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From Think Round: the Story of David B South and the Monolithic Dome
Events in the Life of David B South
1939 — Born on February 20 in Idaho Falls, Idaho to Barney and Marjorie South. 1944 — Began school at Riverside Elementary in Idaho Falls. 1955 — Barney, David’s dad, died on February 21, the day after David’s sixteenth birthday. 1956 — Heard a radio broadcast with Buckminster Fuller talking about Geodesic Domes. Was immediately and permanently intrigued. 1957 — Became Idaho’s youngest licensed real estate salesman. 1957 — Graduated from Idaho Falls High School. 1959 — Married Judy Lynne Bates on February 20, his birthday, at the Idaho Falls Temple. 1960 — Earned an Associate Degree at Ricks College, now called Brigham Young University, Idaho. 1960 — Sarah Robin, David and Judy’s first daughter, born August 9 in Ashton, Idaho. 1961 — Marj, David’s mom, and her children sold the sawmill. 1961 — Julie, David and Judy’s second baby, died within 24 hours of her birth on December 3 at the Idaho Falls Hospital. 1962 — Jenny Lynne, third daughter, born on November 1 in Idaho Falls. 1963 — Worked as computer operator for Phillips Petroleum at the National Reactor Testing Station west of Idaho Falls. 1966 — Nanette, fourth daughter, born on April 23 in Idaho Falls. 1966 — Entered Idaho State University (ISU), Pocatello. 1967 — Completed on campus course work at ISU. Graduated with Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Engineering Degree. 1968 — Job with Chicago Northwestern Railway as Manager of Unit Record Operations. Souths moved to Chicago. 1968 — Son David Barney South, Jr. born on May 7 in Evanston, Illinois. 1970 — David “discovered” polyurethane foam. Quit his job with Chicago Northwestern Railway. 1970 — Melinda, fifth daughter, born June 24 in Idaho Falls. 1970 — Job with Ready To Pour Concrete, selling polyurethane foam insulation. 1971 — Organized South’s, Inc. as a polyurethane foam insulating company. 1972 — South’s, Inc. helped Upjohn develop a new foam. 1973 — Rebecca, sixth daughter, born on June 18 in Idaho Falls. 1974, ‘75 —South’s, Inc. sprayed more than 1.5 million pounds of foam insulation per year. 1975 — Completed flying lessons and became licensed pilot. 1975 — Jessica, seventh daughter, born on September 10 in Idaho Falls. 1976 — Built first Monolithic Dome, a potato storage with a diameter of 105 feet. Built second Monolithic Dome in Manchester, Michigan. 1977 — Marj, David’s mom, has first Monolithic Dome home built for herself. 1979 — Cliffdome, David and Judy’s first dome home built. 1979 — United States Patent 4,155,967 for Monolithic Dome method of constructing granted to David and his brother Barry on May 22. 1979 — Son Michael Jay born to Sarah and Michael Gardner on July 22, adopted in 1986. 1980 — Canadian Patent 1,088,339 for Monolithic Dome granted to David and Barry on October 28. 1981 — Jamie Lynne, eighth daughter, born to Sarah and Michael Gardner on May 13, adopted in 1986. 1982 — United States Patent 4,324,074 for Monolithic Dome process of constructing granted to David and Barry on April 13. 1982 — Trip to Indonesia to build domes. 1983 — David, Barry and Randy South formed Monolithic Constructors, Inc. (MCI) in Idaho. 1985 — Emmett High, first Monolithic Dome school built in Emmett, Idaho. 1986 — Roundup started as a newsletter, written and typed by Marj. 1988 — David and Randy South moved MCI to California. Built domes for Calamco. Barry South founded Dome Technology, Inc. in Idaho. 1990 — MCI moved to Texas. Iraqi deal soured. MCI gradually recovered. 1991 — Monolithic Dome Institute (MDI) formed to teach the world to Think Round. 1993 — Marj, David’s mom, died. Randy South moved back to Idaho. 1994 — Monolithic’s annual Workshops started. 1995 — First Annual Monolithic Dome Conference held. 1997 — Roundup published as a full color, glossy magazine. 1998 — Monolithic established its website: www.monolithic.com. 1999 — United States Patent 5,918,438 for the Crenosphere granted to David South on July 6. 2001 — Roundup became a permanent part of Monolithic’s website. 2001 — Monolithic Dome Builders Association (MDBA) formed. 2002 to present — David and Monolithic continue teaching the world to Think Round!
