Roskelley- Martin Roskelley (grandpa's dad)

Martin Roskelley Life Sketch

These memories are presented by Martin Roskelley’s youngest son, Sidney Roskelley.

It is a great loss that my parents’ life histories were not recorded while they were still alive.

At this writing it has been 27 years since Father passed away. I am not aware of any attempt having been made by a family member to record some memories of his good life.

So please accept these thoughts as a beginning effort to remember him to his posterity. It is my hope that others will add their recollections of Father to these few words, that we may preserve his memory for the coming generations.

Father was born in Smithfield, Utah on the 21st of July, 1895, to Samuel Roskelley and Mary Jane Rigby Roskelley. Samuel had a total of six wives, who produced a family of fifteen sons and fifteen daughters. Dad was the youngest, being a twin with his sister Margaret.

His education included only 8 years of schooling. This was the accepted amount of formal education for the majority of the young men of the era. Most families expected their sons to start supporting themselves after an eighth grade education, as well as to start helping support the rest of their parent’s family.

During those early years of Dad’s life his father was very involved as a church leader, which took him away from the home a great deal of the time? Dad worked long hours on the family farm with the other 14 boys of the family, often without the presence of his father. Each Monday morning Samuel would leave a list of duties to be done during the week, and then would be off to the Logan Temple to serve as the recorder at the Logan temple. He would return to his home each Friday evening and receive a report on the week’s activities.

Dad married Lila Hancey when he was 21 years of age, on the 25th of April, 1917, in the Logan Temple. This was just as WW1 was coming to a close. Mother had several young men who were keeping her company. She later would say that Dad was the best salesman of the group, so she bought into the Roskelley line. They lived with Dad’s mother, my dear grandmother Mary Jane Rigby Roskelley, for a short time. I well remember grandmother’s home, located on South Main St. in Smithfield, Utah. Mother was only 17 years of age when they were married, and I am sure that there was some adjusting to do on everyone’s part. But mother spoke kindly of that time in her life when she was in such a close association with grandmother Roskelley.

Grandmother owned the southwest corner of the block on main and Center Street. The corner lot was occupied by an old home that Samuel Roskelley had built for some of his wives. This home was unoccupied during the years of my earliest life. Later it was torn down, and a grocery store was built in its place. This change in the makeup of the corner occurred around 1939. The two building lots west of the old home and future grocery store were owned by grandmother and were given or sold to Dad and his brother Henry. Our home was located just west of the grocery store, with Uncle Henry being our neighbor. Grandmother’s house was south of the store on Main Street, and her lot touched ours in the back yard.

Father had a lifetime of employment that showed his leadership qualities and managerial talents. At the age of 21, he was appointed as the manager of a lumber company in Smithfield. The company was a branch of a large and growing chain of lumber yards located in Utah called Anderson Lumber. Even though Dad was very young he did an outstanding job as manager. He also served as the manager of the Smithfield train station, which was a local stop for the railroad that ran from Ogden or Salt Lake through Cache Valley and farther north. I don’t recall the chronological order of the two positions, but we always heard that he was respected for his performance in both jobs.

He was an excellent athlete. He was above average in size, with a great deal of strength in his hands and arms, and had great coordination. His major past-time in his youth was playing the position of catcher on the Smithfield Blue Sox Baseball team. In those years the team was a semi-professional baseball team. They brought players to Smithfield from across the nation for the playing season. I recall a player by the name of Loe Fonseka staying at our home for the summer. He was from Chicago, and had been a major league player in his younger years.

Dad could throw the baseball from the catcher’s position to second base like a bullet, while still maintaining the catchers squatting stance. It was a rare runner who dared to steal second base with Martin Roskelley behind home plate.

On one occasion, the game was in the late innings, and the score was tied. There was a runner on first base and Dad was at bat. The coach signaled Dad to sacrifice bunt to advance the runner to second base to be in scoring position. Dad had the perfect pitch thrown to him and he couldn’t resist. He hit the ball out of the park to win the game, but was fined for not following the coach’s directions.

Dad and his brother-in-law, Elmer Kingsford, went into business together and opened a general dry goods and clothing store located on 1st North and Main Street in Smithfield. They were both very young and lacking in experience in the clothing business, but they gave a good run at making a success of their enterprise for some time. As Logan was truly the center of the retail market for Cache Valley, they were forced to close their store and find new sources of employment during the middle of the 1920’s.


