he won no points by telling them how their version was in need of repair once they had admired their own construction.
Dad worked on the railroad after High School and as his patriarchal blessing says, his life was saved several times. Once they were working in a hand car repairing the track, and had a train rapidly come up on them. Most of the crew ran away, but Dad tried to help lift the car off the track and damaged his hands. He started running away from the train, but Big Sal grabbed him by the neck and turned him around saying “run towards the train”. When the train hit, metal flew everywhere down the track and it would have killed him. Again, while working the railroad, he hopped a train (think hobo) and got into an empty boxcar going to his destination, or so he thought. The train roared past his stop, and he prepared to jump. Just then, an old man with big eyes and a long white beard said from the back of the boxcar, “You don’t want to jump right now; in a few miles the train will stop for water. You can get off there and walk back”. In the light of day, Dad saw the huge boulders covering the area where he would have jumped and probably died. He realized later that he was protected by his guardian angel.
Dad tried to attend college but with a variety of troubles and the intense difficulty of finding any employment at the end of the Depression, he finally enlisted in the US Marine Corps nearly a year before Pearl Harbor. He said that he knew something big was coming and he needed to be a part of it. One of the men in his ward had reported favorably on his mission to Samoa, and when given the chance, Dad volunteered for duty on Samoa. Of all the bases in the Pacific, Samoa was one of the few not attacked soon after Pearl Harbor.
Dad was asked what religion to put on his dog tags, Protestant or Catholic. He said neither one, because they were both dead branches on a dead tree. Once again, he spoke his mind and didn’t win friends. He had the chance to become Company Carpenter, but didn’t advance any more in rank. He said “I prayed about it and had a dream where I saw my "beat up" hands, but I didn't want to kill somebody, so I took it.” He was glad that he never had to look down his rifle pointed at another human being. He built new camps for his unit as the new units took over their old camps, and spent most of his time (quote) “building outhouses and outhouses and more outhouses”.
He did a great job as a carpenter and his commanding officer used to say, “If so and so can’t steal it, and Moulton can’t build it, then we don’t need it”. Marian said (much later) that she always felt that no matter what happened Dad could fix it. Dad was the king of improvisation, and when he asked his CO to be able to go to a course on how to make do. He said, “If I could spare you, I’d let you teach the class”. Not that long ago, I gave him a copy of the Red Green show, but he couldn’t see the humor in it. He may have been the only man in the world to turn a Harley Davidson motorcycle into a rototiller, but he took a huge amount of care to build things right on the job. He tore out many inferior construction jobs to make certain that they were correct, including some on this chapel.
When his unit was rotated back to the states, he was eventually assigned to be a prison guard in Hayward, CA across from San Francisco. This nearly drove him crazy and caused him to worry that he would end up in prison himself because of how he had to deal with the prisoners. He prayed to find a way out, and one of those times, as he got up, he noticed the stenciling on the crate someone had made into a small desk. It said USMC Depot of Supplies, 100 Harrison St., San Francisco, Calif. He recalled seeing those crates in Samoa and reasoned that they must need carpenters there. He told the officer that his mom was supposed to be in town (which wasn’t true) and asked for liberty to see her. He got liberty and he went to that address. He got there and was told to get in line and their officer found out that he had been in Samoa. They had to cycle their employees to overseas deployment, and needed carpenters that had served out of the US already. Dad’s prayers were answered over and over, just as his patriarchal blessing confirmed and promised later, but he still wasn’t active in church.
Following WWII, Dad records “It seemed that Satan was out of destroy my self esteem and he was doing a purty good job of it. I do remember going to church a time or two. I remember how I knew even then that I had read the Book of Mormon and I knew it was true. It seemed to me that the good things of life like a happy home life, a good wife, going to church and feeling at home, and listening to the Tabernacle Choir were for someone else, not for the likes of me.”
