The Washburn family had resided in Duchesne, Utah since 1909. They had moved from “River Bend” and now lived on a ranch they named “Rooks Nest,” a 160 acre homestead 3 miles east of Duchesne. Getting the boys to school from the ranch was difficult, so a small home was built and maintained in Duchesne in addition to the home at the ranch. In Luella’s words, “Rooks Nest was a very fertile place and could have made a wonderful home if we could have had man power to care for it properly. There was a huge barn where, in a productive season, many tons of hay would be stored.” Jesse was experiencing serious health problems (see footnote 1) and was unable to teach school. Living separately, part of the family stayed in town with Jesse and part with Luella at the ranch.
On April 2, 1913, Luella was informed that her father, Thomas Garlic Wakefield, had died while plowing in the field. This was unexpected and a terrible shock. Luella immediately took Barr, age 4, and Fred, age 2, and traveled to Price, Utah to be with her mother and family. She wanted to visit longer, but after a short visit felt compelled to return home. For in Luella’s words, “as had grown to be the custom, semi-annually, I was to have another child.” Hyrum Clyde was born May 26, 1913 in Duchesne.
Several additional years were spent in Duchesne. However, wanting better educational opportunities for the family, the Washburns moved to Provo, Utah, June 3, 1922. Once in Provo, Tom enrolled at Brigham Young Academy, Don and Barr went to Provo High School, and Fred, Clyde and Roland registered at the Franklin Grade School Nile was in Canada on a mission for the LDS Church [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormons]. For a year or so following the move, transportation to school was difficult. Each morning the children would be loaded into the Ford and distributed at the schools.
Little specific to young Clyde is written In Luella’s journal until the move to Provo when she recorded, “Clyde, from his high school days, had wanted to be a doctor.”[1] Following graduation from high school, he was to pursue a career in medicine.
Ione and Clyde first met in 1929, when Clyde was a student at Provo High School, and Ione a junior high school student. A friend of Ione, Anita Smoot, invited some of her junior high classmates and some Provo High School boys to a party at her home. This is where Ione first saw Clyde. In her words, “I was enamored with Clyde’s brooding good looks at the time, but didn’t see him again until Barr invited me to a dance at the BYU three or four years later. Barr was a wonderful dancer, and we went dancing two or three times after that. At one of the dances we traded dances with Clyde and his girlfriend. I found Barr’s younger brother to be a great dancer as well.” Shortly after that Clyde and Ione began dating.
Clyde had completed three years pre-med at Brigham Young University, finishing in June, 1934. That fall, Clyde enrolled in medical school at the University of Utah. Ione was attending nurses training at the L.D.S. School of Nursing in Salt Lake City. Completing his U of U class work, Clyde transferred to the Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, and graduated in June 1938. He and Ione continued to date as occasion allowed. Following graduation, Clyde began a two year internship at the L.D.S. Hospital in Salt Lake City, and he and Ione married a few months later on August 27, 1938.[2] Ione worked as a hostess on United Airlines until it was time to resign and await the birth of their first child. Judith was born October 26, 1939.[3] Following Judith’s birth, Ione worked as a registered nurse until Clyde finished his internship at the hospital.
In the summer of 1940, Clyde established a medical practice in Orem, Utah. The office and living quarters were on the second floor of a building owned by his brother, Verd. Verd’s automobile repair business occupied the lower floor. Clyde’s business was mostly obstetrics, general practice, and some surgery. Ione served as his office nurse, anesthetist, laundress, bookkeeper and receptionist. Ione reports that one of Clyde’s first patients was an elderly farmer and his wife. “Clyde gave the woman a complete and thorough physical exam; did about $200 worth of laboratory tests on her, and when he was through, the old farmer rolled a silver dollar across the desk and said, ‘Here you go Doc, I always like to see a young doctor get a good start!’”
Clyde did many home deliveries and Ione accompanied him as the anesthetist. If the call came in the middle of the night, and no baby sitter could be secured, Judy was wrapped in a blanket and put to sleep in the back seat of the car. As Ione describes, "Away we’d go out into the night to help another farm woman bring another baby into the world.”
In 1941, the depression was limiting the income Clyde could generate in Utah, so at the invitation of John B. James, Clyde’s roommate at Northwestern University, Clyde, Ione, and Judith, moved to El Monte, California to join Dr. James as a partner in his medical practice. (Dr. James recently disclosed to Ione, that he wanted Clyde as a partner, “not only because they had been friends in medical school, but because Clyde was an excellent diagnostician and a skillful surgeon.”)
In December 1941, Pearl Harbor was bombed and war with Japan was imminent. Clyde had a thriving medical practice in El Monte. Jill, their second daughter,[4] was born on November 11, 1942.
A month after Jill’s birth, Clyde joined the United States Air Force as a flight surgeon. He was stationed in Northern California for a few short months, then transferred to Florida. Feeling the loneliness, and expecting another child, Ione and the two girls moved to Provo to be close to family. Their first son, Michael[5], was born in Provo on October 2, 1943.
A few months following Michael’s birth, Clyde’s mother, Luella, helped Ione pack two-month-old Michael, year-old Jill, and four-year-old Judith in their 1942 Dodge. Ione remembers, “The car bulging with diapers, bottles, snowsuits, baby food, dolls, and play things, we drove from Provo to Florida in the middle of the winter. What would I have done without [Luella’s] help! She was truly a mother, a sister, and a friend to me in the best sense. I remember her with lots of love and gratitude for the remarkable woman she was.” Ione and the children joined Clyde in Florida in December 1943. The trip was a real adventure.
Clyde was eventually transferred to the China-India-Burma war theater where he served until the war ended in 1945. The war had left its mark on Clyde. He was never to be the same. He returned to California and his medical practice, and in 1948, Clyde and Ione divorced. Clyde remarried, and divorced again. He unfortunately continued to decline and died January 13, 1957.