Mother and father soon had a bustling house of small children. Faye was born on the 15th of January, 1918. Jeanne was born on the 12th of June, 1921, and Wendell entered the family on the 21st of June, 1923. I believe that father believed he had all the children he needed and several years passed before mother brought another son into the world. David was born on the 28th of December, 1929, but lived just a short time and passed away on the 7th of March, 1930.

With the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing depression that griped the nation until World War Two began in 1941, America was going through its greatest economic crises in modern history. This was a period of mass unemployment and poverty in the nation. Hugh numbers of people lost all they had worked for through their lives. Some states had very large out migration of their populations, as families were forced to leave their family farms which were lost to the banks. These folks traveled nationwide looking for work.

Dad was very fortunate to have obtained a good job as a traveling salesman for the Wolverine Shoe Company. His territory included the Rocky Mountain States. He and the whole family had to feel the burden of the depression that was everywhere present. I am sure that the last thing he was looking for was more children to take care of in these trying times.

But, much to his surprise along came the next generation of children. Maurice entered the picture on May 14th, 1931, and I was born just eighteen months later, on November 10, 1932.

The home that was built by my parents was always a source of pride for the family. It was a showplace in the town for many years. Dad had a knack for having things nicely done, and the back yard was turned into a beautiful rock garden. The garden included three rather large fish ponds, filled with trout sized goldfish. The ponds were surrounded with walking areas of flat stones. A waterfall constructed of stone emptied into one of the ponds on the east side of the garden. A large open area was located in the center of the garden, with a massive stone fireplace located in the rear. A wishing well was in the center of the garden. There were raised flower beds located throughout. Dad had a man from Logan labor full time for 2 summers on the backyard garden project. The garden continued its development through my pre-teen years until its completion in the late 1930s

Dad’s employer made work shoes of the highest quality from horse hide, which was considered to be far superior to cowhide. Dad was a traveling salesman for the company for the states of Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, and New Mexico. He worked for the company for 21 years, stopping in every little town that had a store that sold shoes. He would be gone from home for long periods of time, often as long as three weeks. Then he would be home for just a few days before he was off again in a different direction. As was his style, he planned on being the leading salesman in the company for the nation. His winning personality and hard working approach to all that he did made him the envy of all salesmen in the company. This success soon allowed him to have an income that was well above the vast majority of the breadwinners in America throughout those 21 years.

Dad would drive over a 100,000 miles a year. This required that he buy a new car every year, because that was about as far as one could safely drive a car without major breakdowns. During those years, the new model cars were available for purchase on the 2nd of January. For 21 years dad bought a new Buick the first week of each year.

There were only a handful of men in Smithfield who were dressed in white dress shirts on a daily basis. There was the owner of the town bank, the physician, the dentist, and dad. The only time we would ever see him in anything but a dress shirt, tie and coat was when he was going to play golf in Logan. Then he would return and within minutes he was back in the dress clothes.

Dad was one of the very first to join the Logan Country Club. I believe he was a member when it was only a 3 hole course, while the next 6 holes were being finished. Being a very good athlete, he was an excellent golfer.

Dad loved beauty, and all that he did radiated his esthetic taste. Our home, both inside and out, was finished in good taste. Because of this love of beauty, he started taking pictures at an early age, and throughout my life photography played an important role. For many years he took massive amounts of motion pictures of all the beautiful areas that he traveled through. Logan Canyon was one of his favorites. Many hours of viewing were available to all those guests who came to our home and were willing to sit in our basement family room in Smithfield to be entertained. These years of the 30’s and early 40’s were years when visiting and hospitality were very much in fashion. They were the pre-television, poor economy years, when things like friendships and long hours of visiting together were cherished. When Dad was home there seemed to be a steady stream of visitors in our home. It was part of our life to expect their friends to be in our home eating mother’s fruit cake, or chocolate cake baked by my older sisters, and drinking iced drinks. Often they would be sitting in the lawn chairs in our garden, enjoying treats with the family as they sat under the large garden umbrellas.

We children were always being reminded by father of the beauties of the earth and how indebted we were to God for such blessings. I couldn’t number the times he had us join with him in watching the sunset, and hearing him express, with excitement in his voice, the joy such beauty brought to his soul.

