In my junior year I was home room representative. I was in the Girls Chorus and we went all over singing. Deanne and Pat and I started singing as a trio and we were called upon for funerals, Lion’s Club meetings, assemblies, exchange assemblies and we got a “good” rating at the contest. I joined the Pep club and was Vice President. W really had a lot of fun marching at games.

For our Junior Prom I was in charge of advertizing and was elected as Chairman over the other kids. We really had fun decorating for our Prom. “Stormy Weather” was our theme and everything was beautiful. We had a mixed modern dance for the floor show and it was really beautiful. Aunt Alice sent me a beautiful pink formal that I wore. Lynn White was my date and I had a beautiful Gardenia Corsage.

I also sang the theme song with 7 other girls at the senior hop.

I got it for the girl with the “Most Pleasing Personality”. Which really thrilled me. I helped with the big carnival dance as I was on the Year book staff. Yes it was a wonderful year. One of the most wonderful things this year was y Church History class in Seminary. Mr. Wendle Johnson was my teacher and he was marvelous! I was President of the whole Seminary. “Let’s Live Life In a Sweet Key” was the theme of our graduation. I sang “The Lord’s Prayer” with a sextet. It was really wonderful.

Then came my Senior Year! This was real great. I was one of two girls that got it for “the Most Sparkling Personality”. I worked in the office one period and really enjoyed it. Pat Deanne and I sang ”Green Cathedral” for the Contest and got a 1 rating, which is the highest they give. We were really thrilled. Both the past years I was runner up for Student Body Office. I felt this was a privilege. The past two years I went to the Basketball tournament in Provo. I really had a lot of fun, and met a lot of wonderful kids. I was reporter on the ‘55 Pep Club staff. Being the shortest I was also the march leader. It was really a lot of fun. Although I never did belong to the Home Ec, twice I sang at their candle light ceremony.

The Yearbook staff or Chorus was always taking trips. I went on most of them and really had fun.

We were on activity days in Vernal for this picture.

Then my graduation. It was perfect. I graduated as an honor student. I gave the farewell address for the class and sang “The Lords Prayer” with Deanne Asay and Pat Gines. It all turned out simply beautiful! It was more or less a musical graduation. The one song the class sang that stands out in my mind was “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. It was really beautiful. Since then the Tabernacle Choir has made a record using the same version. Marta Morrill played for us on it and did a very beautiful job.

I gave this at our graduation...

FAREWELL

‘Tis sunset at Union

The eventide is nigh

The crimson smile is fading

Across the western sky

The time has come for parting

When friends must say farewell

And some may never meet again

Their fondest hopes to tell

The mountains shade the sunshine

And clouds obscure the light

Upon the sea of memory

There is no dreary night

Within our heart of friendship

There burns a steady glow

That lights the path before us

With thoughts of long ago.

And though our lives in future

may lie far, far apart.

The contact of each soul to soul,

Shall dwell in every heart.

An even thou we wander far

And other friends we make

The memory of the day agone

With us will always take!

Friends –

I had known who Phyllis was when I was 13. She was from Neola, so went to another grade school. I knew her through High School, but not real well until our Senior year. I went to the Basketball Tournaments with her and we were real close all year long. She was very special to me. After we had graduated I lived with her and Jannete Smithson and Sherene Henri in Salt Lake while we all worked. She was always very popular both with boys and girls. She was born April 14, 1937. She had two younger sisters, Arvella and Bonnie. She married frank slater in May of 1956. Their daughter Rona Laye was born February of 1957, and their daughter Julie was born in February of 1958.

Carol Memmott was one of the most wonderful girls I ever knew. Not only was she just beautiful but she had a brilliant personality.

She was always dressed in the most original and expensive clothes ever. All of which she worked for and bought herself.

There are many instances I can remember where Carol stood in the limelight, both on assemblies and in church work.

She was always there to be the first to offer congratulations or condolences where they were needed.

Carol will live in my mind as a “near perfect” girl as I’m sure she’ll be remembered in others hearts.

