Thelma Uriarte never missed a blow

Last spring, about six months after their 100^TH BirthDay sat down Thelma Uriarte and I for lunch in the Citris Grill in Salt Lake City. The menus arrived and I felt for my reading glasses, which have been part of my life for three decades. (I am about a generation of younger than Thelma for the recording.)

After looking through the selection, I threw the table to see how Thelma was doing, and I noticed: “Thelma,” I said. “You don't need glasses?”

She assured me that she could read the menu quite well, thank you.

Since we compared notes, I thought I would examine a little more and ask how your hearing was.

“Better than yours,” she said with a clever grin. (I've been fighting with hearing aids for about eight years.)

I got to know Thelma almost 40 years ago when she worked at First Security Bank, and I tried to acquire the photos taken by her father on behalf of the Park City Museum, which were better known from Pop Jenks. (You can find more information in the “We We We to” column this week.)

But more recently when I researched a book about Pop Jenk's, I really loved her for her openness, sperm and generosity. (After our lunch, Thelma insisted on taking up the tab. Her money would not do her good after she died, she said.)

Another thing: she had a phenomenal memory. Better than mine.

In our conversations for the book, Thelma reminded her family's struggles to survive the global economic crisis and the collapse of the mines of Park City after the Second World War. She told me about her attempts to expand her father's photographer business by selling phonographies, radio devices and even the fishing attack.

“It got really bad,” she said. “I can remember that my mother shouted at the steps to my father.” We can sell something this evening. “

With money from a heir, her parents decided to convert the studio in the 430 Main St. in order to sell something that everyone needed, even during depression: food and drink. It didn't take long for them to make their own ice cream.

Thelma was only 9 years old when they opened Pop Jenks Confectionery in 1934, but it didn't take long for her and her older sister Laura to help. “That's why I have muscles in my right arm and dipped this ice cream,” she laughed.

It didn't take long for them to open a second location, Pop Jenk's lunch (also known as Lower Pop Jenks), near the time of the intersection of State Route 224 and the US Highway 40 (now Kearn's boulevard).

In the Park City High School, Thelma played the Snare -Drum in the band under the legendary director Byron Jones. In the meantime, she continued to work in the family company after graduating in 1941.

On New Year's Eve 1942, Thelma Frank Dorka married in a private ceremony in her family's living room. During the Second World War, the unity of Frank worked on Arizona in the reserves of the US Army, Thelma worked as a Riveter on B-25 bombers in the nearby Douglas, Arizona.

After the war, Thelma and Frank took over the management of the confectionery and began to run the Lower Pop Jenks about 10 years later. In 1956 they adopted a son, Frank Carey Dorka.

The teenager Mary Lou Wheelwright, now Mary Lou Toly, was among the employees of Thelma. They became quick friends. This experience with Thelma, said Mary Lou, told her to open the skills and trust in opening the Red Banjo pizza in Main Street in 1962.

In March 1963, Thelma belonged to a group of investors, including the local music teacher Jim Santy, who earned 2,000 US dollars for the purchase of Lu Ann Theater (also known as an Egyptian) by Art Durante, the owner of a legendary main roads business. You renamed the silver bike. After trying to make money, they decided to specialize in weekend melodramas. Thelma even had a role in one of the productions.

In September 1966, Lower Pop Jenks experienced his death when the fire released the building. After that, Thelma turned her attention back to the confectionery, where she and her father survived a rocky start to her partnership.

“He thought I put too much things on the sandwiches, you know that I was too generous,” she said. “But he became a little stingy with some of his sandwiches.

After the death of her father in March 1971, Thelma headed for a short time and then sold the building for $ 21,000.

“The last time it sold almost a million dollars,” she told me in 2017.

Thelmas marriage to Frank Dorka ended in divorce. In 1970 she married Leon Uriarte, who later served an term as mayor of Park City (1976-77). In 1992 they sold their house in Highland Estates and from then on they divided their time between the houses in Salt Lake City and Mesa, Arizona. However, Thelma continued to visit her friends in Park City and played golf in the local women's league until at least 1996.

Thelma's eyes glowed when she talked about her community in Mesa. She and her neighbors made music together in bands and choirs and even appeared in their own melodramas. When Leon died in Arizona in March 2013, these neighbors were there to offer Thelma their support. With great reluctance, she gave up her home in Mesa in later years. However, she continued to live alone in her condominium in Salt Lake City until she^TH Birthday.

The Centennial celebration took place on August 2, 2023 when Mary Lou Toly organized more than 200 from Thelma's friends and family in the Red Banjo. A year later she celebrated her 101^st Birthday by charaing a bus to bring your friends to Wendover. Last week when Mary Lou called me to tell me that Thelma had died, she said she was already planning another adventure for this next August.

Maybe you should go anyway. I think Thelma would have loved it.

David Hampshire was the publisher of the Park Record in 1983-85 and previously the newspaper (Park City) in 1981-83.

Related stories