During World War Two gasoline was rationed nationwide. A truck could get a larger amount of fuel per year than an automobile, so father had the trunk lid removed from his Roadmaster Buick, and had a wooden box constructed in its place. This allowed the Buick to qualify as a truck, with some stretch of imagination, and allowed Dad to cover his large territory. To save on rubber, the speed limit was reduced to 35 mph. This made his interstate travels very long indeed, but, as was always the case, we never heard a word of complaint from him.

As World War Two was ending in 1945, Wendell, the oldest son, was coming home from serving as an officer in the Navy. Dad decided to invest his life savings in a new and rather large department store in Logan. We were still living in Smithfield. Faye and Jeanne were both married by then, Maurice was about to start his senior year at North Cache High School, where the older three children had also attended. I was about to start my sophomore year in high school.

Dad had sold shoes to a man named Tingwall in Idaho for many years. Mr. Tingwall owned 3 stores in small towns in Idaho and wanted to expand into Utah. The two of them joined forces to start the store. Dad had a 50% interest in the store, and he retired from the shoe salesmen job and became the manager of the new store, named after Mr. Tingwall. Wendell moved into Dad’s job with Wolverine Shoes, and did well, later becoming the western states sales manager.

The store was located on 91 North Main, across from the Logan Tabernacle, and was equal in size and second in sales to the J. C. Penny’s Store that was the center of commerce for Logan, which was in the center of the same block. Tingwalls had a large men’s dept. on the main floor on the north half of the store, with men’s and women’s shoes in the rear of that main floor. The south front was filled with sewing fabric. The store had a mezzanine over the rear third of the building which contained the women’s ready-to-wear. The front half of the basement was used for merchandise storage. Stairs lead down to the basement from an area in the center of the main floor just in front of the shoe dept. and opened into a large and beautiful gift dept. in the rear of the basement. The gift department was loaded with dishes and glassware items for wedding and holiday occasions.

We soon sold the Smithfield home and moved to Logan. This was in the spring of 1947. The folks bought a home on “the hill” at 1465 East 7th North. Maurice and I started attending Logan High, and Dad settled into the Logan business community, becoming an active member of the business community. Memberships in the Rotary Club, Knife and Fork Club, and the Chamber of Commerce brought Dad much enjoyment and fellowship.

We were just settling in to our new life when Nov. 9, 1947 came upon us. The night of the 8th was a bad night for the Logan City Electric Department. They were unable to supply a constant supply of electricity to the downtown area throughout the night. The current flow would drop to a brown out condition for a few minutes, and then return to normal a few seconds, only to repeat the cycle. The store had very large fans suspended from the ceiling that were positioned to blow the heat from the basement furnace through the store. As the electricity would brown out the electric motors in the fans started overheating. One of the engines finally burst into flames, burning it free from its support on the ceiling, and fell to the floor on the main floor. It burned through the main floor into the basement, and the Tingwalls Store was on its way to being destroyed.

Dad received a call about 2:00 A.M. to tell him that his life savings were going up in one of the largest fires in the history of Logan. We arrived in front of the store in a matter of minutes. I recall a fireman braking through one of the glass front doors with an axe, and inserting a fire hose through the opening. I vividly recall hearing the costly Stetson Hats being blown off their shelves as the hose propelled its stream of water from the front of the store toward the back. The sound of those hats being blasted with that mindless stream of water is with me to this day. It was a pop, pop, popping sound that turned my heart to stone. I knew the value of those wonderful, highest quality, hats and how proud father had been to be selling such a sought after brand.

The store burned throughout the next day. I recall seeing firemen and city employees carrying arms full of shoes and clothing out of the back door throughout much of the day, as property that was not destroyed by the fire was being looted.

I know that that November day must have been one of the most difficult day in Father’s life. He said to the local paper that he didn’t know what shock was until that day.
Yet I never heard him complain of the loss of his life savings and the store that was his pride and joy.

One of the great tragedies was that the inventory in the store was at an all time high. All floors, including the basement storage area, were stuffed with merchandise, ready for the Christmas season, which of course was the biggest sales period of the year. The insurance coverage fell far short of the cost of the inventory, and much of the inventory investment was a total loss.

