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Parley Rhead Neeley - Dad always said that Rhead stood for redhead, and
that Neeley was O'Neil from the famous house of Ulster in Ireland, the
guardians of the sinister red hand of Ulster, and he liked to talk about
that quite often and scare us half to death.
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Parley - I never could understand or never did get a good concise
answer of why our family has so many Parley's in it. Dad said it's just a
cherished family name. His grandfather was James Parley Neeley, his father
was Parley Hughes Neeley, of course Grandpa was Parley Rhead Neeley, I am
Parley Mitchell Neeley, my son is Parley Stephen Neeley and my grandson,
Stephen's son is Jonathan Parley Neeley. That's one word we all know how to
spell.
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It was sometime after that (i.e. Dad's birth) Dad's father
told him some interesting happenings at Dad's birth. It was amazing to me
Dad was the first child born and he weighed 13 lbs. It was a very hard birth
as you can imagine and the Doctor said, Hugh, you know this has been a hard
birth and I'm not so sure that your sons going to live and pull through
this, and so my grandfather, you'll have to excuse me, Parley Hughes went
out to the barn, and prayed to Heavenly Father that my father, his son,
would be preserved. About the time he was through praying, he saw a man
walking to the house and he got up and went over and asked him what he
wanted. He didn't want anybody disturbed there and the man said, "Well I've
come to get your son, and Grandpa said, "What do you mean, my son? And he
said, "Well, he's not going to live and I've come to take him back with me.
Now my grandfather, Parley Hugh was a very serious individual when I knew
him and life was serious to him so I believe this story because this is the
story that he told, and I believe that it is true. And Grandpa Parley Hugh
said "Well you're not going to take my son, and he said "Yes, that's the
plan. So they wrestled together and my grandpa Parley Hugh, he was a big
fellow too, the Neeleys were all big fellows and he was a big man. He
finally wrestled this man fellow to the ground and sat on him and held him
and wouldn't let him loose, and finally after this mis-treatment the
personage said, "Well then, if you feel this way about it were going to have
to change our plan. And of course Grandpa let him loose and Parley lived on
to be eighty-two.
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He was born in Coalville, as you heard, which was one of the first or
the first mining town in Utah, and Dad always liked to tell us about the
horses that lived and died in the mine, never came out and they were blind.
I always had a lot of compassion for those horses, and so did Dad but he
liked to talk about them.
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Did you know that Dad joined the Boy Scouts and was in that
organization or in the Scouts and associated with the Scouts for 70 years.
He was one of the very first. And in those days they didn't call them Boy
Scouts. He was one of the very first to be in the Scouting program and used
to travel from community to community because they couldn't hold their
meetings in one community because they were all small and didn't have enough
boys so they held their meetings in different communities and Dad was always
there.
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In 1910, Dad had a love affair with Yellowstone Park. His grandfather,
James Parley came by one day and told his father, Parley Hughes that he was
working too hard and that they needed a vacation. School was just out and
the next couple of days they got all their wagons together and they went to
Yellowstone Park, and they didn't come back until school had started in the
fall. So they were there about 3 months. Dad always liked to tell about
Yellowstone Park and I just counted up and I'm willing to say that Grandpa
or Dad went to Yellowstone Park at least 50 times, and he loved it.
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Dad was musically inclined. He always liked music. I don't know if you
know it, but he used to play in the band and he used to play in a dance
band. He had two clarinets. I think one was an A Flat and one was a D Flat.
I'm not sure, but he played in dance bands and he loved to sing as many of
you know.
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Dad saw his first airplane about the age of seven and he always liked
airplanes. I always enjoyed the stories he would tell us about airplanes and
how he enjoyed them and how they made forced landings in Coalville, because
Coalville is pretty high and sometimes couldn't get over it.
