Don's Stories
A STORY ABOUT DAVE, HIS SON
Alyce Jo Evans Whitmer
Keith will be ‘ Dave’ in this story. Don is Alyce’s father-in-law.
Don and Conda built a cabin in Alpine but it burned down. Once while I was surveying the ashes I found an old horseshoe. The cabin had a cellar that they used to store snow in. They would use the snow in the summer to make ice cream with.
I had a friend, Janeen Stewart, who had a cabin in Alpine so I went to visit her before I even knew the Whitmers. I met Dave at the Mezona, a dance place that everybody went to. He used to write me pretend notes on his hand in class. They were at Arizona State. His parents had to leave Alpine because the altitude was making Conda sick. They had planned to move to Oregon but wound up stopping in Yuba City. They had a dairy farm there.
There is a funny story that was life changing for Dave. He decided to go hunting instead of register for college classes. So Conda found him and took him back to make him register for junior college. Then he got sick while he was at college. No one could figure out what was wrong with him until his dad, Don, said that his symptoms were the same as his brother’s when he came back from the war and had malaria. They don’t know how he contracted malaria, but he was in bed for a long time and wasn’t able to finish all his classes that semester.
Dave had an army deferment for the draft until he finished his bachelor’s degree at Arizona State University. Once he had his degree he was drafted and sent to Monterey as a clerk typist, but he was really just a glorified secretary. When Dave found out he wasn’t going to be sent overseas, he and Alyce decided to get married. They spent the first part of their marriage in Monterey, and so they called Monterey ‘The Honeymoon Place.’ Dave wrote an article called “Return to the Honeymoon Place” about this, which was published in the January 1991 Ensign. Dave was not able to serve a mission because of being drafted, but while they were Monterey, he and Alyce served as ward mission leaders. While in the service in Monterey, he learned the hard way that you should pay your tithing right away. One month, he left his tithing money in his footlocker, and it was stolen. After that, he always made sure to pay his tithing right away.
When I brought Dave home to meet my parents for the first time, I thought I was bringing someone they didn’t know. As it turned out, Aunt Mary was my Beehive teacher in Mutual and Uncle Alton was my 6th grade and junior high school teacher. I remember Uncle Alton being quiet and not very outgoing.
Dave and I visited Cecil and Stella in Mesa quite often. Stella was in some of my college classes.
Afton and Lenora were close to Don and Conda because Conda and Lenora were sisters although Lenora was never legally adopted. They spent a lot of time with them.
Lawrence and Evelyn lived in Las Vegas when Dave and I lived in Henderson. We visited quite a bit. Larry was drinking then.
Don Whitmer