Ione comments that Clyde was “brilliant” in his profession, someone “who saved lives and restored patients to health” and a person “devoted to the practice of medicine.” “He fathered three wonderful children, Judith, Jill and Michael.”
[1] Medical problems played a significant role in the Washburn family as they did in most pioneer families. Perhaps this contributed to Clyde’s interest in medicine. In 1902, Jesse developed what Luella referred to as a “perplexing” physical problem. He was not able to swallow food normally. Even when forced with liquids, the food would come back up. At times he got little nourishment. Since no one in the West was familiar with this medical problem, it was decided that he would go east for treatment. With the generous help of Huntington residents, money was raised and in June 1904, Jesse and Luella traveled to Battle Creek, Michigan for treatment at the Kellogg Company. The malady was diagnosed as spasmatic stricture of the esophagus with no known cure. It was suggested that an opening be made through the abdominal wall into the stomach through which Jesse could be fed. Jesse and Luella rejected this suggestion. They experimented with sun baths, sitz baths, exercise, and sundry “cures” for six long months. When Jesse returned to Huntington in December 1904, he was little better for all the expense and long separation. Jesse’s condition worsened, and in 1911, surgery was performed in Salt Lake City. Instead of operating on the inlet of his stomach, the surgeon made a new stomach outlet. In Luella’s judgment, “the doctors seemed not to know what they were doing.” Jesse became worse rather than better. As Luella describes in her history, “With Jesse’s condition now being so serious, some of the brethren of the priesthood quorum set a date of fasting and prayer for him. They met at our home in the evening and after being administered to [given a blessing to help him get better] he got up from his bed and was able to eat a good, hearty meal, one that satisfied his hunger for the first time in many months. Jesse was not cured, but was improved enough that by fall he was able to resume teaching school. Today this medical problem would be diagnosed as achalasia, a disorder of the esophagus. The medical dictionary suggests it may occur at any age, but usually begins between ages 20 and 40. The major symptom is difficulty swallowing. Regurgitation of food is common. The objective of treatment is to reduce the pressure which obstructs the lower end of the esophagus. It is treatable today without surgery using an instrument inserted through the mouth to dilate or open the esophagus. This treatment is 80% successful. Occasionally, surgery is required to cut muscular fibers in the lower esophagus.
[2] Ione Rich Washburn was born February 29, 1916, and has just celebrated her 78th birthday. Following her retirement from the Los Angeles County Schools, Ione purchased an old Victorian house in Long Beach and operated a bed and breakfast and growth center. She recently moved to 3323 Fairmont Avenue, La Crescenta, California 91214. Ione continues to be active with reasonably good health and has authored two unpublished books (one on her mother’s descendants and one based on interviews with “unusual” women). She also conducts a woman’s group for older women to help them recognize their potential. She is currently planning to return to school to complete a degree in psychology. She likes to read, writes poetry, and gardens. She is artistic and creative, and enjoys interior decorating. She loves to travel and has been to Europe and the Middle and Far East. She has tentatively planned a trip to Germany this year if school does not interfere. She is obviously a remarkable woman.
[3] Judith Posser de Andrade has just moved to 3816 Mayfield Avenue, La Crescenta, California 91214. Judith was married to Jose Posser de Andrade, and lived in Portugal until her divorce in 1978. She returned to school to complete her R.N. degree and presently is the Risk Management Coordinator at Kaiser Hospital in Los Angeles. She recently became a home owner “under her own power.” She has two sons in college: Alexander, age 23; and Peter, age 19.
[4] Jill attended a Junior College in Pasadena, California for two years, BYU for one year, and graduated from the University of California at Riverside with a degree in German. She then attended California State University at Los Angeles to pursue her teaching credentials. Realizing that to teach German she needed to speak it well, she enrolled in a program that would include time in Germany. It was while in Germany that she met Hooshang Ramhormozi, her future husband. Following a year at the University in Berlin, Jill and Hooshang married in England in August, 1966, and moved to Iran. They remained in Iran for 15 years, 7 years in Masjid-i-Sulaiman and 8 years in Ahwaz. Both cities are located in Southern Iran where Hooshang worked for an oil company and Jill taught English for the oil company personnel and for the University in Ahwaz. They have one son, Ramin, born in Masjid-i-Sulaiman. They remained in Iran until the revolution and Khomeini had been in power one year. Then, feeling things were uncertain and Jill feeling conspicuous as a tall, blue-eyed, Farsi-speaking American, the family traveled to the United States for a vacation and decided to remain, leaving everything they owned behind. Jill began teaching in a private school and Hooshang obtained employment with Bechtel Power Corporation. Jill now teaches junior high school in the public school system in Los Angeles. She has also coordinated the Impact Program, a government funded program that identifies and offers support and anti-drug education for drug users and kids at risk. She is currently returning to school to work on an M.F.C.C. They own a home in Glendale, California at 1535 Western Avenue, 91201. Rant is 23 years of age and recently graduated from California State University in Los Angeles.
[5] Michael C. Washburn lives at 834 South 31st Street in South Bend, Indiana, 46615. Michael is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Indiana in South Bend. He is the author of two books on transpersonal psychology. He and his wife Pamela (Pamela, whose maiden is Warren, was born September 4, 1944 in Texas) have three daughters: Kirsten, who graduated from Indiana University at Bloomington and works for IBM is married to Don Kish. Kirsten and Don have two children (Kayla and Dominique). Tracy, who completed her doctorate at Notre Dame in biology, is currently on a fellowship at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. Alison, who married Michael Hammer last summer, is in graduate school seeking a psychology degree in counseling.