Dad had the opportunity to go to Alaska and work construction as he did for much of his work life. He operated a table saw and did good work. He worked a lot of overtime and double time on Sunday. “My bank account began to grow. Then one day my saw jumped back at me and grabbed my right hand.” The saw had cut half way through the bone in his right thumb, leaving just a small section holding it in place. The doctors were going to cut the thumb off, but didn’t do that because he was a carpenter. The Army doctor did a good job, but the company doctor “corrected” his work and messed it up, making it heal a bit twisted. Dad continues:
“At this time I was called upon to make a sacrifice for my brother Newell – then serving in the Canadian Mission. I had had very little contact with the church and was not making much effort to live up to its teachings. I received a letter from Newell asking for a sum of money almost as much as I had saved. …As I remember it, I got Newell’s letter in the evening and was very much disturbed by it. I remember thinking this will take all of the money I have worked for all summer, and it bothered me. I thought of the pros and cons until late and woke up in the night and pondered it some more. Next morning, Sunday, I think, I answered the letter and enclosed a check for the amount he asked for. So much for the sacrifice. He had to have this money or quit his mission.” (Dad’s brother Newell had driven a car and wrecked it, and needed to pay to repair it or leave the mission).
Dad had to check in with the company doctor before he returned, and the doctor told him how that he had done such a good job on Dad’s hand and that it would never bother him, and that he shouldn’t have any reason to claim any disability in Seattle at the main office on the way home. And did he mention how there was no reason to stop in Seattle?... I guess that my kids and grandkids and I inherited a lot of Dad’s stubborn nature, and he figured that if the doctor didn’t want him to check in at Seattle, he had better go ahead and do that, in spite of the doctor’s instructions.
It turned out that the company doctor had misrepresented what he had done in the operation, and charged for repairing tendons when none were cut. They said that they would be in touch with him and Dad went back to Utah. He had the idea that he probably should start going to church, and started to pay tithing and paid tithing on the money he earned in Alaska. Dad soon after received a settlement from the insurance and disability for his accident (which he probably didn’t even realize that he had). The amount was for more than he had sent to Newell to keep him on his mission, and was almost exactly ten times the amount he had paid in tithing. He said “Ever since I have had a testimony of tithing, and I have often wondered if I had gone back and paid for my earnings before Alaska, would this have been more?”
Dad went up to Salt Lake and it was conference time, so he decided to go down to the Tabernacle. He walked in and went right on down to the second row. (It was definitely a different time). He saw some people on the front row and started a conversation with them. It turned out that they were returned missionaries from the Toronto Canada mission, and knew his brother. They invited him to attend their ward. Quoting Mom’s story: “Each year our returned Canadian missionaries met, organizing a club and some close friendships were formed. It was at one of those reunions that Denton Moulton appeared on the scene, because he had a brother, Newell, still out in the field. … My friend Elsie Dee Adams introduced him to me and we started dating.” They were married 21 Feb 1951 on her birthday.
They stayed married all of Mom’s life (almost 60 more years together). Dad served for many years as a stake missionary as a Seventy and was able to reach many people whom he understood because of his own history. He worked on many of the church buildings including the one we are in, and taught us boys how to do a careful and good job. He was a Scoutmaster who taught us to make rope out of old hay bale ties and make monkey bridges and towers with that rope, made backpacks, kayaks and a deer cart and hiked with us in the back country, and had an influence for good on all of us as Scouts. He served as a volunteer counselor at the prison and on a mission with Mom to Des Moines, Iowa. They spent over 20 years working in the temple until they were just too old to do that.
All of us were given a strong foundation and eventually went on missions and married in the Temple. It took a while in my case, but all of those prayers as a little kid praying to “bless us to go on missions and get married in the Temple” stuck in my head. When I grew up enough to need to gain my own testimony, those voices in my head got me motivated to prepare to do those things. Pray with your children for the things that you hope for them and they will receive those blessings.
Dad continued to do whatever the Lord required of him, even when it was incredibly difficult. When Marian had her accident in Australia and it was uncertain if she would survive, his stake president counseled him to pray that she would die. He followed that counsel even though it was the hardest he had ever done. He said right after that prayer that they called from Australia and said that Marian had woken out of her coma and could remember everything up to her accident. He was told by his friend, Mike Francis, that he had passed the test of Abraham.
Marian recalls that when she was little, she could run anywhere in the fields that surrounded our place and knew that not only did the people around her know her, but they loved her. All of us grew up with a certainty that the world was a beautiful and wonderful place. It was a feeling of great peace and joy. We never even realized that we didn’t have that much money as kids growing up, because ours was possibly the richest childhood in experience of anyone I have ever met. It was Mom’s connection to family and the land and Dad’s service and integrity that gave us those blessings and privileges. Thank you to both of them for all they gave to us.
I hope that none of us “make his tired ache” and that we all may live up to his confidence in us.