Through Dad’s whole life, his common expression was, “I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.” He was a great person to look forward with enthusiasm to life’s next opportunity and not to morn over the past.

Within days there was a little office opened on Main Street, on the east side of the road on 130 So. Main. Here Dad and his loyal accountant and employee, LaMoine Maughan, plotted out the next move.

Dad went to some of his old friends, at least one of whom was his golf partner and insurance salesman, and had them invest as stock holders in a new store. Dad had a buyback clause in the stock shares and later repurchased all outside ownership. The store opened at 11 North Main a few months after the great fire and was named Roskelleys Inc.. It was about 10% the size of Tingwalls, and carried piece goods, lingerie, and a baby clothes dept. Soon the baby dept. was changed to ladies clothes and shoes. Dad was able to get the hottest brands in the nation. Every high school girl wanted to wear Janzen Sweaters and Joyce shoes, and those items were often sold out before the delivery day ended.

In the years that followed the store was doubled in size and Roskelley’s Inc. became a center of success and a major player in the down town business world.

I still vividly remember that in those earliest days of the new store, when Dad must have been much stressed financially, how he paid, without comment, the tuition for both Maurice and me to attend Northwestern Medical and Dental Schools. Here again, we see a man of extraordinary goodness. These acts remind me of the fact that through those years I would often hear stories of widows in Smithfield receiving their yearly supply of coal delivered by the local coalman with the bill prepaid. Through the depression years, and after, the paid for coal guaranteed that these folks would have warm homes for the winter. Most never knew that it was Dad who paid those bills, year after year.

Dad loved people and was one of the most enthusiastic individuals the world has seen. He enjoyed being by the front door of the store to greet customers as they entered. There was always a big smile for all and a strong handshake for the men. He loved the items that he had available to sell and was a terrific salesperson. His whole life was in sales, and it fit his personality perfectly. He had a devoted sales force of ladies that worked in the store for most of their lives. Dad treated them as family, and there was a great feeling of fellowship among all of them.

The store required that he make at least one trip back East each year. Sometimes more trips were taken, early on to Chicago, and in the later years to New York City. While there he would include a visit to a major league baseball game and a Broadway show or two. His son-in-law, Boyd Sorenson, managed, and was later owner of, a department store in Montpelier, Idaho. Boyd made several trips with Dad to New York City. After eleven years of working for Wolverine Shoes, Wendell left the company and came to work with Dad. He gradually received stock in the store, and following Father’s death, received full ownership. During those years together the two made many buying trips as traveling companions and became very close to each other.

Father continued to work at the store until his death at 81 years of age.

As a salesman on the road most weekends, Dad was never called to any church position that I am aware of. My impression was that the church leaders in the town of Smithfield
all understood his situation; which required him to be away from home a great majority of time to support his family. But when his Logan years began, he and mother became regular attenders at Sunday Services. In his mid 50’s he became a regular temple attender, and was called to be an officiator at the temple when he was 62 years of age. He served at the temple until his death. During most of those 19 years he first served as an ordinance officiator, and was called to be a sealer toward the end of his life. It has been 27 years at this writing since father died, and I still have people comment to me concerning the outstanding way he served in the temple. He developed a large group of admirers through his work there and those individuals will never forget his quality service.

The family members always will remember how Dad loved to have huge fires burning in the fireplace when he was home in the winter evenings. The home always seemed inviting and comfortable with those blazing fires. This was especially the scene when Christmas Season was upon us. There were few homes in the state that could compare with ours when we lived in Smithfield. The ceilings in the living and dining rooms were rather high, and were checker boarded with cord string to support gleaming strands of colored stars that hung a full two feet from their attachments. Folks would come from around the valley to see our home during those days of celebration. When the furnace fans would blow, all the stars would have a gentle movement that brought magic to the home.

All the grandchildren remember the folk’s family room in Logan. During the winter months all who were a part of those years recall the blazing fires in the fireplace, bringing the room to 150 degrees. They recall the Sunday nights spent in that room, watching the Wonderful World of Disney and Bonanza on the TV as Dad stuffed yet more logs into the fireplace.

Dad was a lover of good music, and he was ahead of his time in the Logan home by having large sound speakers built into the walls of the family room. When he was home, sitting by the fire, the reel to reel tapes played beautiful stereo music on a regular basis.

