John William Kirton

John was born on the 26th of June, 1930 to Joseph Mason and Audrey Rynhart Kirton in Salt Lake City,
Utah. When John was 4 years old the family moved to Draper, Utah where he grew up on the family
farm. They had chicken coops where they raised hundreds of chickens and eggs which were collected and sold as far away as New York for 60 cents a dozen. The family had a pigpen and in the fall
they would slaughter the pigs and hang the meat out on the sleeping porch to keep it cool through
the winter. They also had a cow and his mother sold cream and butter to the neighbors. During the
Depression it was a pretty good living.
When John was older he would join his neighbors digging and topping sugar beets so they could be
taken to the refinery. Life wasn’t all work. John loved to ice skate in the winter with his brothers, and
go fishing on the Provo River with his father in the summer. He picked up skiing in high school and
got to be pretty good at it. He even made his own set of wooden skis in the woodshop of the high
school.
In October 1950 when he was 20, he joined the Air Force and was sent to the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX. for basic training. He was hoping to
become a pilot. After finishing Basic he went into the training program at a base in Arizona but failed an eye test and washed out of the training. He returned to
Fort Worth, TX and was given the job of making Fly-Away kits (first aid and safety equipment kits designed for long airplane flights) for the pilots during the Korean
War. He was so good at his job that when his orders came in to go to Korea his Colonel arranged to keep him on the base. While he was at the base he started taking
dance classes. He loved to dance both on the dance floor and also on the ice. He was excellent on ice skates.
After his service ended he was offered a sponsorship to join a national ice dancing tour group, although he didn’t take it. He also still really wanted to fly and got his
private pilot’s license at the Draper airport. On the week-ends he enjoyed going to the local Saturday night church dances. It was at one of the dances at the Draper
Park that he met his first wife Carole McCafferty. They were married in Las Vegas on Sept. 10, 1955. John got a job on the military base in San Bernardino. John and
Carol had two children, John William in 1956 and Sherie in 1958.
After the marriage failed John returned to Draper. He got a job doing accounting projects for the American Oil Company and later worked for Liton Computers
sorting and feeding the old punch type computer cards into the machines. He also helped manage a cherry orchard out in the Draper foothills. John loved horses
and he had a few horses including a little chestnut stallion named Amaloon (Star of the East).
Because of his skill and love of dancing he taught for a while in the Arthur Murry school of dance and arranged some very popular Saturday night dance activities
all over the valley. At one of these dances he met Marie Garrett. They were married March 22, 1969. On May 29th1970, John and Marie were sealed in the Salt Lake
Temple. Over their 23-year marriage they had 6 children: Ann-Marie, Jason David, Kollette, Jerold Clarke, Krysta and JaNae.
John loved to build things and went to work building houses until the housing market crashed in the early 80’s. While he was
raising his family John was a long haul truck driver. As part of his job he was able to travel to all of the US states and into parts of Canada. During the summer
months he gave each of his children the opportunity to go on a trip with him. Some of their favorite memories of their dad come from those trips. John loved
working outdoors and his garden and yard were often the greenest and best kept in the neighborhood. Even though he was known as a quiet man and very
structured he had a pretty good sense of humor even into his later years. John was a good man even with his perfectionism and faults. He lived his life as well
as he knew how to. He was always trying to improve his lot in life, and he was not afraid to share his testimony with others.