I went through school from the 6^th grade on with Josephine. We didn’t chase in the same gang at school but we did do a lot of things together in church.

Jo was a wonderful little gal all the time. I never remember seeing her when she wasn’t full of vigor and vim. She never seemed blue or cross, or did she ever seem to have boy-friend problems. I sang at her wedding reception in November of 1955. I lost contact with her after that.

Norman was my first date - November 2, 1950. He was a very wonderful guy and a wonderful friend all through school.

Life History of

Grandparents

William Thomas Chandler, Sr.

Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Written by Himself and his Wife

[Editors Note; Known as Bill throughout his life, He was born to Elbert Morton (known as E.M.) and Mary (Mammie) May Chandler¹. He died quickly on 4 Mar 91. Aged 84 years four months and four days. See also History of his Wife Ivy Turner Chandler on page 19]

Bill was born October 28, 1906 in Pawnee Oklahoma. The 4^th child and first boy in a family of twelve kids total². In his early life they moved real often as they never owned any place, just rented. So it was nearly every year, all over Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nebraska, and Kansas.

My folks moved from Oklahoma to Keno, Oregon when I was small, about four years old. The only thing I can remember is I tried to walk across the road without any shoes on and blistered my feet because the road was so hot. Another thing was our cow corral. It was on the other side of a creek, and when it got high, and we used a boat to go across.

We moved onto a 480‑acre farm in Oregon. We grew mostly grain and hay. All the work was done with horses. We had lots of horses. We could hitch up an eight horse team all at once besides a saddle horse and one team for the buggy. That was all they were ever used for as that was the only way we traveled in those days.

We lived on some other plot before we moved to Keno, but I can’t remember anything about it.

It was about one or two miles to Keno and ten miles to Klamath Falls where we did most of our trading. That was what the buggy team was for. In the winter, the buggy was school transportation. When it snowed, we would take the wheels off and put sled runners on.

Here Hazel Muriel Ella and I all went to school about three miles, in Keno. In fall and spring we walked. On this place there was a big lovely house with a picket fence and back yard full of pine trees, and a mountain quite close behind the house. All inside the picket fence was grass. This was the prettiest place that we ever lived and Pa [E.M.] wanted to buy it. But before he could raise the down payment it was sold.

We had a herd of dairy cows to take care of, and it took everybody to help. It seemed the biggest job was the plowing of the ground and planting the seed, then in the fall to bind the grain for thrashing. The last year we thrashed on this plot, we had twenty-two men for eleven days. The first year we used horsepower on the thrasher. The last year we used a steam engine. We thrashed about a hundred thousand bushels of grain the last year.

This place in Keno was sold, and we had to move. We sold all our cows but three and part of the horses, but seven. We kept the best to move with. We loaded our household and belongings and loaded on a train at Klamath Falls and headed for Price³, Utah.

Father put all our things in one freight car. The rest of the family went by Pullman. Father had went to look for a place before we left Oregon, so he knew where he was going. We landed in Price in the spring. I’m not sure, but I think it was April of 1917.

We unloaded and reloaded all our things on three wagons. One was what they call a double hitch. That is two wagons, one behind the other, Pa drove this with four horses. The other was a single wagon with three horses. Mom drove this and had kids bedding food and water. There was a skiff of snow on the ground and with rain and snow it took ten days to make the trip over the mountain to Duchesne⁴ and on to Randlett⁵.

There was a freight wagon on the road. We came to a place where the snow was so deep all the wagons were getting stuck. Father helped them all to get out, and then they just went and left us to get out the best way we could. We put all seven horses on one wagon at a time and made it through. We were not very long in catching up to the other wagons and just passed them by.

We landed at Randlett, North of the Uintah river where the old bridge used to be. We had bought a place south of Randlett. Pa had bought the place on sight unseen and got took on it. Imagine the disappointment to find no house on it. The guy had told him there was a little house to live in there. It was just boards and 2x4 no insulation and cold, but it did have a proper roof. I thought it was a rock farm. I think there was more rock per acre than any other place in the world. It was the kid’s job to haul the rock all the time. We would get them all off a piece of ground, then plow it and all you had was rocks. We had the best rock farm in the country.

