Grandpa Moss

Maybe it is because we didn't get to see him very often, that I don't remember a whole lot about my paternal grandfather. I do, however, a few memories. I always remember that when we went to Utah, it was like entering into a different world for me. My grandparents lived in a small house in Bountiful. There was a ditch that ran through the yard which always seemed to be a source of curiosity for me. The house had a basement where my grandmother did the laundry. The basement was mostly unfinished and it had that basementy, concrete smell to it. My grandmother would hang the clothes out to dry but before doing that, she ran the clothes through one of those old hand-crank wringers that pulled the clothes through a pair of rollers, squeezing the water out of them. Grandpa was a dairyman. He delivered milk and other dairy products to houses. I remember that once in a while, he would take us for a ride in the back of his dairy truck which always had that dairy smell to it. When he wasn't working, it seems that I remember him sitting in his small living room, watching tv and drinking a beer. The beer was his undoing in that he eventually died from liver failure due to alcohol consumption.

It is a little strange to think that if he were alive today, he would be 104 years old. He was born in 1906. In that year, there were only 8,000 automobiles in the entire U.S. and only 144 miles of paved road. Only 8% of the population had a telephone and only 14% even had a bathtub in the house. A mere 30 people lived in Las Vegas! It is somewhat mind-boggling to think that my grandfather was born at such a time. It would be fun to talk to him today.
Delbert Moss 1906-1971