DAD'S FUNERAL TALK (given by John Moulton, his son) May 25, 2013
I would like to thank those of you who have attended here on behalf of the family. I am sure that many of you have remembrances’ of Denton and we would love to hear about them. Please write a note to any family member so that they can be compiled together.
Dad loved to build things and had an amazing ability to break tasks down to the essentials. If he was told it was necessary to rebuild the Taj Majal he would think there is a roof, walls and a foundation. I can draw up some plans. Then he would tell Joe and I to go grab a shovel and put us to digging. This started at a very early age. When he was not yet a teenager the shed they were storing things in leaked. Dad went to the town dump and brought home a lot of oil cans. He broke them down and used the metal as shingles to repair the roof. His employer was going to tear down an old building the next week. Dad asked if he could scrap what he could out of it and after work and on Saturday, he brought home several trailer loads of 1x4 pine tongue and groove pine boards. I remember thinking that you could always buy wood but that was a lot of work. He used them to build his shop and for a lot of other projects as well. Grant and I and some of the neighbors make boats in the summers and raced them down the canals. As an older Boy Scout we built kayaks and went in to the back fingers of Yellowstone Lake. Those kayaks were canvas over wood and the wood ribs were cut from those 1x4’s.
When I was growing up I had close association with three Eldridge School teachers, Mother and my Aunts, Leah and Wilma. If anyone they taught were ever in the public notice due to criminal activity I would hear “well Johnny, we taught him in 2nd or 3rd grade and he just wasn’t a kind person.” I am sure that many of my cousins heard similar stories. This served to let me know that personalities did not change, bullies remained bullies and cheaters still tried to get away with things. Dad stood out in stark opposition to this. His life taught me that one can change circumstances and desires. My grandfather was injured with a broken back when Dad was young. They had little or no cash during those depression years and he had to take on many responsibilities at a very young age. He taught us that you can change circumstances if you are motivated to do so. Dad cut ice on the lake and hauled it to town,. They cut wagon loads of wood from Oak City canyon over 20 miles away. My Grandfather broke his back when Dad was at a young age. He was able to find employment dealing cards in a bar in Delta during the prohibition years. He won a cow that gave twin bull calves for almost 10 years. The family used one for meat and the other for cash. If dad is in Heaven that cow is near him as it improved the family’s living conditions.
Dad had his life spared on a couple of occasions. Grant mentioned a few of them. When I was five I was sitting on the steps where he told me to wait. He plugged in his grinder which was a motor he had put a grinding wheel on and about the time it flew apart whit one of the largest pieces hitting him in the forehead. He went to the floor immediately and he was bleeding, I thought that he was dead. We spent the rest of the day building a guard for the grinder. I asked him about the other project and he told me “ all of a sudden it wasn’t that important”. Dad taught me to be safe with power tools.
Dad joined the military in 1940. If I remember the story correctly, he went into the Army recruiter and filled out a form listing his health record. He had had measles, mumps, missed a year of school due to another illness and his accidents. The recruiter said “ Kid we can’t take you if you have had all that stuff, go over to the Marines and when he gives you the form fill it out right”. Dad understood that right meant leaving off all the illness’s and so he joined the marines. There is an old e-mail that has been around as long as there has been e-mails. It talks of a Marine writing a letter home on how great the Military is. You get to sleep in until 5:00 AM, they make you do PT but it isn’t nearly as hard as farm work, you shoot guns but don’t have to buy any bullets. They feed you three times a day and you don’t need to go shoot it or even cook it first. Your clothes are neither hand me down nor patched. Please tell my brothers to join up as soon as they are off age, your loving Daughter Clementine. I think the military was like that for Dad, no major hardship or even too many inconveniences.
He was assigned to Samoa and enjoyed the island. He had time to swim and associate with some of the natives. Then came Pearl Harbor and World War Two. His company had trained every day, marching up to the top of the islands peak and looking out. Dad says that the morning of Pearl Harbor the ammunition came out of new cans. At least three weeks passed before they were told that they were at war. Samoa was the only base in the Pacific islands not attacked during the first few months and Dad felt blessed to have never fired a shot in anger during the war. He was the only LDS member in Samoa to his knowledge and felt that a certain officer singled him out because of his religion. He later transferred to the SeeBees and worked as a Carpenter. He built a lot of interesting things including a copy of the Arc of the Covenant that is a part of every Jewish Tabernacle. Dad saw the irony in that being built by one of the only Aaronic Priesthood holders on the island.