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About 1938 Dad was in the Seventys and the Bishop came and said,
"Parley, I've lost my second counselor and I've been impressed to call you
to be my second counselor, and Dad said, "Well, Bishop Murphy, you know the
Pine View Project is about completed and I think I'm going to be transferred
within just a short time, and the Bishop said, "Well, I've thought about
this and you're the one, but now that you've told me that maybe you're not
going to be here maybe I'd better think about it and do a little more
praying. Well, two or three days later Dad was called in and Bishop Murphy
said, "Parley, I don't care where you're going or when you're going you're
going to be my second counselor. So Dad was made the second counselor in the
Bishopric in the Ninth Ward in Ogden. During the first Bishopric Meeting,
one of the first things they took up was that the roof on the new addition
was leaking. Nowdays when we find out a roof's leaking we say, we can send
people to the moon why can't we build a roof that doesn't leak, but in those
days they didn't say that. Dad said, "You know Bishop, this is a new roof,
it shouldn't be leaking, there's something wrong. The Bishop said, "Well,
I've had the contractor go back, a man in the Ward, and he's looked at it
and he cannot see anything wrong. Dad said, "Well I'll look at it. And so in
the next two or three days Dad went up and walked into the crawl space in
the roof and found an amazing thing. As an engineer he knew that trusses
were built with a compression side and a tension side. The tension side is
bolted and the compression side is pegged or nailed. Well, these beams or
trusses had been installed upside down and so the tension side that should
have been bolted was only nailed, and they were pulling apart. And so the
roof was leaking. It was leaking because the roof was gradually sagging
down, down, down. President Grant was to come in and dedicate the building
in a month and they got in there and turned the trusses over and as far as I
know the roof never did leak again. And the interesting part of it is we
were gone within three months. I've always felt that was a calling that was
necessary and Dad as usual didn't turn down anything, and went right to it
and solved the problem and it could have been a disaster with all those
little children in the recreation hall.
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Dad always said he was only four steps from the Savior. I said how can
you say that Dad, and he said, "Well, here it is, I was ordained to the
Melchezidec Priesthood by Rulon Wells, he was ordained by the three
witnesses, the three witnesses were ordained by Peter, James and John, and
Peter, James and John got their authority from the Savior. Which is four
steps. What do you think" I think you're right, and Dad acted that way.
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He wanted to take the professional engineers examination for Arizona,
so we went up to Salt Lake and went into that room and in that room were
perhaps 100 individuals, most of them in their late 20's or early 30's and
there was our Grandpa, Dad, 82 years old sitting in there, and I thought in
that head were over 60 years of engineering experience. There was no way
these fellows could match Grandpa and yet he was there taking that test just
like the rest of them. I was so proud of him. And everybody in there knew
him because you have to call in and get reservations and pay money and etc.
Just as soon as Dad walked in, the lady in charge said, "Oh I know you,
you've just got to be Parley Neeley, you couldn't be anybody else, so he was
well known.
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One little story, if I might. Dad was often misunderstood because he
stood for right and he didn't mind going after it, and sometimes that
offends us. I don't know why - we like to do it in our own way, and I always
felt in many cases Dad was misunderstood. One little story to illustrate how
he was determined to do the thing that was right and he didn't mind going
after it. I used to like to hunt with Dad and in North Dakota when they had
hunting season it was about 90 days long. Oh I just loved that and we'd go
and go and we had so many birds. We were going one Saturday and Dad said,
"Pat, I've got to take care of a little business this Saturday, but if we
can just take the family car and drive out, we can take care, of the
business and then we can go hunting. Do you still want to go?” Yes, I still
want to go. We drove up to the government camp which was a big tin building
with a loading dock with a lot of tents around it and the timekeeper was
standing there along with a bunch of men. There were also lots of trucks
just standing idle there, and Dad said, "What's the matter Bob? And Bob
said, Well, the Seventh Day Adventists won't work, this is their Sabbath.
Dad said, "We worked all this out for you and the leader who was a big man,
bigger than Dad, a large rawboned fellow sat in the jump seat in back, and
he said "Parley, you know what it says in the Bible about working on the
Sabbath and Dad said, "I know that, but do you know Jake what it says in the
Bible about having a sheep in the pit? He said, "We've got trouble here and
we need you to come out and get your boys to work becuase nobody would work
unless the Seventh Day Adventists worked, and Jake said, "Well I know we
worked it out, but we've changed our mind. Dad said, "Come on Jake, come on
out, and Jake said, "Come and get me". Well he shouldn't have said that. The
only word Bob the timekeeper said standing by me was "trouble". And in that
instant Dad jumped in the truck with those 30 people in there that were a
little bit hostile, and grabbed Jake. I didn't see it but he grabbed Jake by
the feet and all I saw was Jake shooting out of the truck on his back
kerplop right in the mud on his back. Then Dad walked out and stood over him
and everybody backed away and I could hear this murmer in the crowd, they
knew there was going to be one big fight. There must have been 100 men
there, but finally Jake said, "Let's go to work fellows."