LaRilla Smith

LARILLA SMITH DRUCE --Third child of John Thomas Smith

She was born in Beaver, Utah January 9, 1909. She was the first child of the family born in the new pink rock house built on the northeast corner of Fourth North and Fourth West.

She attended the Belknap School through the fifth grade and then she went to the new Beaver High School building and graduated from the High School in the spring of 1928. Accordingly, she went to the new school building the first year that it was in use.

She graduated from the L. D. S. Seminary in 1927. The seminary classes were held in rooms rented in the High School building.

In the fall of 1928 she packed her clothes in a cardboard box and she, too, left home to go to the Brigham Young University. By this time the 11th child of the family had been born and nine of the children were still at home and only two of the nine were girls, so there was plenty of work to be done to look after the home and the young children. She worked at various jobs, keeping house, and at the B. Y. U. cafeteria and completed two years graduating with a two year Normal (Teaching) degree in the spring of 1930.

In the fall of 1930 she was traveling from Beaver back to Provo to continue school and was involved in a serious automobile accident and she suffered a broken pelvis and it was thought that she may never walk again. This prevented her from attending school that year but through her persistence she was able to again enroll at the B. Y. U. the following year (1931-1932).

After school was out in the spring of 1932 she went to Salt Lake to seek employment. It was while working in Salt Lake City that she met Walter Henry Druce, a Commercial Sign writer and they were married in Salt Lake City Sept. 2, 1933. They lived in Ogden, Utah until May 1935 and then they moved to Pocatello, Idaho where they have lived since.

Although Larilla had been told by the doctor that she would not be able to have any children as a result of the accident which she had, they did have two children as follows:

Myrlan was born October 29, 1934 in Ogden, Utah. She got her teaching degree and in 1968 graduated from the Weber College in Ogden, Utah. She married Eldon Morris, a Pharmacist, and they have 5 children, three boys and two girls; they live in Eden, Utah. Myrlan teaches school besides keeping up her home and looking after her children. She is now studying for her master's degree from the University of Utah.

Walter Smith Druce married Caroline Lee Will and they have two children, a girl and a boy. Walter works for the Western Electric Company as an electronic technician. They live in Salt Lake City, Utah.