| Show THE UTAH NEWSPAPER HALL OF FAME Born in Spanish Fork on April 24 1889 he was the sixth child of James Warner farmer who augmented his income by working asblacksmith andrailroad section foreman His mother Dorcas died in 1896 after deliveringson Ezra He was one of 11 nine of them boys -in the first class to graduate from Spanish Fork High School in 1905 By that time he was already earning 10 cents per hour while learning the printing trade from the communitynewspaper publisher Andrew Jensen He set type and helped operate the ancient Army press which years later he described in these terms hand-operated contraption which required one man to ink the form withhand roller while another fed the sheets of paper turnedcrank which carried the form undercylinder and removed the printed sheet If the pair worked at top speed they could produce about 200 copies per hour This though would not serve asdirect route into newspapering for his youthful wanderlust led him to other parts of the West and once there he became involved in different types of work Fate it would seem finally tookhand in charting his career That he possessed an early urge to write is evidenced by adventurous novels which were products of his imaginative mind in concert with that of his boyhood chum Vernon Vern Rife They concerned bandits train robbers detectives and wild animal hunting -and when submitted to publishers netted only rejection slips Inlater time he went on to poetry plays religious treatises andpenetrating history of his hometown For years he also acted in amateur theatrical productions one of the most successful of which was his own Nan of the Transcript To no surprise it hadnewspaper setting 643 Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |
