My Memories of Grandpa Fraser

I always enjoyed spending time with Grandpa.  He was so funny and teased us a lot.  I remember him sitting in his chair acting liking he wasn’t watching us walk by, then he would quickly reach out to catch and tickle us.  I loved playing catch and ice skating with him.  He could do spins, jumps, and fancy ice skating going forward and backward.  I remember watching him brush his teeth and admiring all of the foam on his mouth, and trying to do the same!  He taught me how to play double solitaire and I loved playing it with him, especially a great deal of the night on New Year’s Eve.  

We enjoyed trips in their RV to Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monument.  They also took us to see the canyons in southern Utah.  

He was very smart and wrote so beautifully with either hand.  He and Grandma spent many hours doing genealogy and organizing family group sheets.  He created a perfect system of indexing the family group sheets so you could find anyone.  I remember sitting by them while they worked at it, falling in love with genealogy.  When they became too old to continue, they passed the records and ancestors’ histories on to me.  I’m so grateful to them for instilling my love for family history.

Grandpa Fraser and me at my wedding reception.

My Interview With Grandpa Fraser

I interview my Grandpa Fraser many years ago.  I wish I had asked the questions then, that I want to know now!

He was born in American Fork, Utah on 1 July 1903 to John Alvin and Clara May King Fraser.

He attended schools in Garfield 1909-1917, West High School in Salt Lake City, and the University of Utah 1923, 1924, 1926, and 1927, where he participated in the professional fraternity of Alpha Chi Sigma.  His major was Analytical Chemistry.  He did not graduate.

He enjoyed fishing, hunting ducks and rabbits, golf, ice skating, baseball, and tennis.  Vane was a left handed tennis player.  His brother, George, liked to play with Vane because he was the only one who played left handed and gave George a challenge.  He was ambidextrous and had beautiful penmanship.  

His first work experience was working as a door to door salesman of fruits and vegetables.  Other jobs included helper in Utah Copper Assay Laboratory, then Assayer and Chemist in Utah Copper Assay Laboratory, and finally Chief Analytical Chemist in the Utah Copper Assay Laboratory.  

He met La Ree Norma Barratt in Garfield, Utah about 1926, and were married 28 October 1931 at the Salt Lake County Court House.

He enjoyed traveling to places of historical interest, and enjoyed books and movies with historical backgrounds.

Places where he had lived - Bingham, Utah; American Fork, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; Garfield, Utah; and Magna, Utah.

Lynn's Tribute to His Dad, Vane

About my Dad.  Although a quiet, reserved, private person outwardly; inwardly, during his life he had demonstrated more drive and determination to succeed than anyone that I have ever known.  

He was raised in the small Utah town of Garfield.  The town had one small school that contained grades one through nine.  Garfield was owned and maintained by Utah Copper Corporation, which later became Kennecott Copper.  

The nearest high school was West High in Salt Lake City, thirty miles east of Garfield.  Every school day he would walk to the Garfield train station at 5:30 am, then ride the rails to and from West High, returning home at 6:00 pm.  He did that for three years.  That was the easy part.  

After graduating from high school, he enrolled at the University of Utah.  For the next five years he did an even tougher routine.  He rode the same train to the city, then would catch the trolley cars to the university.  In the meantime, in order to finance his education, he worked for a Salt Lake baking company.  His job, which he did every day after his classes at the university, was to deliver bakery product to the people living in the avenues (north section) of Salt Lake.  His means of delivery was a horse drawn wagon.  Needless to say, he didn’t return to Garfield at 6:00 pm.  He wasn’t to see very many sunsets in his home town during those five years.  He was a proud member of the University of Utah class of 1927.

-Lynn Fraser

Vane and Lynn

Kennecott Copper

My dad, Lynn worked for Kennecott Copper, in the refinery, for 33 years.  His dad, Vane, also worked most of his life at Kennecott in the assay office.  My mom's dad worked in the smelter at Kennecott his adult life.  Almost anyone who lived in the area worked there.  

So, when the union workers went on strike every four years, it affected a lot of families.  I remember, as a child, knowing how stressful this was in our family with my dad out of work.  He would do his best to find employment.  One winter, he and my Grandpa Barrus lived in a trailer and worked in Evanston, Wyoming.  

Fraser Clan

'Things That Are Impossible'

'Things That Are Impossible'

While visiting the Frasers, grandma was crocheting winter stocking caps (she made hundreds, I'm sure) and grandpa said to me "There are two things in this world that are impossible to do, playing the piano and crocheting/knitting.  How do you get music from a set of piano keys or something to wear from needles and yarn?"  

Not sure why I remember that, but I think I was impressed that he recognized what grandma did with her fingers meant something (to us all). 

Ambidextrous!

I loved being with my Grandpa Fraser.  I thought he was very funny and clever.  He made me laugh.  I know he was an intelligent man.  He was a chemist for Kennecott Copper in Magna.
He taught me how to play Solitaire.  Once I caught on, he would then play double Solitaire with me.  I can remember sitting on the floor in their front room on New Year's Eve playing double Solitaire with him.
But I think the very coolest thing about my Grandpa was that he was ambidextrous!  He had beautiful penmanship and could do it with either hand!  What a neat talent!

I found this sample of his handwriting in a book they gave me.