We ended on Main Street last time and this time I’m going to start with winter.

We almost always had a lot of snow in the winter. Coal was used for cooking and heat during the Great Depression. We had to keep coal in the coal bins of the houses and businesses. One of the coal yards was Ostlers. It was located up close to New Town.

During the winter, we would go sleigh riding on the little hill by the Methodist Church on Utah Avenue, and up on Cemetery Hill. There were few cars around and the road was closed for sleigh riding. We would build fires on the bottom of the hill to warm us up. We all wore long underwear and brown stockings in the winter.

We had such big snowstorms during the winter. Mr. Penovich, who had a plow on the front of a horse-drawn sleigh, kept the sidewalks cleared off for the children going to school.

In the spring, on our way to school we would roll down the long stockings as soon as we got out of sight of our house. When we got to school we would see other little girls with the same big wads of underwear and thick ankles of the hated brown stockings.

I loved springtime in Tooele. My mom would send me to the store sometimes early on a Saturday morning. There was an O.P. Skaggs grocery, Allen’s Cash store, as well as Swans market.

The air was fresh and smelled like lilacs as they bloomed all over town. The shopkeepers were out cleaning the windows and sidewalks for the day’s customers. I knew them and they knew who I was and they knew my family.

Vine Street had a railroad track that ran east and west down the middle of the street. The Tooele Valley Railroad took the workers to the smelter, which was located east of Tooele next to the Oquirrh Mountains.

The smelter was used to smelt the ore that was brought over the mountain in ore cars from the Bingham and Lark mines.

The smelter sustained many families in Tooele over the years. In addition to local area workers, there were workers from Greece, Italy, Ireland and Eastern Europe. The immigrants and their families obtained their citizenship and contributed greatly in making Tooele a wonderful community.

The immigrants’ children attended Tooele’s schools and were memorable athletes in basketball, football, baseball, wrestling and boxing. Our lives were woven together in friendship and as schoolmates.

Many of Tooele’s young men worked at the smelter from time to time to pay for college, or to help out their families.

Tooele was a clean city in spite of the soot from the coal-fired steam engine on the train and the coal-fired stoves all over town. I remember how fresh the air was on spring and summer days and the crisp cold days of winter. Tooele also had hazy days, when the farmers would burn off their fields.

Tooele was a busy, active small town, with not much auto traffic, but it had a downtown that could be walked to from anywhere in town. Kids walked to school then, they were not chauffeured.

Our teachers were dedicated to teaching us. We all went through school together from first grade to high school graduation. We were like a family. We were disciplined children with very few behavior problems. No graffiti anywhere on the walls or restrooms in the schools.

School is another story by itself, so that’s where I’ll pick up next time.

Dorothy Lawrence Iman graduated from Tooele High School in 1944. She currently resides in Ogden.

compiled by Abby Palmer