Dad was a learned man. Though he had only those eight years of formal education, he had a great desire to keep learning all the days of his life, and was gifted with a keen mind. He was a master of geography, was well read in politics, and loved to study the scriptures. His memory was legendary among his associates. During his Wolverine years it was required of all salesmen that they memorize a lengthy sales book and repeat the complete book at the annual meeting, which was held each February in the state of Michigan. Dad was always the salesman who repeated the book with the fewest errors. Later in the temple he was well respected for his constant capacity to have perfect recall of the temple ordinances.

As the folks increased in age, mother was very much of a home lover. She had countless friends who called on the phone and came to see her, but she never returned their visits. This didn’t seem to matter to her friends. They just loved to come and be in her company. Dad did most of the shopping. In those days there were many specialty stores, meat shops- bakeries- etc.. Dad would make a regular stop at the meat shop for tenderloin steaks. He said that he would rather have a good steak once a week than cuts of poor meat several times a week. As it always turned out, they had the tenderloins several times a week in those later years.

Dad was always looking for new dresses to arrive at the store that mother might like. He would bring a half a dozen dresses home and have her try them on for her approval.

He often stopped by our house on his way home from the bakery with a dozen blueberry muffins or doughnuts. He would always stop to visit for a few minutes while acting as delivery man. Besides being the delivery man with the yummy treats, he also loved to indulge in them himself. If offered a dessert or treat he would shake his head and hold our a shaking hand and declare with a half hearted conviction, “No, no, I couldn’t.” Then with the free hand he would reach out anxiously to partake.

Our daughters, Cindy and Linda, remember the many times that he and mother picked them up when they were little girls and took them for a ride to buy ice cream cones. The best cones were in Richmond or Smithfield. So off the foursome would go in search of those treats. Mother loved soft ice cream, and I am sure the folks enjoyed the treats even more than the girls.

As Dad approached his last years, he and mother would stop by and pick up our son Rick and take him on similar rides. Rick was between two and four years of age during those trips, and all aboard enjoyed the excursions. Rick would stand between Dad and Mom in the front street, which was the common place for a child to be in a car in those days, and they would putt down the street at about five miles an hour.

Father loved his grandchildren, and at every opportunity would hold them in his arms so tightly that he would practically squeeze them to death and then would say, “Love you so much.”

The most common things that I would see father doing when I entered their home in those last years of his life were either reading the Book of Mormon or taking a nap on the couch. He loved doing both.

Faye and Maurice both lived in Salt Lake City with their families. Countless trips were taken over the years by the folks to buy jewelry for the store and spend the better part of the day visiting with the two families. The Salt Lake grandchildren played a major role in the enjoyment our parents’ life.

Many trips were taken to Montpelier, Idaho to visit Jeanne and Boyd, and the Sorensons were good to come to Logan often to spend time with the folks. The Sorenson’s children were often at my parent’s home, and they were much loved by them. Mother and dad’s home was a magnet for all their children and grandchildren. Everyone enjoyed being in their parent’s company.

At age eighty-one, in 1976, Dad fell while trying to pick up the morning newspaper on the front porch of their home. The paper contained the story of the Teton Damn breaking in Idaho and flooding a downstream community. We admitted him in the Logan Hospital, where he had a hip replacement. Once again, I never heard a word of expression about the misfortune, or complaint about pain.

While I was waiting with him to be admitted to the hospital, he displayed the same marvelous attitude that had caused thousands of his acquaintances and friends to love and admire him. He actually quoted some poetry to me while we were waiting for the doctor. I had no idea he had recorded those verses to memory until that day.

Infection set in following the surgery, which cost him his life within a few days of the surgery.

He died as he had lived; a good and noble man; a man of kindness and thoughtfulness.

He carried a strong testimony of the restored gospel throughout his life, and that knowledge played an instrumental role in molding his character.

He was a man of great energy, and he used the strength that had been given him to do the very best he could under any and all circumstances.

Father was a loving man. His greatest joy was when he was in the service of his fellow man.

Father was a gentleman of the highest order. He would walk a mile to avoid offending anyone in this world. He treated all people with the same level of courtesy; from the man in high position to the boy delivering the morning paper. He was always thoughtful of the feelings of others, and was famously known for his warmth and enthusiastic displays of love and concern for all in his world.

May we all strive to do as well.