LIFE HISTORY OF JOHN OSCAR TREASE

The following is the life story of John Oscar Trease, as related by Ila LaVon Cowling Trease, his wife, and Pearl Ella Trease Davies, his daughter, to Mark Edward Davies, his grandson, during October-November 1987. This history follows rather closely the material on the tapes.

I have used the life history of Ila Cowling Trease only to clarify material on the tapes, rather than to add new material. This was done to avoid too much overlap between her life history and this one. As a result, there is quite a bit of material in that life history, and that of his daughter Pearl, which augments and amplifies some of the information here.

Early life in Ohio (1902-30) John Oscar Trease was born to Morgan Baird Trease and Ella Etta Gross on 7 May 1902, in Wadsworth, Medina County, Ohio. The home he was born in was located on what was at that time Route 224, in Wadsworth. At the age of two, his family moved two farms to the east, where he lived throughout his childhood, and in fact until he moved to California many years later, in 1949.

The Trease farm was a dairy farm, which meant that although they also grew grain and had some other livestock, a big share of the farm work revolved around the cows. As a child on a farm, John was required to work very hard. He would help with the milking both before and after school and would have to have coal in by the stove early in the morning. In the mornings he would also help wash clothes using the old hand-operated machine in the shed behind the house.

When he was eight years old, he had the responsibility of climbing up on the tongue of the wagon and throwing the harness over the horses. Around this time, he would go out with his father to help plow the fields. He also started raising chickens, and was able to save the money that he received from selling the eggs. With this money, at age eight, he was able to buy his first suit. From that time on, he bought all of his clothes. Around Thanksgiving time, he would take some of the chickens into town, about a mile from where they lived, to sell them for the people's Thanksgiving dinner.

John attended a small red, one room schoolhouse, where all of the grades would meet together. As with most children at that time, he would have to walk through the snow to arrive at school, as there were no school buses. At school, he was the one who was in charge of keeping the stove going. John was much more of a good, hard worker than he was a student, but he did excel in anything that had to do with math, and he had a real knack with numbers his whole life. He read well, but his writing, throughout his life, was always rather scratchy and hard to understand. John only went to school up through the eighth grade, which was all that was required back then. Farming, and not school, was his real joy in life.

When John wasn't at school, he would be busy working on the farm. The farm routine varied according to what season of the year it was. In the spring, they would plow the ground and get it ready for planting. As summer approached, they worked hard to keep the weeds down. Around the Fourth of July, they would start cutting the grain--the wheat and the oats. A month or so after that, the thrashing would begin. They were busy the whole year, except during parts of the winter, when they wouldn't be quite so busy. It was during this time that they'd repair the wagon, repair the harnesses, clean up and repair the barn, and the like.

In the little bit of spare time that he had, John often used it to go into town to watch movies, especially westerns. He never went to dances or went out on dates; in fact his first date was with Ila when he was out in California at the age of 28. He travelled very little as a young man, although he did take a trip up to Niagara Falls with two friends when he was about 25.

From the time John was a young man, and throughout his life, he was always quite good with his hands, and was handy around the house. When he had children, they would often ask him to fix their toys and such, and with a bit of wire and string it was done. And it was rare that his wife would request having something fixed that it wasn't done right away. Things began to be a bit more difficult with the electronic age. He was never able to fix these things as well as he could fix something with just a hammer and a saw.

John never mentioned much about his family life, but it was generally understood that the Trease family was a quiet family. John was very close to his mother, and was very good about helping her around the house. When scrubbing needed to be done, he wouldn't let her do it, but would have her wait until he got home, so that he could do it for her. When his mother died in 1926, it was very hard on him, and took him quite a while to get over it.

Christmases were pretty low-key around the Trease household. The children would often only get an orange, or something of the sort, for Christmas, with perhaps an occasional book. When John and Ila had their own children, they still had simple, homemade Christmases. One year John made a cabinet out of orange crates for the girls. The girls had dolls, and Ila would make new clothes for the dolls at night after the girls had gone to bed, so that she could redress the dolls the next Christmas.