The first thing we did was to build a house on the property. We lived here for ten years in spite of the rock farm and did prosper some. The farm now had 15 cows 15 or 20 good horses 35 geese pigs chickens a few sheep and goats, so we had meat milk and eggs.

We got a herd of milk cows. They had to be milked and fed twice a day. Everybody had their part of the chores.

At the age of twelve, I had an appendicitis. The doctors did very little operating in those days. He said to put ice packs on my side to keep down the infection. I laid on my back for six weeks with ice on my side. I was very skinny after that, but was never operated on.

In the winter, we put ice in what was called an icehouse. We would find a place on the river where the ice was good, cut it in pieces three feet long and eighteen inches wide and whatever the thickness of it was. Some years it got two feet thick. We would load it in a wagon, haul it to the house, place the blocks close together packed in snow. If there was no snow, we would crush ice up small and fill the cracks. We would leave a two‑foot space all around the edge and fill it full of sawdust or gilsonite and cover it over the top. We would have ice all summer.

I also hauled water to several families to use. I had a water sled pulled by one horse with one barrel on it. I would go to the river, fill the barrel, take it to the people’s place, pack it in the house and put it in their barrel a bucket at a time. I got twenty-five cents per barrel.

School had one teacher for all eight grades. Later, there were more teachers as there were more kids.

About this time they had a track meet for all the schools in the district. Ours was the smallest in number, but we took every event they had. We sure enjoyed sports.

The school had a basketball team. One game I remember in particular, we played Whiterocks. We beat them 22 to 18. Of the 22 points, I made 20 of them.

My last year of school Ivy Turner, of Deep Creek⁶ came to stay with the Rasmussen’s and go to school.

Her father ran a coal mine called Little Walter, about twelve miles north of LaPoint. I went up to see Ivy in the summer. I rode my saddle horse up and stayed all night and came home the next day.

Her father sold his coal mine shortly after, and he moved his family to California. I lost track of her for a period during this time.

About this time, my family moved to Ouray⁷ valley as the rock farm would not pay it’s way and we lost it.

Father filed on a homestead and built a log house on it. We lived there for a few years. It was south of Pelican Lake. All we ever grew on this place was a garden. We had watermelons a person could hardly lift. We would take a wagon and haul them down to feed them to the pigs.

About this time, I filed on a homestead one‑half mile south of this place. The next spring I heard from Ivy. They had moved back from California. Ivy had stayed in Murray with her Grandmother at 601 East Vine Street and went to work in a broom factory. I went to Murray to see Ivy, and while I was there, I got a job in the canning factory.

We got married that summer on August 17, 1929 at the Salt Lake courthouse, with Iva Newman and Earnest Turner as witnesses. We rented an apartment and set up housekeeping. We worked there until the fall, October, then came back to the folk’s place in Ouray valley, just in time to go deer hunting with my dad.

About this time, I, Dad E.M., and the boys went to the mountains up Mosby way and got pine logs and I built a two‑room log house on my homestead. The homestead had a two room board shack on it when I filed on it, enough boards to put a roof and floor in our homestead. We had to live on it six months out of the year. We did a little bit of everything in those days to make a living. Here we lived until Bea was six months old.

We cut cedar posts up by Duchesne for two winters. While up there, we got two fence contracts. We made good money off the fence jobs, and it was cash which was hard to come by at this time.

I took a fence job in Randlett to fence the cemetery. I had to take a Dodge car for half the pay. This was the first car we had. The tires were not very good and there was no spare. When we had a flat, we would take the tire off and go home on the wheel.

We had half hollow days for several years at this time. Every Saturday afternoon there was always a ball game and foot races. Every other Saturday we would go to some other place to play ball. We would get in Cal Jorgensen’s school bus and take off.

