A biography of John George Barnes, from a recording by his daughter, Mary Bechtol around 1985.
John George Barnes
The following is a narrative by his daughter, Mary Barnes Bechtol:
Daddy was born 100 years ago come this July 23rd. He was born in Kaysville, the oldest of eight children, two girls and six boys, three of the boys are surviving. The Barnes family in terms of his grandfather had come over and settled Kaysville and were very industrious far reaching people who could see the possibilities of various industries and became soon involved in purchasing land, in farming, in having stores, and in operating just about all the facilities there.
Now, Daddy was the oldest in the family and I'm not sure myself whether his father went on a mission to England while he was born or just right after he was born, but at that time it was very common for young men to go on missions even if they were married and even if they had a family and they left the responsibilities for the rest of the family to take care of.
Daddy, as a youth, was not well. He had what was known as rheumatic fever which resulted in a severe heart condition that greatly limited his physical activity and, although he loved sports and loved games, he was one who had to stand by and watch others. I know this was awfully hard on him because the family really was a rather sports minded group of people.
Daddy was, as a boy, very very blond; bright blond hair, very fair skinned, blue eyes, a light intense blue, kind of deep seated as Miriams's are, undoubtedly Miriam resembles him more than any of us. Now Mama tells about Daddy being such a blond when he went on his mission and when he returned he had dark hair and a swarthy skin as a result of the California weather. She said the physical change was just amazing. He always had very thick hair; even to the time of his death his hair was straight, but very very thick and beautiful.
Daddy in stature was about average size, about five foot nine and a half, and usually weighed around 150 pounds. A little broad shouldered, with shorter arms and legs; so he gave more of the impression of being maybe a heavier person, while actually he really wasn't. He was always meticulously dressed, he would wear dark suits, white shirts, ties, shoes that were always carefully polished, and I think took a good deal of pride in his appearance.
Now, when Daddy finished school in Kaysville, I don't believe they had a high school there at that time, because other members of his family came down to Salt Lake to go to high school and I think this was probably true with Daddy although I am not sure. They had West High here and most of them from Kaysville would come down to West High and then after finishing high school go to the university here. At that time, Mama's family lived on 1st West between 1st and 2nd North. They had a large house there and they would take in roomers. One of Daddy's cousins, by the name of Daily, had boarded there when he went to college and so he arranged for Daddy to go and live there and that was how Mama and Daddy met.
At the end of going to college for a year, Daddy was called on a mission. Incidentally, Mama was going to college at the same time and, of course, it was unusual for a girl to go to college then, but the Leavers were a family that was very much tuned into education. So Daddy then was called and went go on his mission. It was the California Mission, but he served mainly in San Bernadino. He just loved that part of the country, he loved the people, he loved the experiences he had as a missionary and when he returned from the mission, at this time Mama and Daddy became engaged. Mama, in the mean time had been working for her uncle, that would be Dr. Leaver Stauffer. She would work in the office, it was almost like an assistant nurse and enjoyed it very very much.
They were engaged, I guess for several years, before they were married. At that time, a person wasn't married until they I guess could really afford to be. They had the pictures of Mama and Daddy for the wedding, showing the beautiful wedding dress Mama had. The reception was held at the home of her sister and brother-in-law. They were married in the temple and had the reception there and she often told about the beautiful wedding presents they received; the cut glass, the silverware and things.
They went on a honeymoon to California, taking the train and then when they came back lived in what must have been like an apartment for some period of time. They bought the house here the year before Bonnie was born and at time this was a rather new kind of a subdivision, they were building the houses along here. The man who built the house, actually, had built this house for himself, so they considered this house was better built than some of the others in the neighborhood and they were very happy and lucky to get this house. At that time, I think you all know what the house looked like. It was quite different than it is now.
Now, going to Daddy, I think if one were to use one word to describe him, one would say friendly. He knew everybody, he liked everybody, and everybody adored him. He had friends everywhere. The trolley ran up and down the street here, there was a streetcar right in front of the house. At that time there were very few cars. Our aunt and uncle had an electric car, but there weren't very many cars. Daddy would take the trolley. The trolley would stop at the corner down there and you would know the minute Daddy got off the car. You could hear his voice speaking to everybody all the way up the street. And every little girl that he saw was Sarah and every boy was Jack and it didn't matter what their name was they were Sarah and Jack. They all loved him calling them all Sarah and Jack. He had a very special greeting for each one of them and each of the neighbors just loved him. He had a real ability of expressing himself verbally. He talked deeply and well. He had a beautiful voice; strong, good enunciation, but he could not write. His writing, Miriam, was even worse than ours. It was just terrible. He could put words down, but it was difficult to read them. Maybe we come by it honestly.