Although the Treases didn't have very elaborate holidays, one holiday that they were very good about was Memorial (or Decoration) Day. The Treases were conscientious about remembering and respected those who had passed on, and even after John moved away from Ohio, he would send money back to Ohio to help with flowers for his parent's graves.

The Trease's were simple, but they did honor the memory of their dead. When John was younger, and his parents were still alive, they would often hitch up the horse and surrey and go to Trease family reunions down in Ashland county, away to the south. These continued even after John and Ila were married. Often the Treases would meet together in town on Memorial Day to watch the parade, and then would migrate towards the cemetery where John's parents were buried, and spend some time together there.

The Trease family appears to have been fairly religious, attending church most of the time. They were members of the Grace Reformed Church, although some of the children joined other denominations after they left home. Neither Clarence, Earl or Beryl, three of the Trease children, were much of churchgoers after they left home.

Although there are no signs that they were ever rich, it does appear that the Trease family was comfortable economically. Ila Trease mentions that when she went to live on the farm in 1930, it appeared that the family wasn't really in want in any way. Morgan, John's father, had had enough money to buy a Buick automobile, which was something that many, but not all, farmers had at that time. John's father appeared to be an economical man, and would put the car up on blocks during the winter, when it was difficult to use a car on the Ohio roads.

The Trease house was a typical farm house. Ila remembers that when she arrived back there, there was a large, oak table in the living room, as well as in the dining room. The table in the dining room had leaves that could be put in, to lengthen it out to where it could seat 16 to 20 people. In the living room, there was nice carpet, covered with rag rugs to protect it, and some rocking chairs. Over by the wall, by the stairs, there was an hard leather sofa. Against the wall by the front door, there was a battery operated radio. When the battery ran down, it had to be recharged so the radio would keep working. When John was older, about 24 to 27 years old, he would spend the winters, when there wasn't as much to do around the farm, working at the Seiberling Tire Works in nearby Barberton. During this time he continued to l*e on the farm with his father, helping with planting the crops and so on during the best part of the year.

A trip to California (1930) It was then in January of 1930 that John left Ohio and the farm to head out to California to be with a couple of his friends from Wadsworth who had come to California a short time earlier. His original plans were to go to Hawaii with these friends on a vacation.

He arrived in California on January 17 and within a week or two had a construction job, working on the huge Los Angeles Coliseum that was being built for the 1932 Olympics. His job was to help put in the foundation for the Coliseum.

It was on February 14 that his life changed forever. That night John attended a Valentines party and met a young 19 year old named Ila Cowling, who was living with her parents in Los Angeles. She worked at JJ Newberry, a department store, and she was a an outgoing girl who even knew how to play the saxophone. Although he really took notice of her, she wasn't too aware of him.

John didn't see Ila again until March 21. It seems that he was just too bashful to come to her house to see if he could start dating her. But soon things really started to speed up. He dated her for just under a month before he asked her to marry him in April 1930. Some of the things they enjoyed doing for dates were to go miniature golfing (which was the rage at that time), to go see movies, and to take long drives. Even though Ila was much more extroverted than John, and it was a bit awkward at first to have him so quiet, she soon found it quite calming to be with this quiet farmer from Ohio.

When John asked Ila to marry him, she was very excited. John was quiet, and very polite, and everything she had looked for in a husband. But the fact that Ila was a member of the Church and John was not was something of an obstacle. na remembers that at that time, the Church meant more to her than marriage. She was very active in the Church, and had been taught all her life by her parents, especially her mother, that she should be married in the temple. And even though John was such a good person, and had never smoked or drank, his not being a member was still a problem.

After John asked her to marry him, she told him to give her ten days alone, and then she would decide. She fasted and prayed for six days, and then received the clear impression that everything would work out, and that she should marry John.

John and Ila were married on June 22, 1930. One of John's friends who had come out to California from Ohio was married to a friend of John and Ila in the morning, and then John and Ila were married in the Manchester Ward in the afternoon. They were the first couple married in that chapel and the first that the new bishop, Joseph Davies, had married.