The depression got real bad about this time. We got a few commodities from the welfare and three dollars a month. That was all the cash we had. We hunted rabbits for our meat. We had a cow and a few chickens. We would take a few eggs to trade for what we needed. We got eleven cents a dozen. I hauled wood from [the] Green River to Randlett. I would go to the river one day and take it to Randlett the next day and would get three dollars a load for it.

We could not get any water to irrigate, so did not farm the homestead. I leased the Lyman place across the Duchesne River. We lived there for three Years.

We moved to the Wallace Jensen place where we lived for a Year. Then we moved on the Howard Stevens place and stayed there two years.

I worked on the state road in Gusher for W.W. Clyde for a summer.

We bought a new four door Chevrolet car in 1936 for $800.00 and decided to go to California where Ivy had been. We sold two cows and three horses to make the down payment. We had four children by now, Tom, Elva, Morton, and Beatrice. We put a trailer on the back of our car, loaded all our things and took off for Anderson [Redding], California. We went to Ivy’s Uncle George Potter’s place. We landed there with six dollars in my pocket. Uncle George had all his kids home to go to a dance, the fireman’s ball on the bridge on the highway. It was five bucks a ticket, we told them we wouldn’t go. He said don’t you have that much money, and I said yes, but I better keep it. He said if it will cramp you go anyway, I’ll pay your ticket, and you will stay with us till you get a job. Well we went and had a wonderful time.

So when we got there, the next day, Uncle George got me a job working for a friend of his Figernberg. He was a trucker and ran an egg route and a produce truck to Sacramento, and wanted me to farm his forty acres. He had a persimmon orchard. He paid us a small wage plus a small four room house. I milked for half the milk, he had two cows to milk, so we had all the milk we wanted. and we would pick up day old bread cakes cookies pies anything off the truck, where he delivered the eggs in Sacramento. I got all the eggs and bread we could use and a house to live in plus $35 per month. We lived there for about a year.

While here, we had a flood in the creek. We had sixteen inches of snow one night where they said it had never snowed before. The next day it started to rain on the snow. By the night, the creek was full. The orchard was in the curve of the creek. After dark, the creek overflowed and came down through the orchard. The house was on the lower end of the orchard. This is wet country so the house was up on three foot posts. I had gone to bed, and about eleven o’clock, Ivy woke me up. She said she could hear water running. She went to the door. The screen on the outside opened on the outside. She opened it and it touched water, so we was surrounded by water three feet deep. Out the back door and there was the orchard with three feet of water on forty acres. We sat there trying to decide what to do. We had a clothes line that ran from a tree by our house to a tree in the bosses yard on a knoll. I said if it gets any higher I will take the kids one at a time and hold on to the clothes line and take them across. The water never got any higher, by three a.m. the water was going down, and by morning it was down. By nine Ivy’s cousin came riding a mule and leading one. She said the mules were belly deep in water part way, but we can make it back. We folded all the bedding and put half on each mule, saying if the quilts get wet we can dry them. We put two kids and Ivy on one, Cliff and two kids on the other. I had a saddle horse to use on the place, so I could come any time I wanted to, and we went to Uncle George’s place a mile away. It took ten days to make the roads passable again after that. After that every time it rained we went to Uncle George’s place.

We pruned trees all winter. We had eighty acres to do.

The next spring, I traded our car for a one and a half ton truck. Which was paid for and we were still paying on the car. I went to help Ivy’s cousin haul scrap metal from a smelter. There were six or eight iron pots with four inch thick walls and five feet across. These were broken up with powder caps in small pieces. Then load them. I couldn’t lift anything bigger than a dinner plate. We took one load a day to Redding California.