CHAPTER ONE A Beginning People sometimes say they wish they could remember their births. From what I have heard about mine, I’m glad I don’t. My dad Bernard Eugene, who liked to be called Barney, and my mother Mary Marjorie, who insisted on being called Marj or Marjorie, often fondly recalled the freeze at Idaho Falls, Idaho on the night of February 20, 1939. In fact, our National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) says temperatures plummeted to one degree Fahrenheit the night I was born.
In 1939, Barney was thirty-four and Marj was twenty-two. Three years earlier, on New Year’s Eve 1936, they had eloped to Randolph, Utah and married. The reason for the elopement was strictly economics. At that time, many Americans were still recovering from the Great Depression. Barney and Marj and their families were no exception.
To complicate matters more, during the Depression, the State of Idaho had a rule that could have created a new hardship for both families. Idaho would not allow a woman married to a man who had a job to work for the State, and Marj, a certificated teacher, was considered a State employee. So Barney and Marj eloped to Utah to keep the State of Idaho from knowing about their marriage.
They spent their wedding night at a cousin’s home, where Marj slept with the wife. Later, they did enjoy a one-week honeymoon at Yellowstone National Park. But for a time after the marriage, Marj kept her maiden name, continued to live apart from Barney at a boarding house in Sugar City, Idaho, taught school and sent her income to her parents. On weekends, the couple began building their cabin. That project often had them working into nightfall.
At such times, they felt rewarded by the twinkling stars they could see through their unfinished roof. The next winter, Barney and Marj moved into their primitive, 576-square-foot, four-room, log cabin at 950 Ada Avenue in Idaho Falls. Over the years, my parents and grandparents owned or lived in several different homes on Ada Avenue, but this was Barney and Marj’s first. It had no indoor plumbing, and building an outhouse within the city limits was illegal.
So Barney built the outhouse into a corner of a storage shed, located in back of the house. A year later, he installed plumbing inside the home. But in 1939, the year of my birth, Barney and Marj were still counting their pennies. They simply could not afford many things we consider necessities. For example, Barney had a 1937 Ford truck that he needed for work, but he could not afford to buy antifreeze for it —which at that time was considered a luxury that sold for almost $3 a gallon.
So, to prevent the truck’s freezing, Barney drained it of its water every night and poured in a fresh supply every morning. The night of my birth proved no exception. In the wee hours of February 20th, when Marj woke Barney to tell him she was in labor with their first child, he had to fill the truck with water before they could drive the half-mile to the Idaho Falls Hospital where I was born.
That Fine Blond Hair I don’t have memories of things as a one-, two- or even three-year-old. My earliest recollection is of an incident that happened when I was about four, in which Barry, my two-years-younger brother, played a major role. One day, Marj, our mom, left us alone in our Ford truck for just a few minutes. Barry and I immediately started battling, as little boys do, and I began pulling his hair. When Marj got back, she found Barry laughing and hollering with glee, and feathery strands of really fine, extremely blond hair floating about the truck’s cab. To this day, I wonder if that was why Barry went bald so early, or if it’s just something that happened!
Our Household I was the oldest child. At two- and three-year intervals, Barry, M’Jean, Myrna Lynn, Susan and Randy followed. That made me nearly sixteen years older than Randy, our caboose. My brothers and I worked with the men in the sawmill and in the woods. The girls helped Marj with the huge amount she had to do — washing, cooking and caring for everything and anything, including meals for part of the mill crew. After Barney, my dad, died, Marj tackled just about any task that she felt she could handle. She did a major part of the lumber selling and even helped move the wood. That was a tough time; everybody had to pitch in to get the work done.
My First Rifle During the World War II years, when I was four to six years old, we lived in various California towns, and Barney worked for several different companies that built defense plants. One such job took us to Susanville, where we lived at a trailer campground. There, a neighbor gave me my very first, personal rifle — a 25-rimfire, single-shot that measured about forty inches and weighed about five pounds — a real collector’s item today. I remember packing that rifle home, holding it half way down the barrel and strutting proudly. But when I look back on this exciting time, I suspect Barney probably had paid that guy for the rifle and asked him to give it to me.
If the Shoe Fits, Buy It When I was about eight years old, I remember Barney took me to the Bellamy Shoe Store for new shoes. Bellamy was absolutely the hottest shoe store in Idaho Falls — maybe even all of Idaho — or so I thought. When you got there, you got seated in a plush chair. Then the clerk measured your foot, disappeared into the rear of the store, returned with one or two boxes of new shoes, and placed a pair on your feet so you could try them. Once you thought you had found the pair that fit best, you would walk over to this machine, step up onto it and place your feet on its designated spots.