Ila's mother had gotten word that some of the other young people in the ward were going to pull a prank. Back at that time, it was a custom for the young men to kidnap the groom and the young women to kidnap the bride, after the marriage ceremony, and to drive them to separate beaches and leave them there. They would then have to find their way back together again. So Ila carried some money pinned to the inside of her wedding dress in case she had to get back together with John. To be extra safe, right after the wedding ceremony, Ila had her uncle handcuff her and John together, so they couldn't be separated. So in their wedding picture, although not clearly visible, there is a set of handcuffs they are wearing underneath the bouquet of flowers that na is holding.

Soon after their marriage, John started working at the Firestone rubber plant in Huntington Park, and Ila kept working in the office at JJ Newberry. They rented a small apartment on First Street in Inglewood, and settled down for life together. They continued going to movies quite often, taking long drives together, and visiting Ila's family in West Los Angeles.

John had come into contact with the Church soon after he started dating Ila. Ila's five year old brother Ralph had been hit by a car and died the day before Easter, 1930. John attended the funeral. From then on, he started attending Church with Ila, because he knew how much the Church meant to her. John never had any real problems fitting in with the Mormons. He told na that as he continued to learn about the Church before his baptism and after, it seemed that the things he heard were not new, and that he had heard them all before somewhere.

It was on Sunday, August 24th of 1930 that John was baptized. He had gotten word the day before that his father back in Ohio had had a serious stroke, and he had decided to go back to the farm with Ila, to see him. John hadn't been taught by any missionaries, but had attended church faithfully with Ila during the summer. He had been planning to be baptized soon, but once he saw that they would be leaving right away, he arranged with Bishop Davies to be baptized that Sunday, in the Manchester Ward. The next morning, he and Ila left for Ohio.

Some in the Manchester Ward thought that John and Ila should stop in Salt Lake on the way back to Ohio and be married in the temple, but Ila's father Walter Cowling stepped forward and said he thought they should wait until John had been a member for a while, which John and Ila agreed to.

When John asked Ila's father for permission to marry her, her father asked John how he was going to support himself. John replied that he was a farmer, and that's where his heart was. He continued to work at the Firestone plant in Huntington Park after he and na married, but didn't enjoy the work very much. He told Ila that some day he would like to go back to Ohio and take over the farm. But she wanted to keep him in California as long as she could. She was a city girl. When they got word soon after their marriage that John's father had suffered a major stroke, it was clear they would have to leave California at least for a while, and that John would stop working at the tire plant.

Back to Ohio (1930) John and Ila arrived back in Ohio on September 2, 1930. John's father Morgan held on for a month, and then passed away October 8. Soon after he died, John told Ila one day as they were driving to church in Akron that he had decided that he didn't want to go back to California. He wanted to stay there on the farm and try to make a go of it by himself. He told Ila that if he worked hard at it, he thought he'd be able to retire at fifty, and then they could spend a lot of time together. Ila, of course, was very surprised by all of this. She was a city girl, used to the basic comforts of life, and the Trease farm was at that time without even a bathroom or any electricity.

John was the only Trease boy who was interested in the farm, and so he and Ila agreed with John's brothers and sisters that he would buy out their share of the Trease farm, and pay them for their share with the profit on the crops for the next few years. The depression had hit the preceding fall, and so in February John was able to buy the 54 acre Trease farm, which was worth $17,000 the previous year, for only $9,000. He had saved well the money that he had earned working at the tire factories, and was able to put down $3500 on the farm. John continued to work very hard on the farm once it was just his and Ila's. They were planning to go out to Utah in August 1931 to be sealed in the Salt Lake Temple, and John rented some extra land from a Mr. Newcomer, who lived to the south, so that he could grow some extra crops to help pay for the trip. But Mr. Newcomer knew that John had married a Mormon, and the Mormons weren't very trusted at first in the community. So Mr. Newcomer had John pay him the rent in full before he left for Utah. And some of John's brothers and sisters made him pay to them his first installment on the farm loan before he left for Utah, for the same reason. Many in town were never quite able to understand why Johnny Trease had needed to go all the way out west to get himself a wife (and a Mormon one at that!) when there were so many nice girls in Wadsworth.

