Harry was born, grew up and attended school in Moab, Utah and went to about the sixth grade. His mother recalled a good story about Harry. They were living in Moab and he was going to school. Harry loved to play marbles and kept the knees worn out of his pants. His mother had to patch his pants over and over. He would stay at the school grounds and not come home until late in the day after playing marbles. She would spank him each time, but the next day he would do the same thing. She decided she would make him scrub the floor in the cabin every time he came late home from school. He just kept on playing marbles, then come home, take the wash tub off the side of the house and scrub the floor without being told to do it.

Harry started working away from home as a very young man, doing mostly farm work. With most of his first money he bought his mother a new set of dishes. When he was still a young teenager he worked with William Shafer at the rock quarry cutting out rock to be used for homes and rock walls. Mr. Shafer taught him how to cut and lay rock and he became a very good stone mason. He did a lot of rock work for his later life around Salt Lake City. Another of his jobs of rock work was on the Pack Creek Bridge near the old Peterson Ranch. That bridge stood for many years while many others went down with foods that came with a big rain storm. He also hauled freight for Thompson Springs to Moab and La Sal at different times.

Harry and Maud were married on the 24th of June 1906 in Moab by Bishop J. P. Larson. She is the daughter of Joseph Horace Johnson and Julia Hills Eagar who were early pioneers of Moab, Utah. Soon after their marriage, they moved to St. Anthony, Idaho, where Harry worked on a farm. Their first child, Leo, was born there on 2 March 1907. The people they worked for told Maud that she knew they were Mormons because she made gravy every day for part of their meal. The next year they moved back to Moab.

In 1914 Harry made the dobbies to build a house in Moab.

In 1915 came the big homestead boom at La Sal. Harry went and staked out his homestead and in the spring of 1916 he sold out in Moab and moved on to his homestead at La Sal. He later "proved up" on this land. The family lived in a small log cabin near his parents home in old La Sal while Harry build a two room shack on the homestead. The next year, 1917, Harry built a larger house of sawed logs – two large rooms downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs.

The winter of 1916 the family went back to Moab where the children could go to school.

When school was out in the spring of 1917 the family moved back on the place at La Sal. Harry and Leo grubbed out the sagebrush and the younger children piled it up to be burned. That year Harry planted wheat, potatoes and hay. Maud also had a garden. Harry let her have the ground in back of the house for the garden.

In 1918 the homesteaders built a school house on Harry's south forty acres. They fenced off about an acre of land and built a large one room building next to the road. Besides school, there were many dances held in the school house. Bill Stocks and his boys played their violins and really played good music. Kids were taught the steps by their parents.

In 1924 Harry rented the farm to the Stocks boys and the family moved to Kane Springs where Harry was working for Dave Black and the Utah State Highway Department grading the road from Moab to Thompson Springs. (He worked here until 1928.) He did some rock work on bridges and walls and culverts over Blue Hill. We lived or camped out in two large tents through the summer. When it was time for school to start in the Fall we moved into Moab so the children could go to school. Daddy didn't move the family back to La Sal to live again.

Harry's next job was as a salesman, first selling Heberlin products and pictures and then Maytag washing machines.
In 1929 he moved to Fruita, Colorado, staying there only about and year and then moved the family to Delta, Colorado. He worked selling Maytag washing machines until 1940. While in Delta, times were very hard. It was the Depression of the 30's and people had no money to buy with. Harry traded for farm pruducts for the downpayment on their washing machines. He in turn traded with merchants for the things they had that they couldn't raise. He took even animals. He either traded or sold for cash if he could.

They sold the Delta home in 1938 and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. In Utah they ran a self-help Laundry and sold washers. The self-help laundry didn't prove to be successful. The family then moved to Ephriam, Utah. I think they stayed there less than one year and then moved to Orem, Utah. While at Ephriam, Daddy had gone to Ely, Nevada, to work around the mines there.

In 1941, the folks bought a large home in Lehi, Utah. Harry soon went from Ely, Nevada, to Wendover, Utah to work for an arms plant firing a boiler. In Lehi, Maud planted a large garden and fruit trees. Ziriatia was married to her first husband, Charles Van Ronk, in this Lehi home.

They sold their Lehi home in 1947 and bought a few acres of land on North Redwood Road in Salt Lake City. They were soon building themselves another home. This house was built of the red brick. They lived in the basement while they built the upstairs.

The family had a reunion on the 25th of June in 1951 on their forty fifth wedding anniversary. All of their children and their families were there and we had a wonderful time for two days. The following October Maud suffered a stroke and lived only nine days. She passed away on the 17th of October, 1951. She was taken to Moab, the place of her birth, for the funeral and burial.

Harry had retired and Winnie was still at home. He was very lonely after Winnie married and moved to Idaho. Harry worked at odd jobs around Salt Lake City. Sometimes he would work summers working for the Forest Service building trails or stone fireplace stoves in the mountains. He also went back to doing his old trade of laying rock. He built some very beautiful rock fire places and planters and some rock walls in churches.

In the late 1950s, Harry got into the Uranium rush at Moab. He and Leo Staked out several claims in the La Sal Mountains. They built a large cabin on the claims. There was a spring of nice cold mountain water near the cabin. They built a road of sorts into the claims. When he was no longer able to work the claims, he traded them to Lynn Day for some property on the hill above where Lynn lives. His health began to fail and in the late 1960's he moved into a nursing home in Blanding, Utah. He wasn't very happy in the nursing home. Harry died there in the nursing home on 23 June 1975 at 89 years of age. He was buried in Moab beside Maud and his son Welby.

Daddy had served in two branch presidencies, once in La Sal and again while they lived in Delta, Colorado. For several years in his later life he wasn't very active in the church, but his beliefs never changed. I know he had a testimony of the gospel because I heard him bare it quite a few times. He was a stickler for the truth and condemned those who couldn't tell the truth. He always taught his children to do a good job of whatever they worked at.

Harry and Maud were the parents of eleven children, ten of whom were living at the time of his death (7 March 1982). They are:
Harry Leo born 2 March 1907, st. Anthony, Idaho
Jessie Agnes Helmericks, born 20 September 1908, Moab, Utah
Ziritia Maud Van Ronk Nelson Craig, born 29 April 1910, Moab, Utah
Horace Gleav Born 30 March 1912, Moab, Ut
Welby Herbert Day, 19 June 1914, Moab, Utah (died at age 13)
Wanda Ruby Mauchline, 24 June 1916, La Sal, Utah
Arba Fern Duncan, 15 November 1920, Moab, Utah
Dena Ann McNamee, 8 February 1924, Moab, Utah
Joye Bryan, 25 April 1926, Moab, Utah
Ethel Graeber, 31 October 1927, Moab, Utah
Winnie Mae Richards Foote, 19 May 1933, Delta, Colorado