His helper was a Native American on that project. He later contacted filariosis a tropical disease which caused his arm to swell and was sent to San Francisco. He had to serve as a guard in a military prison and hated it. He was aware of many items being shipped out with a return address in S. F. He looked up the shop on his days off and spoke to the sergeant who was excited to know that there was a Marine Carpenter interested in transferring there. He served less than two months at the prison and was able to transfer to the wood shop. While at the wood shop he was given an opportunity to re-up and go to the Pacific front. This had quite a bonus attached to it and Dad was interested. He went to the required physical and was found unfit for military service. He went back to the shop and started to put up his tools when the Sergeant asked what he thought he was doing. Dad told him what the Dr said and was told to stay around. That afternoon he got to visit with a General who informed him that though he did not pass a physical he was not going to be released from service in wartime.
He served for another 5-6 months before the end of the war. It is possible to change your circumstances. Dad had great trials in life and he was also blessed with seeing his greatest desires come about. His experiences mirrored some of the Old Testament prophets yet he remained a quiet humble man.
Dad worked in Tri-Cities Washington building houses for those who would work in the Nuclear plants. He had a good job with government wages and benefits. He was told one day, “Moulton, I have a big inspection tomorrow and I don’t have anything for you to do. Go somewhere and hide. Dad quit rather than work where they could not keep him busy. Dad was working in Alaska when his Brother Newell needed some money for his mission. It was al lot but Dad had that in the bank. He sent it to his Mother so these needs could be met.
His interest in Church activity grew stronger and he returned to Utah where he attended General Conference and visited with some of Newells missionary companions. They introduced him to a Sister they had served with who was about his age and he and Mom were married. Good things happen when you do the right things. It is fitting that the funeral is held in this building. This is one of the last buildings built in the area with volunteer labor. Dad spent a lot of time working here, as did Grant and I. I worked with him on many of the nearby chapels and find it difficult to walk down the halls of my In-laws building on Falcon drive without remembering which closet has the trap door to get underneath the building. At age 9 he would have me hang out next to him with the instructions to figure out what I am going to do next and have it ready for me. This was a real challenge as I had no idea what I would do next but I tried to learn from that. Dad taught me to be exact. When I was about 10 he took me out to the garden and knowing my tendency to see how little I could get by with instructed me to go down the rows of corn that he pointed out and to leave nothing bigger than a hair except the corn plants absolutely nothing. I was only 10- but I understood a stern lecture and did so. I came to the dozen cucumbers he had planted at the end of the row. I thought they belonged but followed his instructions exactly. When he came home that night he told me he could not get mad as I had done just what he had said. Then he taught me to question authority. If something seems too dumb to be right find out why. He asked me to bring him a few nails one time and I did. It must not have been enough as I was told “don’t you know a few is 8”? I told him it wasn’t as a few should be just the three or four I brought him.
He told me of a time when his father had said the same thing to him and Dad realized later he had been reading in the Book of Mormon where Nephi talks about the 8 witnesses to the book being a few. I learned to take the scriptures literally and apply them to my life. As a youth Dad enjoyed to dance. Delta had some great youth dance programs and he went often. He gave it up gladly when he married Mom as she had trouble with her legs due to an accident. Dad had a fair voice and sang in a lot of Church choirs because Mom loved to sing. I learned to give on a marriage and share experiences with your wife. Dad reminded me not to take myself too seriously. In his last years as he was affected by Alzheimer’s, he didn’t always recognize some people. We were having him checked by a nurse when she asked Dad if he knew who we were. He said that first one is my oldest son. She asked his name and he told her. Then she asked about me and Dad said “That’s his brother”. On another occasion we had been visiting about 30 minutes when he commented “you are the one from Montana aren’t you”. Yea Dad that’s me. When Dad raised his arm to the square to sustain someone, his arm was as square as the carpenter’s tool he used. It went straight out with his shoulder and his forearm was plumb with the sky. I had no doubts that he would sustain the person called to a position. He taught me to enjoy my family. Dad and Mom spent most of their evenings at home with their family. We played games, did projects and ate together. It was where they were happiest and could enjoy each others company. Bear testimony of the resurrection. John D Moulton
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