The Barnses basically are not, I would say, artistic people. They are not tuned into the arts. Now Daddy liked music, but the music he liked was bands. He liked seeing the bands, he loved marching music, he liked dancing music. He loved to dance. We had a phonograph in the corner there, one of these you would wind up and he had all of these dance pieces and he loved to dance. Now Mama had suffered from milk leg following the birth of Bonnie and she was not able to dance. So he would dance around the rooms here with Bonnie and me and I'm sure we were both the best dancers there were at our age because we had a lot of practice with our father. And when Miriam came along, he would take her, dance around the room every night to the tune "Oh You Beautiful Doll, You Great Big Beautiful Doll". He would sing along with it and his singing was terrible, but the music was there and Miriam just loved dancing with Daddy and this was when you were a year old maybe two years old.
Daddy was a very intelligent man, particularly in worldly ways. He knew everything that was going on in the world. You couldn't mention any country that he couldn't tell you exactly where it was, what went on there, everything about it; every state in the Union, every capitol, what was taking place. We took two newspapers, a morning and night one, and he read them cover to cover. As soon as we got a radio, he would listen to all the news on the radio. We took at that time about three weekly magazines and he would read each one of them and could just really digest them. He was interested in the economic situation, he was interested in politics, and he was the strongest Democrat there was in Salt Lake. Of course, all the Barenses were Democrats. He was active in the Democratic party, would often be chairman, going to many conventions. Mama's family was just as strong Republican. Neither one could in any way convert the other, so we were always very divided with Daddy being a Democrat and Mama a Republican.
Well, I was a Republican. I think Bonnie and I lined up with Mommy and we were Republicans. Until Daddy died, and at that point I became Democrat. Then I married Todd and became a Republican again. So I guess I kind of fluctuate.
And he liked politics. He liked to know what was going on in the country. He liked to know what was going on in the city. He knew the people individually. He would go and talk with them. He had opinions. He had issues. He had commitments and he would stand up for them.
Daddy was a born salesman, this was his work, this was his interest, this was the thing he could really succeed at. He took great pride in selling, in really knowing the commodity he was selling, having confidence in it and knowing the people. He was good at it, really really tops. People admired and respected him, especially and particularly his honesty. Now he worked with a Kaysville cannery, he was a salesman for them which at that time was to sell to wholesale grocers, which meant he would contact all the wholesale places, he would go to the stores and places around and offer them the Kaysville Layton milk that was also near the cannery.
I guess really the most important thing is his life was his wife, were his children. He was a husband and a father. I honestly never heard my mother and father say a cross word to each other. I never heard an argument. I never heard either of them ever raise their voice to the other. Daddy absolutely adored Mama. It was beneath him to in any way raise his voice or criticize her. She was just absolutely perfect as far as he was concerned.
Now Daddy did have a temper and he could let it out on other people, but it was never directed towards Mama. And he felt that his children were without out doubt the most perfect children that ever could be. And looking at the group that we have here today I can well understand, I think, possibly that was passed down to the grandchildren and great grandchildren. But he made us feel that we are special. And I know in our blessings it said you had the right to choose our parents and I thought boy, we sure knew what we were doing because we sure chose the very very best possible.
Daddy loved to be with the family, he loved to do things with us. We didn't have baby tenders very often, because the family was doing things together. Now Daddy's health was not good because of his rheumatic fever. He would come home and by evening he was worn out. He did not like to go out at night or be out late. So, the evenings were spent here at home. If we went to eat, we would go out and have lunch. We would go to matinee's, he loved to go to shows. But they were a matinee and then we would come home. This was more our way of living. He loved to go to sports events. He never missed any high school tournament games; basketball, football, or anything. And I always thought I was the luckiest girl in this whole city because some boys, their fathers would take them to games, but I was the only girl whose father would take her to the games. And I'd be as excited as I could be because my father was taking me to the championship games. This was just when I was a little little girl.
He instilled in us very very early that education was important, that we were to go to college, that we were to become trained in professions, that our role would be that of a wife and mother, but we had more to offer beyond that and that in no way should we be satisfied with less than we could achieve. The goals he set for us were high, I can remember so often his saying, "Yes you did good on that but you could have done better, you've got the ability. Don't settle for less than you are capable of." They used to give these tests in school and my goal was to one time make a perfect test and of course it was impossible. The raised them up so high that nobody could ever do it, but I didn't know that. But I just thought it was a good idea anyway, to sometime be perfect.
