Saga of the Sanpitch Volume 13, 1981 - Sanpete County

Source: Sanpete tradition and personal experience.
The days grind on, with changeless heat,
Fear mounts within his heart.
Then subtle change one day is seen:
A single cloud, alone, apart,
But bringing hope - "We need the rain" -
And bringing smiles to all.
The tension dims, and life resumes
As rain begins to fall.
GO WEST, YOUNG MAN!
Lois Brown
Manti, Utah 84642
Non-Professional Division, First Place Short Story
George stepped from the chugging, blowing train and onto the platform of the station in Manti, a tiny
town in central Utah. He carried two suitcases, one containing his clothes, the other his books and medical
equipment. As he looked around at the people who had met the train, he wondered just what these Mormons
were like and how a small town in Utah compared to the other towns where he had stopped.
George was a young doctor from Rock Island, Illinois. He had lived near the bustling city of Chicago all
his life, attended school there, finished his training at the busy Cook County Hospital and decided that he did
not want to spend the rest of his life as a city doctor. So, when his medical training was complete he had
packed what he considered most essential, bade farewell to his loving but bewildered family, and boarded the
train going west. George's mother had always assumed that he would practice medicine somewhere near
Chicago, so when he announced that he was heading west with no particular destination in mind she was
horrified. He had graduated at the top of his class so the opportunities open to him were many, but he was
turning his back on all his family, his friends and the many opportunities near his home and was going—west,
just west.
When George arrived in Manti he had been traveling west for several months. He simply bought a
ticket that would take him to some town by nightfall. There he would leave the train, find a hotel, a meal, visit
the local drug store if there was one, prepare to leave on the next train and go to bed.
At a little mining town in South Dakota where he had stopped for the night, there had been a smallpox
epidemic and no doctor. When people with whom he visited found that he was a doctor they begged him to
stay and help them for a day, a week, a month—just to please help them. So he did. He stayed until the
epidemic was over, then he left a grateful little town that would long remember the handsome young doctor
who had saved them from catastrophe.
This had been the pattern of his trip west. He spent a few days, a week or weeks helping where help
was needed, then moved on. His scrawled notes went home, "Dear Mother, I've been here for a week, and
while there is need for a doctor here this is not where I wish to live. Love, George."
Now, here he was in Manti for the night. He inquired for a place to stay, and carrying his two cases he
proceeded to Main Street and a place to spend the night. He smiled as he thought of what his small dainty
mother would say if she met him. George was the same husky six-foot young man who had kissed her good-
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