Understanding Dale Jewkes would be very hard without understanding the context in which he was raised. His dad, Gardner Lee died when Dale was 17, and subsequently, Dale finished a promising high school career, but never went to college or a mission. He went to live with his older sister Jennalee and her Husband Joe Butterfield in SLC, to help support the family.

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Dale was born March 23, 1923, in Orangeville, Emery County, Utah. His parents were Jennie Curtis Jewkes and Gardner Lee Jewkes.

They lived in a little 2 room home next door and around the corner from Great Grandpa and Grandma Melie’s. They shared a granary and some outbuildings on a lot Grandpa gave them, and in the summer the 4 boys slept in the room above the granary as the family grew. In the winter they all slept in the one bedroom upstairs in the house. Anne tells that when she was very young she was standing in the 2nd story granary window and somehow fell out. Dale and the boys below just happened to catch her before she hit the ground.

Along the way, nurtured by his grandfather, who was a master carpenter, he picked up carpentry skills. His first project was to make his mother an ironing board in 8th grade. He said that Mr. Cox sat on it and broke it in two and it broke his heart. He made the family’s 1st kitchen cabinets in the 11th-grade shop and installed them in the little 2 room Orangeville home. He made Jenalee a cedar chest in 12th grade. He and the brothers made Anne a playhouse in the backyard. Later he made each of his sons a pinewood footlocker and wood burned their name on it. He also made a wood chaise lounge for the patio in Midvale and built a beautiful Gazebo on Cottonwood Cove Lane.

“Oh What a Beautiful Morning!”

He had a prize cow he took all the way to SLC to show.

The August before his senior year, 1940, at the age of 42, his father died of complications arising from appendicitis. Lee was about to be released, after 10 days, from the Veterans hospital in SLC when a blood clot killed him. Dale was just 17, and the oldest boy left at home. The boys were hauling hay from the farm when Aunt Elva drove out to tell them the bad news. She was so choked up she could hardly tell them. It hit them all pretty hard as they were looking for their father to come home from the hospital the next day.

He received a draft notice in December of 1942. He then chose to enlist in the U.S. Air force to become a pilot.

He would have loved to use his scholarship to USU, according to Lucile, but felt that he wanted to marry the girl who had waited. Lucile was 18 now and he was 22. He married Lucile Thornton on May 14th, 1945, in the Salt Lake City Temple. They spent their honeymoon at the Temple Square Inn and then the Kay motel. They then went on a trip down to Orangeville and stayed with the relatives and visited those he missed from being in Europe. She wasn’t happy about that part of the honeymoon. As a young couple, he bought her everything she needed to make her work around the home easier. His compliment to her was that she was a “Ten Cow Wife” and he would pull her to his lap and kiss her on the cheek and pinch her. She would get embarrassed and protest.

After one game a Utah fan, who had smuggled something to drink into the stadium, threw a cash register off the top of the stadium. Several BYU fans accosted the Utah fan and there was a pile-up. Dale was dressed in a long raincoat and had his umbrella. He jumped smack on the top of the pile and was bludgeoning the guy with his umbrella. Wade (his son) had to pull him off and hurry him out of there.

Dale’s lifelong dream was to serve a mission and he did. He died Dec. 28th 1992, in Urdaneta, Philippines, of a massive heart attack, playing Tennis at the local club trying to make influential friends for the church. The last entry in his Philippines mission journal was Dec. 24th 1992. His family was shocked and Wade always thought that his Dad would outlive him. But we all eventually came to accept his death saying: “Dad died doing the two things he loved most: Teaching the gospel and playing tennis.”