He used to love to help us with our school work. He would take us to the library (at that time the library was downtown) if we had special projects. He would take us there and help us choose books and come home with a stack of books like that. And then spend time going through the books to find the things that were most pertinent to the particular report that we were working on. He was right along with us on every aspect of our school work, just as interested in what we were doing as most mothers are.
Now, I would say Mama was very warm to the artistic things with us. She loved the painting, the music, and the writing of poetry; but Daddy was more into the math, looking up the facts, just doing well on all those things. So Bonnie and I were actually exposed, I guess, to just about everything.
I wanted to say that Daddy, I don't think, was as involved in the church as Mama would have liked him to have been. Now much of this again was because of his health. He'd go to night meeting, he'd do his church duty, but when it came to working out night after night, physically he could not do it. So he said, "The best thing is for me to stay home and take care of the children and Jenny, you go." So Mama was always involved in all of the church things and Daddy was free to be here and take care of the children.
I can remember once when they called Daddy and wanted him to be a seventy and Daddy said "What are you supposed to be able to do if you're a seventy, what are the requirements for being a seventy." They said a seventy is a minute man. You should be free at a minutes notice to go on a mission anywhere in the world. Daddy said "No way. No way am I physically able to leave my family and go on a mission, so I'm sorry, I cannot be a seventy." Do you remember that Bonnie. I remember so clearly him saying "I'll work as an elder, I'll do my best, but physically I could never go on a mission. I couldn't handle anything like that again." He recognized his limits and he lived with them and he did his best to not let them get in the way of the family.
Miriam, when you were little I think one of his joys was, after dinner, everybody was kind of busy and it would be time for you to go to bed and he'd take you in and lay you down in your crib and he'd lay in the bed by you. He'd reach over and take your hand and you'd both go to sleep and he'd have a nap holding your hand. This would go on each evening and then he'd get up a little bit later and say "That was a real nice nap I had but holding your hand each night while you went to sleep was just a very very special thing." There was no baby that was so loved and so adored as was Miriam. She had a mother and father and two sister who had just waited and waited for this dear gal to come.
Of course Daddy had wanted...I don't know whether he wanted a son or not. He love girls so much. I think he would have been proud of a son, but he sure never made anybody feel he was let down because you were a girl. Mama did get pregnant when I was eight years old, lost the baby, and it was a little boy and there was sadness at that time but still Daddy said "Well, Heavenly Father, for some reason, felt this is the was it would be."
Daddy had a love of people who needed help. He was always there to help a widow. When Mr. Romney, down the street, had a stroke and was just paralized for several years, just living in that home, there wasn't a single day went by that he didn't stop on the way from the bus stop coming home to go in. I don't think that Mr. Romney could talk then, he could hear and his eyes registered the appreciation of Daddy telling him everything that was happening in the world that day and what a beautiful world it was. And it was none of this coming in and feeling sorry for you. It's this is a real joy I have of coming and sharing with you all the beautiful things that are going on in the world today. They said that Mr. Romney's eyes just beamed. And when Daddy died, he let them know that he wished it could have been him and that Daddy could have lived.
When Daddy became ill, it was again his stomach trouble, and he had difficulty keeping food down. Moma would cook a dinner and Daddy would come home and he'd say "I'm sorry, I just can't eat" and would have a bowl of bread and milk and go to bed. And Mama would never say a word about the dinner she had cooked and that he had hardly eaten any of it. This went on for I guess close to a year, when he was operated on. At that time they thought he had an ulcer. At that time Uncle Keith found there was a milignancy and it had gone to the point where the entire stomach was involved. They removed part of the stomach. Keith said to me, "your dad's going to have about a year to live." I am sure he told Daddy that. I imagine Mama was told that. Mama and Daddy never discussed it with me. It was around Thanksgiving time. Then he had a good year, but about in January he developed a hernia and I can remember so well the night Bonnie and Mama had gone to Mutual and I was home studying and Daddy was here and of course Miriam was here and he told me, he said "I don't know. Today I noticed this big hernia." He said "I know it's the beginning of the cancer again coming back." It's the only time I ever saw my father cry. Then it just became progressively worse. Daddy went on working every day, he didn't let down one single bit. He was just as cheerful and happy to everyone.
