Gene England: Remembering a legendary trucker

SALT LAKE CITY — Among the things Gene England loved in life, and the list of the things Gene England loved in life is a very long one, was a fully loaded Mountain Dew.

Then one day, someone told him drinking Mountain Dew wasn't good for him.

"I'm thinking of giving it up — for health purposes," he announced to his family.

That was two years ago. When he was 103.

That story, and hundreds more, have been making the rounds over CB radios, at truck stops, and especially at the C.R. England Trucking Company ever since news broke in November that the legendary trucker passed away just days after he turned 105.

"In our industry he was kind of a Paul Bunyan type character; I don't think there's ever been anyone quite like him," says Gene England's grandson Chad England, who is sitting in the offices at C.R. England's headquarters on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley, where Gene England was a fixture practically to the day he died.

"He was something else; I mean his life was bigger than life," echoes Dan England, Chad England's father and one of Gene England's six sons.

They're painting the picture of a man who always looked forward to what was coming next, who lived each day like it wasn't going to be his last.

A man who, after the death of June, his beloved wife of 50 years, remarried when he was 90, and married again, after the death of his second wife, Dorothy, when he was 100.

Now that's an optimist.

"You've never met anybody so optimistic in your life," says Dan England.

Adds Chad England, "It was his defining characteristic."

That positive attitude saw him through a life that began on Oct. 24, 1919, in Plain City in a house that didn't have indoor plumbing — just scant months after World War I and the Spanish flu pandemic had ended. A year after Gene England was born, his father, Chester Rodney England, started a trucking company with just one truck. Today, C.R. England, with some 4,000 trucks, ranks among the top 20 long haul carriers in America.

In one way or another, Gene England, who started hauling loads to Idaho when he was 14, never stopped being a trucker. He didn't quit regularly driving big rigs until he was 90, and then only because his kids told him he had to (due to liability concerns). He's the charter member of the Gene England Million Miler Wall of Honor, which is made up of the company's truckers who have driven at least a million safe miles.

Nobody knows exactly how many miles Gene racked up in his lifetime, "because literally when he started driving they didn't have odometers in trucks," says Chad England. "There's speculation — did he drive 3 million, or 8 million, or something in between? Nobody knows."

What is known is that long-haul trucking brought genuine happiness to Gene England.

"His joy was going out on the truck and getting something done; that's what gave him gratification," says Chad England. "I once asked him if he'd rather go on a vacation to Hawaii or drive a truck to Maine. He didn't have to think about it. He said he'd rather drive a truck across the country — like that's ridiculous, why would you even ask me that?"

Gene England and his younger brother Bill England helped their father's company take a giant leap forward after both returned from serving in World War II (where Gene England was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery at the battle of Okinawa).

Neither of the Latter-day Saint boys from Utah smoked, so they spent the war years selling their cigarette rations. At war's end, they had accumulated $5,000 (about $90,000 today), which they used to buy C.R. England's first big truck.

Huge growth came in the 1980s when the next generation took over management. But Gene England (and his brother Bill England who died in 2018 at the age of 95), remained the heart and backbone of the enterprise, always present, always offering encouragement, always lifting everyone's spirits.

"I'm convinced the secret to his (Gene England's) longevity is that he always had a purpose," says Chad England. "He would wake up every day with a goal of something positive to accomplish. He just never stopped."

When Gene England was 85 and no longer responsible for daily responsibilities at the trucking company, he and Bill England got into the car business. They became certified auto dealers and would go to the auction to buy cars, which they would then lease to the trucking company's drivers.

Their leasing business quickly grew to include more than 1,000 vehicles, which could be found all over the United States. Sometimes, when a lessee had left the company or for nonpayment, it became necessary to repossess the vehicle. Gene appointed himself the re-po man. "He had a pickup and a trailer, and he'd drive wherever to pick up the car," says Dan England. "Sometimes they were in some pretty bad neighborhoods. But he'd say, 'Nobody will ever beat up a 100-year-old' — and nobody ever did."

The man who never retreated to a rocking chair was one of Utah's oldest men when his physical body finally wore out. He wasn't on pain pills, wasn't in pain, his family says, he just got more and more frail over a period of several weeks, and then he stopped eating. He passed away peacefully in the night on Nov. 13. The family was alerted by the hospice worker who was keeping watch.

"The caregiver was just sobbing when we got there," recalls Dan England. "He treated all his caregivers so well. We had to console her."

Among the personal items Dan England left his dad's house with that morning was a case of Mountain Dew that remains in his car's backseat. It was part of Gene England's stash. He never did quit.

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