Raising a family in Wadsworth (1930-1949) The following information is not chronological, but rather gives some insights into what everyday life on the farm was like for John and na 1930-1949. By way of introduction, John and Ila had two daughters: Pearl, born May 28, 1933, and Jacquelyn, born August 16, 1937. Pearl was a more insides-type person, and liked to read a lot. Jacquelyn enjoyed outdoor activities more.

Back on the farms in Ohio, the neighbors would help each other at harvesting and threshing time. Everyone would come over to help one farmer, and then they'd go help another when it was his turn. Within a few months of John getting back to Ohio after marrying Ila, it was time to harvest, and John started the tradition of having a prayer offered over the dinner that all the farmers would eat when they came together to work. Since it was a new practice for most of them, John usually said the prayer.

Life on the farm was mainly work, but there were rare moments for play also. John loved playing horseshoes, and often during the summer he and Ila would play a game or two after the evening meal and before he had to go back out to do more chores. He wasn't much of a reader, though, and it was a rare occasion when he'd just sit down and read something to pass the time.

Since he had almost no time to spend with his girls during the week, John would often try to spend time with them on Sunday. The family would eat lunch in the kitchen at the church, and then they would either go visit relatives or go see a show in Akron. In the early years they even saw vaudeville, and then later on it was movies from Hollywood, or a 'big band' passing through town. Although he didn't like to have to go to the theater on Sunday, it was the only time he had free to do things like this with his family.

It was truly difficult for John to spend much time with his two girls, because of the demanding farm schedule. He would be out in the barn milking the cows and feeding the chickens when they left for school. He had to have the milk out in the large steel milk cans by the time the milkman came around to pick them up in the morning. For breakfast, he had the same thing every day--oatmeal. He had gotten quite sick about 193~, and had been put on a very bland diet. (Partly for that reason, there were very few desserts eaten in the house. Just one cake for Ila and the girls' birthdays, and a gingerbread on John's.)

At night John would eat dinner with Ila and the girls, which was usually a rather quiet experience. Dad didn't talk much at the dinner table. After dinner, he would go back out to work in the barn and work until late evening. In the morning he would lead the COW8 out to a pasture a quarter mile down the road. At night he would lead them back to the barn, sometimes with the help of the girls. During the winter, when there was a lot of snow on the ground, John would spend time in the barn repairing tools, or fixing things in the house. And there were always animals to feed and cows to milk, year round. There were times in the fall when Ila would pack a lunch for the girls and they would ride out on the tractor with their daddy all day long, as he cut the corn. Since he was good in arithmetic, he would help his children when he could with their math assignments from school. Although he was a very compassionate man, he was also rather old fashioned about certain things and didn't take any 'monkey business' from the girls. When he was stern, he was very stern. But even when he had to punish the girls, they knew that he was only doing it because he wanted them to be the best they could.

John spent most of his time on the farm with his family, and as a result he didn't really have any friends in town that he'd do things with. But whenever he went into town, lots of people would come up and say hi. Many people knew who he was, both because his family had been in Wadsworth so long, as well as the fact that he had married a Mormon, and that was news.

When the family took a trip, it was usually to Utah. The traveled from Ohio to Utah in about 1935/6, again in 1939, and once again in 1947, for the Utah centennial. Travelling was not fun. John would always have the family stay in the most inexpensive motel possible, and they never ate out along the way. For breakfast it was always Shredded Wheat and milk.

John and Ila were very active in the Church in Ohio. The nearest branch was in Akron,14 miles to the east. Even in the winter, when ice would freeze all over the car, John and na and children rarely missed their meetings. Most Sundays John would bring eggs from the farm and sell them to members of the branch. While in Ohio, one calling he had was that of Sunday School superintendent. John always found it difficult to speak in Church, even as far as saying prayers, and the most he felt he could do was bear his testimony once in a while in the Akron Branch. But he was alwaYs a solid member of the branch.

