My Wise Old Grandmother - Russel Ray, 1962-1965

1962-1965
Eventually we moved to Brigham City, Utah, but I
don’t know exactly when or why. At first we lived
in an apartment behind the Food Town grocery
store. Mom continued to be mired in alcohol
abuse, which was the beginning of my troubled
youth. The lack of love and discipline will cause
almost any seven-year-old child to get into trouble.

I believe mom remarried in 1962, and we moved
to 301 Englewood Drive, right across from a city
park. My new dad was Harold Gary Jones, and
I got three new sisters and one new brother in the
deal. So we now had a family of nine.

Unfortunately, both my new dad and my mom
were mired in alcohol abuse—quite unusual for a
Mormon family—so we kids were left on our own
to find food, entertainment, love, and discipline
wherever we could. I don’t remember how much
trouble my brothers and sisters got into, but I think
I did enough for everyone.

I was regularly stealing food, candy, and toys from
the Food Town and the small toy store located
next to it. Food Town had about 20 cash registers,
but rarely were they all in use. They tended to
operate the ones near the customer service booth,
so I would enter at the far end of the store, grab
a paper bag from one of the registers, open it and
fold the top over so that it looked like I had stuff
in it. Then I would walk around the store and put
stuff in by grocery bag and when I had everything
I “needed” for the day, I’d leave the same way
I came in.

It was just a short walk from our first apartment
and Lakeview Elementary School (now Mountain
View Elementary School) to downtown Brigham
City, where I discovered the joys of stamp
collecting and movies. There was a stamp
collector’s store right next to the movie theater,
so I’d regularly skip school, check out the stamp
store and steal something, and then sneak in to the
movie theater through the back door.

Although I sold my stamp collection many years
ago, I kept one stamp because the date of
cancellation—June 11th 1868—was handwritten
so nicely on the stamp (see Figure 5). It’s rare to
find such nicely cancelled stamps, especially from
that time period.

I never did get caught for all my thefts at Food
Town or the stamp store, but when President
Jimmy Carter signed the Presdential Records Act
in 1978, I found out about the Freedom of
Information Act that had been passed in 1966.
Wanting to know just how bad I had been in Utah,
I went back in 1979 to go to a family reunion
(official reason) but unofficially to find out what I
could. While there, I presented a $1,000 check to
the owners of the Food Town, which had been
re-named Food King, and told them my story.
They declined the check, stating that they were not
the owners those many years ago. I told them to
take it, cash it, and if they did not want it, to
donate it to some worthwhile organization there in
Brigham City. It took six months or so before the
check was cashed. I trust the money did some
good; I will admit that it was a boost to my
conscience when the check was cashed. I also
presented a $1,000 check to the owners of the
stamp store, which they graciously accepted.

When I stopped by the Brigham City Police
Department and the State of Utah records division
to see what I could find, I found a lot, although it
took a few days. The Brigham City Police
Department had a history on me that ran 39 legal
pages of typing—one inch margins and single
lines—of everything that they knew or suspected
about me. After reading over it, I believe about
90% of it was correct and the other 10% was
attributed to me because it matched my modus
operandi, although it could have been copycats!

I do remember starting a lot of fires, one of which
burned down a large hay barn. I regularly broke
windows at the elementary school, one time
breaking every single window; and stole fruit from
the peach and raspberry orchards, sometimes
leaving destruction in my wake.

I was probably the Brigham City public school
system’s biggest truant in its history. I remember a
friend and I skipped school one day, started
walking down the Union Pacific railroad tracks,
and wound up in Ogden, 22 miles away. It was
late so we just decided to stay in Ogden for the
night. Of course, the first police car that saw two
young boys out at midnight stopped to have a chat
with us, and an hour later our parents were there in
Ogden picking us up.

Theft was an ongoing problem, of which I
remember two of the more notable ones:

A friend (nicknamed “Rotten”) and I wanted to
go see Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” but our
parents did not approve. So Rotten and I skipped
school the next day and snuck into the movie
theater downtown for the matinee. There was only
one other person, a woman, in the theater, and she
appeared to be asleep, with her purse on the chair
next to her. So we sat behind her and stole all her
money out of her purse while she was asleep, a
total of $33. That was way more than Rotten and I
had ever had, so we decided to share it with our
friends after school let out. By the time I got home,
the police were waiting for me. Seems our friends
had gone home and told them that Russel had
given them a whole dollar. Meanwhile, the lady
from the theater had reported her robbery to the
police, and it didn’t take them long to put two and
two together and get Russel.

My other notable memory was when one of my
friend’s family went on vacation. His dad had
some beautiful coins in their basement, bright and
shiny gold. I didn’t know that they were valuable
and historic coins, part of a coin collection. To me
they were simply coins, although the numbers on
them indicated that they were worth $1, $5, $10,
and $20. I broke in through a basement window
and took everything. Once again it didn’t take the
police long to visit mom and dad when store
owners were reporting a young boy spending gold
coins from the 1800s. The “fact sheet” that I got in
1978 indicated that the value of the coins that I
had stolen was $250,000.

In October 1965, I was placed in the Thomas D.
Dee Memorial Hospital in Ogden. I do not know
whether my parents put me there voluntarily or
whether the State of Utah took me away from
them and placed me there. Nonetheless, while I
was there, another patient by the name of Barbara
Hunt befriended me. She was 18 and from
Bakersfield, California. She’s the one who
introduced me to The Beatles, and took me to see
their films “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!”,
perhaps somewhat prophetic since I’ve been a
Beatles fan ever since and 28 years later found
myself living in California.

Barbara also asked me if I would like to write
to anyone. The only person I could remember
was a Mary Agnes Kirk in Kingsville, Texas, so
Barbara helped me write a letter to her. We put it
in an envelope addressed simply to Mary Agnes
Kirk, Kingsville, Texas. By Christmas 1965, I was
living in Texas with my wise old grandmother.

At various times I have tried to locate Barbara or
her family but have had no luck yet. I would like to
tell her, or her family, thanks. Perhaps someone
will see this paragraph here and let me know about
Barbara and her family.