Then as if by magic you could look down through this glass scope and actually see your feet — and I don’t mean just the shoes. This fluoroscope process actually made it possible to see your feet inside the shoes. You could see the bones. You could wiggle your toes and see the bones move. Of course, all this was not just entertainment. It was done so parents could see just how the shoes fit before they bought them. But for me, it was fascinating and great fun. Needless to say, all this was in the days before we had to worry about how much X-rays we should have.
My Dad’s Side of the Family Sawmills play an important role in the South Family’s history. In 1922, Samuel Rich South and Hannah Corless South, my paternal grandparents, were fifty-one and forty-six years old, respectively, and the parents of seven. Nevertheless, they sold much of what they owned in Randolph, Utah, bought wagons and leased land from the federal government for a sawmill they planned to operate in Island Park, Idaho. They had to lease and could not purchase this land because it was part of the Targhee National Forest. Concerned about dwindling timber, the federal government had created that national forest in 1908 and named it Targhee, after a prominent, peace-loving, Bannock Indian leader and signer of the Fort Bridger Peace Treaty. In 1923 the Souths moved there.
My Mom’s Side of the Family Justin and Mabel Knapp, my maternal grandparents and their family, moved to Island Park, Idaho in January 1924. There, Grandpa Knapp became a hauler, hauling hand-hewn rail ties about ten miles, from a cutting site to a rail site. His employer, the Targhee Tie Company, cut railroad ties in the Island Park area from about 1918 to about 1930. So both of my grandfathers were similarly employed — geographically and economically. That was fortunate, since it led to my parents, Barney and Marj, meeting, falling in love and marrying. The following is an excerpt from Mabel Knapp’s autobiography which she compiled in 1941.
Mabel wrote: Jesse (Justin Knapp) kept getting worse each summer (Jesse had hay fever), so he decided to leave the place (their farm in Hibbard, Idaho) with Bunker Cox, who had been with us for a year and half, and find work elsewhere. So in October 1923, we started for Alexander (Idaho) where a power plant was being built. It was stormy and we were heavily loaded, so we had a rather bad time getting through some of the roads. When we reached Lava Hot Springs (Idaho), it was raining so hard we stopped overnight there. Morning brought no change in the weather, and the people there told us it would be impossible to get through over to Alexander. So we turned back and went to Smithfield (Utah). Jesse obtained work in the sugar factory, so we moved into town. While living there, we had a chance a few times to go to the (Mormon) Temple.
When the factory run was over, Jesse worked at the dam at Alexander. My father, Alma Helaman Hale, Jr. was working there too. We found there was no use trying to hold the farm when we could not stay and take care of it, so we let it go. After the pea-canning factory had started, Jesse obtained work there to be at home and in a Ward (Mormon church community). But that was as bad as the farm. Soon Jesse was so ill. He had to get into the hills among the pines — so he and Warren (their son) left for Island Park, Idaho. A few weeks there and he was well again, so we decided to move to Ashton (Idaho) which was the nearest community to his work that had a school. (Mabel and Jesse wanted their children to attend school regularly.)
We were there until January, when a school was established in the camp where Jesse was working for the Targhee Tie Company. He went to Hibbard (Idaho) to get what things we needed to move up with and bring our cow. He couldn’t get anyone to help him move, only so far as St. Anthony (Idaho); it was so cold, about 40 degrees (below zero), and the snow was very deep. So he had to phone to the camp for a team to come from there. We had one covered camp outfit with a stove in it and one open sleigh and one balky team.
They had to take the team back and double up the hills. We stayed over night on the road. Next day we reached the Railroad Ranch about noon. Mrs. Brower gave us a lunch, and we then continued on in the open sleigh till next day. We arrived in Island Park camp a little after dark. The people had our house warm, helped unload and take care of the horses. Ruby Smith had supper ready for us, everyone was very kind.
Samuel and Hannah South Before actually moving his family to Island Park, Sam South sent people ahead to build a small log cabin and horse barn. Then, on a cold winter day they loaded all their belongings onto a railcar in Randolph, Utah and headed north. But when Sam and Hannah arrived, they found only a horse barn and a lot of snow. So having little choice, they lived in the horse barn and continued constructing a cabin and the sawmill at Split Creek. Island Park’s Split Creek is about twelve miles long. Its water originates near Yellowstone Park and burbles west into a big area called The Flat, where it sinks into the sand and disappears. On its way, the creek splits into forks several times — thus the name! The Souths established their first sawmill at the upper reaches of Split Creek’s south fork (where else?) about eight miles from Island Park’s railroad siding.