Covina, California (1949-50) John and Ila had agreed soon after they came back to the farm that when their girls were old enough to date, they would move away from Ohio and go somewhere where there were more LDS boys they could go out with. So in September,1949, when Pearl was sixteen and Jacquelyn was twelve, they sold most of what they had, and left the farm. John had surveyed most of the farm, and it was to be divided into lots for homes for the post World War II surge in new families. But before that began, he and his family were on their way to Southern California, where Ila had spent five years as a teenager and where John and Ila had met.

They settled in Covina, a few miles east of where they had been before. A few days after they arrived, Ila was checking the girls into school, and John had a bit of free time on his hands. So he wandered over to a place where they were packing oranges, and within a few minutes he had been hired to work there packing oranges, and then later in the winter, dates. When that ran out, towards spring, the owner of the packing plant came to John and asked him to take care of the city park, which was up on the corner. He worked at this job until a few months later, when the family moved up to Idaho. In his spare time, he liked to putter around the house and yard, and keep things looking nice.

Meridian, Idaho (1950-51) In the summer of 1950, John and Ila travelled up to Meridian, Idaho to visit some friends who had moved there from the Akron Branch. They kept telling John how good Idaho was for gardens and farming. John was unhappy in Southern California, because he missed the farm so much. So while on vacation in Meridian to visit friends, John surprised the family by buying a home, and within a few days everything was set up for their move in August. The property in Meridian had quite a farm feel to it. It had a small barn out in back, and John bought a cow and a milk pasteurizer, some chickens, and had a good-sized garden that really produced well. John was happy again. And in Church he was active as always, serving as the secretary in the Elders Quorum.

West Covina, California (1951-54) In Meridian, neither Ila nor Pearl were very happy. na preferred to be back in Southern California, where it had more of a city feel to it. And most importantly, Pearl had fallen in love with Tom Davies, the son of the bishop that had married them over 20 years before, who lived in El Monte. In August 1951, after just a year in Meridian, the Treases moved back down to Southern California.

They moved into a house on Walnut Haven Street in West Covina, near El Monte. There they lived for about two and a half years, until February 1954. For a short while, John had a job working at a nursery, pruning roses which were to be shipped out. In addition, John and Ila had a beautiful yard that John spent a lot of time working on. But no matter how much he worked on the garden, it never produced as well as in Ohio or Idaho. Besides these activities around the house outside, he spent a lot of time indoors with Ila. One activity they enjoyed doing together was canning, whether it was fruit, vegetables, or a side of beef.

It was strange for Ila to suddenly have John around the house with her so much, after having had him be so busy on the farm in Ohio. He was sometimes overly helpful, and wanted Ila to take a rest from what she was doing. Now that he was retired and didn't have a farm to take care of, there were lots of adjustments to be made. It was at this time that he became interested in TV, and he always enjoyed watching a good western.

The change to a more sedentary lifestyle was hard for him physically too, and he started having stomach problems and headaches. But he didn't believe much in doctors, and he just tried to adjust his diet to take care of these problems. While he continued active in the Church in Southern California, the Church wasn't the same for him as in the Akron branch back in Ohio, and that was hard for him too. This is the one place he lived where he didn't have any Church callings.

Turlock, California (1954-60) In February, 1954 John, Ila, and Jacquelyn packed their bags and moved again. On an earlier trip up the coast, they had passed through the city of Turlock, in North-Central California. John noticed that he could breathe much better there than in the smog of Southern California. In addition, they had some friends who lived nearby. They had bought a piece of property there previously, and had a home built on the site. A few months after they moved into their new home, their daughter Pearl come to live with them, right at the time she had her first baby. Her husband Tom was away serving in the Korean War.

While their house was being built, and even after, John kept himself busy helping in the Church. The Turlock ward was starting the construction of a new chapel, and John put in most of his days helping on that, often working into the night. It was known around the San Joaquin stake that he donated more hours than anyone else. Besides the time donated to the ward chapel, John also put in lots of time as the financial secretary of the ward. This was a good job for him, since he had always been good with numbers.

For a while after the chapel was finished, John worked out at a turkey farm which was run by the first counselor in the ward. Then one day John was working outside in his yard when a man came over from the dairy across the street and asked John if he wouldn't like to have a job feeding the cows. It was a job that required him to work in the early morning and in the evenings. Before he started working there, there were many calves who died, but very few died after he started the job of feeding them. Often he would go back to the dairy at night to check on a calf that had been sick during the day.

