Wallace Henry Prigmore

Jerry shared this with me:

Life Sketch of Wallace Henry Prigmore

Wallace Henry Prigmore passed away peacefully on JULY 8, 2010. He was born to Charles Henry and Bertha Windross Prigmore, English immigrants; in Kaysville, Utah on December 17th 1922 in a small two story house across the street from the Deseret Mills granary where he was raised with two brothers and two sisters.

When he was a boy, Wally was the youngest of 5 children, and he appreciated the watching over that he received from his older siblings, and enjoyed their company.

He was active as a child, and used to tell the story of when he once jumped from a ledge with scissors in his hands and cut his abdomen. Others gathered around to console him about his wound and one of them offered him a drink of water. He was glad for their kindness, but he refused the water fearing that if he drank it he would leak.

As he got a little older he worked in the pea cannery in Kaysville and working long hours gained a reputation as a hard worker which he was all of his life.

He was active in sports, playing football in high school, and also had the lead in the Davis High School play, along with Esther Mitchell from Woods Cross whom he eventually married. There was some concern in the family many years later when they found some love letters from this time period, to someone named Nancy. Finally it was realized that Esther’s name in the play was Nancy and he had picked up on it as a pet name for her. He graduated in 1942.

World War II was on when he graduated from high school, and he joined the Marine Corp. He was sent to the South Pacific as an anti aircraft gunner for three years, and was stationed in the South Pacific in Hawaii, Australia, New Britain and in the Solomon Islands. His favorite spot was an Island in the Solomon’s called Woodlark, about 150 miles Northeast of New Guinea. He described it as a kind of paradise with palm trees, beautiful beaches and many colorful parrots in the treetops. He always talked like he would like to return there to visit some day. It was a considerable distance out of the way however and he never made it back.

During his tour of duty because he was a Mormon and did not drink or smoke he was nicknamed Brigham. The other men would tease him about having a drink with them but he always refused. At the end of the three years when the war was over and they were about to be discharged one of the men held out a drink and told him that surely after all they had been through together and to mark the end of the war he must now have a celebratory drink with them. With no intention of actually drinking it, he played along and reached for the drink. Showing a respect that Wally did not anticipate, the roughest character among them who had always been active in taunting him stood up and grabbed the drink out of his hand saying “You’ve come this far Wally, you’re not going to give in now!”

I loved as a child to hear his stories of the war, and I begged him every night to tell them to me before I went to bed. In the process he inspired in me a desire to visit the islands he saw, and when it came time for my generation to go to war I followed his footsteps in joining the Marine Corp. I’ve seen Hawaii and Australia, but I’m still working on that trip to Woodlark.

After the War, he married Esther Mitchell of Woods Cross, Utah in the Salt Lake Temple. For a time he attended the University of Utah, and also learned an electrical trade in which he worked for a time winding large electric diesel motors for train engines while working for General Electric in Salt Lake.

They lived in Salt Lake City and in Bountiful for several years then moved to Billings, Montana where they stayed for 48 years. While there he worked in the wholesale electronics business and later in real estate sales. On the side he also ran a nursery and landscaping business planting lawns and shrubbery; a business which kept both him and me busy during the summer months of my teenage years. I’m sure we must have planted half the lawns in Billings during that time.

When he wasn’t working, he was usually in a church meeting. The Church was growing in Billings, and Mom & Dad were in meetings so much that I was pretty sure Rella and I were orphans. They travelled the Mission, the District and the Stake often, and our family vacations were nearly always tied with an assigned Church visit somewhere or to attendance at General Conference in Salt Lake. He was a counselor in the West Central States Mission Presidency and spent nine years as a counselor in the Billings Montana Stake Presidency.

After Esther passed away in 1990, he did landscaping and maintenance work for the Church in Billings. When he got to the point that he could no longer work, he thought it was a rotten deal when he was forced to retire. I think given a choice he would have just worked every day until he died.

When he could no longer work, the family brought him to Utah where he has lived for the past 8 years. In recent years he has lived in Salt Lake with his daughter Rella and her husband Ken Roberts.

He has missed Esther ever since she died, and I am sure he is delighted to be with her again.