In those days, there was no highway to Island Park. The rail and its siding were the center of all transportation. After the Targhee Tie Company left Island Park, the Souths moved their sawmill to the siding, which usually got a lot less snow than the higher elevation of Split Creek. I remember Grandpa South as quite old. He had had his arm broken and had lost the shoulder-end of the upper arm bone, so he could not raise his left hand above his waist. Despite that handicap, he would take an ax and saw and cut trees.
But often that was wasted effort since he’d forget where he left the cut wood. Nevertheless, Sam South was an educated man, who had finished college, earned a teaching certificate at Brigham Young Academy in Logan, Utah, taught and knew music, and loved to work in the timber. Sam taught school in Argyle, Sage Creek and later Randolph, Utah, played a violin for dances, and served as Justice of the Peace. He and Hannah ran the Randolph Post Office. Hannah loved to do handwork, such as quilts and braided rugs. Sam died in 1949 when I was ten. It will be interesting to meet him in heaven some day and ask him about his reasons for selling his Randolph, Utah property and moving his family to rough Island Park. Sam and Hannah raised tough kids, including their Number Four: Barney, my dad.
Sam and Hannah’s Sawmill Island Park had an abundant supply of lodgepole pine. But while abundant, lodgepole pine wasn’t serious commercial timber. The trees grew closely together in rocky ground and were small. If you found a lodgepole pine with a diameter of two feet, you found a monster. Most had diameters of only six to fifteen inches. Like the trees, the South’s first sawmill was a small, back woodsy operation on Woodruff Creek, near Monte Cristo. Sam had traded a few cows for that mill, which included a 20-horsepower (hp), Nicholson-Shepherd steam engine, such as farmers used to run their thrashing machines.
Tie Camp was a name given to places where men, called tie hacks, lived and worked cutting rail ties, by hand, for use on the railroad. When Sam moved his operation to a new site in the tie camp at the Island Park rail siding, he abandoned the Nicholson-Shepherd and replaced it with a 25-hp Case steam engine. A few years later, Sam moved to yet another fresh location at the siding and replaced the Case with a far more powerful, 45-hp Rumley steam engine.
To make the rail ties, men felled the trees, trimmed off the limbs and sawed the wood into lengths of 101 inches. Then, using a broadax with a wide blade, they slabbed off two of the logs’ sides, and peeled the two remaining sides so the ties could absorb creosote, an oily preservative and insecticide they were soaked in. The shaping process enabled the ties to lay flat on the ground, so rails could be spiked to them. Logging was hard work, and virtually every task was done by hand, even into the early 1950s.
But Grandfather Samuel South’s fledgling sawmill soon developed a unique, small-log, lumber product. They cut three sides off small logs, so the finished product had one curved side and three flat sides. That made log house construction easier and quicker. Builders simply stacked one log atop another, like you would bricks, and nailed down through them. Besides cabins, those logs and that construction method made good farm buildings, especially for grain storage. Consequently, this small-log product contributed significantly to the sawmill’s profitability. Island Park and the surrounding area still have many of these log cabins — still used today as summer homes.
Justin and Mabel Knapp Justin (Jesse) Knapp and Mabel Fidelia Hale Knapp, my maternal grandparents, came from early Mormon pioneer families who settled in Idaho. At six feet, Jesse stood a head taller than any of his friends. In his lifetime, he worked on many farms. During the wheat harvesting seasons of 1916 to 1918, Jesse drove a 26-horse-powered combine. He also worked at sawmills. But his real expertise was in handling the horses — the work he loved best. Jesse, Mabel and their nine children lived at Island Park, until Mabel’s allergies forced her to remain in Idaho Falls. As a ninth grader who could no longer attend the Island Park School, I lived with Grandmother Knapp and went to school in Idaho Falls.
I got to know Grandfather Jesse by working with him at the mill. At that time, I saw him as a stern, standoffish man. Now I realize that because Jesse worked hard from the time he was little, he probably never learned to play.
But Jesse did tell stories. He told me how they went barefoot because they could not afford shoes. In the winter, they wrapped their feet in rags to keep them from freezing. Grandpa said his feet got so tough, he could run barefoot across a newly mown hay field. And that’s something you almost cannot do with shoes on! A freshly cut hay field is treacherous. Short, sharp spikes stick up from the ground and stab you. Except for a mission Jesse served in Kansas for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints (LDS or Mormon Church), he never ventured more than a few miles from home. |