John was happier here than anywhere he lived after moving from Ohio. He worked at the job at the dairy until he and na moved to Utah in late 1960. Besides this, he had a very nice garden that produced well, and he even put in a crop of hay one year.

Springville, Utah (1960-67) In November 1960 John and na moved from Turlock to Utah. John had been considering the move for a while. He loved the mountains, he wanted a nice place to fish, and he felt that Utah would be a bit better for his gardening, which continued to be one of his major interests.

They spent three or four months renting a home on 6th North in Orem, while they were trying to find a place to build a home. John wanted to buy a farm out in Mapleton, to the south, but na didn't want to start into that again. na was unhappy in Utah and almost persuaded him to go back to Turlock. But after these few months of renting in Orem, they went out one day to Springville and when John took a drink of water, he said that it was the best water he had drank since Ohio, and he wanted to build here. They found a lot out on the eastern bench of Springville with a beautiful view of the southern Utah Valley, paid for it with cash, and had a house built on it.

As with everywhere else he lived, John spent a lot of time in his garden. He also fished quite a bit and would go with Ila and their neighbors the Metcalfs to many streams and lakes throughout north-central Utah. It was also at this time that he and Ila took up bowling. John also started into rock hunting, sometimes going as far as Evanston, Wyoming, and he did some beautiful rock polishing with what he found.

As always, he continued active in the Church. He put in a lot of time around the chapel. For a while, he was the secretary in the Elders quorum. Later, he was made a counselor in the High Priest quorum, with responsibility over temple work. As a result, he started making regular trips with others in the ward down to the Manti Temple, an hour and a half to the south. He also spent a lot of time just helping his neighbors and ward members with their needs and projects, such as helping one man put in a large greenhouse.

Since after 1962 their children and grandchildren lived in Southern California, rather than Utah, John and Ila would make periodic trips to visit them. He was very good with the grandchildren, and would take them for long walks. He would also help a lot around the house when he came to visit, and fix anything that had gotten broken since the last visit.

Since it was hard for him to speak in Church, he had to find other ways to express to others his testimony and dedication. For example, one Sunday he × ~me out of Church in Springville and noticed that the flowers needed to be weeded. Monday morning early he was out there weeding them, and no one in the ward ever found out who had done it. As far as religious observance at home, in Springville John and Ila started having family home evenings, and would spend time reading the scriptures together.

In 1962 John and na started in Senior Citizens. They were two of the original seven members in what is now a chapter with over seven hundred members. The Senior Citizens were given an old, dilapidated opera house as their meeting place, and John and the other men in the group put in many hours turning it into a nice place to meet. He taught a class in lapidary work there, and ran the projector for the movies every Wednesday night.

Life continued this way until July of 1967. John and Ila had considered moving down to a retirement community in Arizona, and were right on the verge of selling their home and buying one in Arizona. On July 5, John went to the welfare farm, and donated time doing what he liked best--working on a farm and helping in the Church. As he was on top of the hay wagon, the driver made a sharp turn, and John fell off, landing on his head. He was rushed to Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake for surgery. But within a few hours, he had passed away, leaving Ila a widow at the age of 67.

As Ila reflects back on the qualities that were so special in John, she notes that there were many characteristics that endeared him to her and to many others. He was a quiet man, very humble and unassuming. He was very kind and gentle to others, and slow to anger. He was very thrifty and preferred to 'take a nickel from one pocket and put it in another' than spend it. He was always willing to devote time to help others with their projects and help in the Church. He was very trustworthy--one of those men whose 'word was his bond'. And he loved the earth. His whole life, he struggled to keep in touch with farming. Farming had been at the center of his life since he was a young man growing up on an Ohio dairy farm, which is where he had spent the first two thirds of his life.

Just as his Trease ancestors who had come before him, who were all humble and sincere farmers and good God-fearing people, and who helped to create from the earth and in their homes something of value, this too was the legacy of John Oscar Trease.