All of Your Lies, Give Them to Me

Willam Clyde Layton 1917

William with his horses Layton, Utah 1917

Wiliam at Fort Lewis, Washington 1918

William's Reburial Obituary 1919

William Comes Home 1919
(left) A casket bearing the remains of William Clyde Layton awaited unloading at the Layton train depot; (top) Hearse and mourners are shown waiting for the arrival of William Clyde Layton's remains; (bottom)LDS General Authority B.H. Roberts dedicated a small parcel of land near the Layton train station in 1922 in honor Layton's four World War I casualties. Three of the four trees planted that day are still alive and can be seen in Layton's Veteran's Park on West Gentile Street.
images from First National Bank: A Century of Putting People First



Meldon with Memory Flag 1919;William and Meldon Layton April 13,1918

William's tree in Veteran's Park 2007
After a protracted battle in 2006, to save William's tree: a flurry of emails, intervention from the Veteran's Administration officials in D.C., numerous meetings, and assurances from local politicians, CEO's, etc, William's tree was safe for a year, and then after Veteran's Day, his tree was cut down December 19, 2007 to widen the railroad tracks for Frontrunner. In early 2008 a White Ash sapling was planted as a replacement for William's tree planted in 1922.

In preparation for Day of the Dead I'll be posting images and stories of departed ancestors into next week.

William Clyde Layton was killed July 23, 1918, five days after he arrived in France, and just four months before the Armistice was signed, proclaiming the cessation of hostilities on November, 11, 1918 at 11 a.m.: the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month". He was on a troop train, somewhere in France, en route to the Front, when an German enemy pulled a switch, causing another train to jump the tracks and collide with the oncoming train, sending a metal railing through his throat. I like to believe this killed him instantly. From the letter his commanding officer sent to my great-grandparents, I take comfort knowing the men of his troop stayed with his body through the night until the ambulance arrived to take him.

William died forty-four years before I was born. Obviously, I never knew him. Regardless, he's been a force in my life for almost a decade and from the time he, or the idea of him, his essence, whatever, has been close in my thoughts. As I've explained in earlier posts, every time I start this 1917-1949 novel, something dramatic presents itself as roadblock. I was at a family party this past weekend and my Aunt Nancy said that when something is your life's mission, the Universe will test you to your limits to see if you're serious about pursuing it. Okay. I believe this. After starting and stopping work on the novel, watching the sky for falling iron objects, and so on, every time I began yet again, I finally got paranoid enough to ask a psychic what was the deal. She said I had an ancestor who wanted my attention, that either he/she would assist or cause trouble. Hmmm!

I had absolutely no idea who it might be, and when William's name surfaced in my thoughts, I dismissed it outright. I only had sketchy details about his life. Well, a few weeks later I dreamed of him, and that morning went for my morning summer walk and told my father that I'd dreamed of William. He replied that it was William's birthday, so I knew I had my ancestor. I just wasn't sure what it was that he wanted. Hence, began my obsession with William's tree,and my habit of sitting in the cemetery, usually on the grass next to his grave, sometimes in the car with the heater on if it's cold.

My father said that his father James Archie told him that one night after the news that William had been killed reached the family, he recalled that his brother had stood at the foot of his bed. He saidd that William didn't say anything, just stood there, I suppose until he faded away. When my great-grandfather had his son William's body was from French soil and sent home to Utah, it was my grandfather Archie who was sent to identify the remains. He said that a piece of metal protruded from his brother's neck.

I started writing to William in one of my journals, I suppose to understand my own life, and finally I began work writing his life. My touchstone was his tree. Every day on the way to work, on the way home, anytime I passed Veteran's Park, I checked his tree and silently said hello. In my mind the tree became him. I decided he'd planted himself in the tree, and the tree held his soul, and that indeed, he'd come home. Yes, I know how that sounds, but it works for me. I was shocked and more than a little freaked out when I discovered a wire poking out of the neck, just below the crook of his tree. The wire extended through both sides. Yes, the reality is that the tree was probably planted next to a fence or held in place by thick wire which became part of the tree over the course of eighty-five years, but what are the odds that a tree dedicated to a dead man killed by a train's metal railing driven through his throat would also have a metal wire sticking out of its throat?

After I took a picture of the wire jutting out of William's tree, I twisted it until it broke loose. I have it in my studio, along with a few branches and a piece of bark.

When the local Museum director called to tell me he'd overheard the plans to cut down William's tree to make room for the new commuter train, I knew they had bided their time, waited like spiders until after Veteran's Day, and most importantly, pounced when they discovered a loophole in which the deeded land was no longer under its former jurisdiction, and thus, up to the highest bidder. I knew a sneak attack when I saw one, and also, I knew that without resources and a support group to fight, really fight, there was nothing to do but wait for the end. A tree is just a tree, unless it's not, unless it is something much more. I understand now why people chain themselves to rocks and refuse to budge to save a habitat, why Julia Butterfly lived in a redwood for a year, and faced down hostile loggers, and a political system that valued greenbacks over green earth. Ultimately, she saved the tree and subsequently, an entire ecosystem. I could, and should have done more, but I didn't.

I ranted, cried, and plotted serious revenge. I drove by the park late at night just to see if the tree was still there, took rolls of photos, and numerous digital images, and then, when the tree was no more, just two sections of trunk lined up in the parking lot, I couldn't believe it was really gone. It felt like a death. It was. That first night the tree was down all I could do was drive in and out of the lot, stop, get out, touch the tree, shine my car lights on it, walk around it and examine the tree from every angle. Later, I pulled a remaining branch from the trunk, took it home and put it in water, fed it my secret tree recipe (too gross and probably damning evidence of my mental state to reveal), and for a time the branch thrived, even grew a bud, but by the time I planted it in earth, it was too late. The branch is planted in the west flower bed of my yard. This past summer I told myself I really should get over it, dug it out, and discovered a hair-like root. I immediately replanted the branch. I have hope William will replant himself.

Someday, I do hope I have the opportunity to be a thorn to those particular players who found it expedient to cut down a tree planted in honor of a young soldier killed in a world war. If nothing else, I will have my say and ensure that William, and his tree will not be forgotten.

I didn't attend the ceremony when the new tree was planted in William's name. It took close to a year to stand in front of the little sapling and read the plaque located at its base. It's growing strong, and by the time I am an old woman, it will be a full-grown tree.


I've been working on a novella of flash pieces, All of Your Lies, Give Them to Me, in which I imagine William's life, his unlived life, and the lives of the major players of the period cobbled together with the other 19 million lives cut short by a war fought over a sack full of lies, the same lies we always tell ourselves. The same lies we readily believe. William died for these lies. He never stood and leveled a gun at the enemy, never killed anyone. I'm grateful he only had five days on foreign soil and never made it to the front. It makes me angry that he never got to live his life, have children, disappoint them, fall out of love and then in again, never got to grow old and fade away.

I wish I could know him. In a way, I suppose I know him as much as any of us know anyone: through the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we choose to believe.

On November 2, 2009, I'll pour a beer for William, and later make a toast to all my relatives, the living and the dead.