LIFE "ON T H E ROAD"
Reminiscences of a Drummei By Dorothy J. Buchanan
We remember in Meredith Wilson's opening scene in The Music Man that a number of traveling men of a past era are riding on a train and discussing their business problems. After spirited comments on relative merits of cash and credit, the culminating statement is that a traveling man had to know his territory. My father, Henry C. "Shall" Jacobs, was a traveling man from the year 1894 to 1902, with the exception of two years when he served as a missionary to Great Britain. H e knew his territory and loved every foot of it. He did not hesitate to say that it was choice above all others. During the past few years, he and I have often discussed the life he lived during what he always termed "those happy, carefree years" when he was "on the road." After I had finished my college work, when I told him that I had signed a contract to teach school in Richfield, Sevier County, he was delighted. He told me that I would never regret it because I would be living among choice people, which I found later to be correct. My father was born in Prattville, between Richfield and Glenwood, March 15, 1876. His birthplace was a small log cabin which stood near Mrs. Buchanan, who taught school in Richfield, Utah, has been the secretary of the Sevier Valley Chapter of the U t a h State Historical Society since its inception in May 1964. Henry C. Jacobs, who will be 90 years old in March, resides in Ogden.