A Friday morning came and Daddy said "I don't feel very well today but I've got a few calls I've got to make." So, he went to work, but he came home about noon that day and he said "I just don't feel up to it. I really sick." By the next morning he said "I just don't think I can get out of bed, I'm sick." It happened that Uncle Keith was having to go back to Washington D.C. I don't know whether grandpa was back there seriously ill visiting, or what it was, but it was an emergency that he had to go back. So he came down and said that it was the cancer causing the trouble and he said "You know his heart has always been so bad, his heart will not take much of it, but let him be out of the pain as much as possible." And he said "Here's all the medicine you'll need to kill the pain, here's the needle, this is the way we give it. Give it just as often as he feels pain. There is no point in suffering." I can remember I had never given anybody a shot in my life and here I was left with all this medicine. We gave it and Daddy never once complained about how the shots were given.
This was on a Saturday, and Sunday we were giving shots pretty often, Monday again, Tuesday he died. Now if you can think of a person going to work on Friday and the next Tuesday dying, that quick. You see at that point they didn't take them to the hospital and give them everything to sustain their life, they said "Your times come, we'll make it as easy as we can." But I've always been so grateful that Daddy didn't have to suffer on and on and on. His life was complete at that time and I know it was so much easier on Mama and Miriam and Bonnie and me, it not dragging on for months. Knowing him a live person and in just a matter of a few days it was over.
I might say one of the greatest joys of Daddy's life was he'd get up early in the morning (he was a farmer as a child) and he adored calling people, waking them up getting them out of bed. This was just wonderful. "It's 7:00, time to get up." He had read the paper, he enjoyed this hour all by himself, it was just heaven. If you weren't up by 7:05 he come in and say "It's time to get up, it's time to get up" until you were up.
He was without doubt the greates chauffeur that ever could be. When we got our car, at that time I was about thirteen, I think (Miriam was about a year). He would take us everywhere. I was going to the East High seminary and we'd load the car up with people, all the girls and fellows, and he'd take us up to seminary. We met a seven in the morning, it had to be before school began. He'd take us all up to seminary every morning. If we were going to a football game, he'd drive us all up to the football game and then pick us up when the game was over.
It was just wonderful the way he enjoyed being with his family and with his daughters and taking us places. I sincerely feel (I had just turned seventeen when Daddy died and Bonnie was twenty), I really think he would have had real difficulty accepting son-in-laws. I don't think anybody could have measured up to what he would want. I really don't. Do you Bonnie. I mean dating was a problem. It really was with Daddy. He just didn't see why you had to be out that late, why you had to go out that often. I mean that family should have been enough. It was just almost that feeling. I do think that he would have just loved to have his daughters wait to get married because he loved them so and wanted them home with him so much.
He always felt that Miriam was the most extra little bonus that came along and there was no father that ever had another little girl like that. And people would say "At your age, it's your daughter?" and boy was he proud. He felt Bonnie was the most talented young girl that ever could be. And with her beautiful hair, she had long hair that curled a lot like Susan's, it wasn't quite that thick but it had just about that much curl to it, and those blue eyes and thought she was just a dear.
So I felt when Daddy died and we started to think of the stone and the marker, the only appropriate thing was Daddy. That was it. It was wonderful. I feel personally most fortunate to have had the mother, the father, the sisters, brother-in-laws, nieces, nephews, and now the grand ones. It's been truly a wonderful, joyful family; a happy family; a family that has appreciated and loved each other, a family that gives support when it is needed, one that has all the attributes that one would ever hope or wish for. And when I think of Moma and Daddy, the others are up there now isn't glorious that they are having this day together. This is wonderful. They are with us. They are with us whenever we need them. And I think we give them a lot of pleasure. I think Mama and Daddy are just as thrilled today at seeing all of these beautiful little kids running around as we are. They are just as proud with each achievement they have made. This is them, still living here on this earth. I think we should all be truly proud of a heritage that is ours and the great things the future is going to hold for us.
Matt Lavender said the following:
Harry Morris, our neighbor, when he would speak to me of your dad, he said "I remember him because we all used to meet him at the streetcar and he'd always have his pockets full of candy. All of the children, just about the time he was coming home, and he would give the candy to the kids." Harry told me "You know he was just a mischievous as we were. I remember him going out there and putting pennies on the streetcar tracks to see if the streetcar mashes them." Harry said that he mashed his share of pennies. Harry said, "He was one of the best fellows we had, and I remember when he used to take Miriam for walks." Harry said that she sure had a good father.
