Toddy’s Story

Topaz ambulance
Screen capture of a Topaz ambulance, 1944. From a “home” movie by Dave Tatsuno. Licensed under CC by-NC 3.0

He was 19 years old when he arrived in Topaz, and soon found work as an ambulance driver. “I used to drive young couples at night so they could ‘neck and kiss’ in the back of the ambulance,” he later confessed.

But the confines of camp life were hard on a young man, and Toddy became depressed. His ticket out of camp was a job as a busboy in the  Hotel Utah, a magnificent hotel near Temple Square, Salt Lake City, as well as other venues.

The Hotel Utah in downtown Salt Lake City, 1946.
Hotel Utah sign, Sept. 4, 1946. Shipler Comm. Photog. #48911. Used by permission, Utah State Historical Society.

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