We lived there about three months. Leo & Wennie Reynolds and their three kids were there. We camped on the river just below the dam. We were told that there were rattle snakes up here, we had lived over two months and never saw a one. Ivy came one day to call us to lunch. All seven kids went past several old buildings to get there, starting back they were holding hands, got by one old building and she sees a rattler seven or eight feet long, it was a mountain rattler. She started to scream. I say what’s the matter, and Leo says a snake. We both came running with 2x4s by then the snake has crawled under a piece of tin, and was he every playing a tune. We flicked the tin over and the coil was bigger than a large dishpan. He had nine rattles on it, Leo put them in a jar and we had them for years. Ivy says we go back to town today. We said, that’s the first snake you have seen, move back tomorrow or the next day. Well we stayed till the next day, Wennie and Ivy are taking the kids for a walk, didn’t get very far and there is a shot, sounded like from camp. They go back and there is a big black nigger sitting at the table, he says, I killed this eight foot rattler here by the kids swing, so I thought I had better tell you to watch the kids close. Well Ivy says that settles it we go back to town today. Again we say that is the first snakes you have saw. Tomorrow we move back to our place. So we stayed. That night when it started to get dark, Ivy is out with a stick and a flashlight looking for snakes, in every clump of grass or every sage brush. Needless to say she didn’t get much sleep that night nor did anyone else. So next day we load up and go back to town.

When this was done, I built a camper on the back of the truck. I think we probably had one of the first campers. We built two beds in the end next to the cab, three and a half feet wide, with windows between to see out front. Also a bigger window on each side and back could open for ventilation and cool air. There were clothes closets cupboards and a table. We loaded all our things and took off for Coos Bay, Oregon where Ivy had a cousin working in a saw mill.

We went to a logging camp on the Coos River. They had a dam in the river made of planks, the only one I have ever saw. They had pilings drove into the ground to hold the planks. We made camp in a camping area. I went to look for work.

The first place I came to was where they where they were unloading truckloads of logs into a splash pond of water and floating them downstream. I went out, all the logs had to be big end down river, I had never been around this kind of work but someone told me they all had to be big end down stream. They had a big splash pond and it was nearly full. I watched the work for a while, and the boss showed up. I asked for a job. He said they did not need a man right now and said to come back in a day or two. Being nimble on my feet picked up a cant hook and jumped on a floating log. I stayed there all afternoon; and helped unload logs. That evening he came back and told me to come back at eight a.m. in the morning to go to work, he was really impressed with me. He also gives me a card and said get anything you need from the company store and we’ll take it out of your check.

When we landed here, we had $3.65 and a few groceries. We were sure glad to get the job. The company had a commissary where we could get groceries. We had a tent and soon bought another one and put boards around the sides and put them end to end. We had a nice summer home. It was close to the creek.

I got $1.11 and hour and worked a sixteen‑hour day. I was making real money for these days, back home it would be $5 a day, and lucky to get that much. They really liked me. I started out at the bottom of jobs and worked my way up. I tried all of the jobs. The boss would let me do whatever I wanted to do.

One day a man never showed up for work. That was a top job, loading truck. I told the boss I could do it. He said it was a Swede’s job; that I was not big enough, but he gave me a try. The tongs we used weighed a hundred and twenty-five pounds. They always set them on the ground then picked them up and put them on a log. After the first try, I decided there should be an easier way. I caught the tongs in the air and laid them on the log. I just about worked the Swede to death until he done it my way. We were loading a truck every thirty minutes for sixteen hours a day. We had the fastest crew on the mountain.

While here, we had a forest fire. It started close to where I was working. We saw it when it was about three feet across. Before we could get shovels to it, it was twenty feet across. We just about had it surrounded when a whirlwind hit it and picked the fire up and took it down a ridge and scattered it for a mile down the ridge. Within thirty minutes, it was out of control.

We went to work saving the equipment. We worked seventy-two hours to protect the equipment until relief help arrived, then we got a four-hour break, then went back to help control the fire.

Ivy had to keep the tents wet to keep them from catching on fire. We were camped about four miles from the fire, and with the loss of millions of board feet of logs that were ready to load, this fire broke the logging company. I had worked here for about a year and got real good at all jobs in the timber, and could pick my job so I got the biggest pay and only new at it. I never had any trouble making friends with any boss. Some of the men were mad because I got the job they were working for and me only a new hand.

We had two tents, one twelve by twenty and one sixteen square. Had two homemade cupboards with places to store our food supply. In the big tent in front of it we had an area roofed with a picnic table and out side barbeque under the roof. There was all kinds of lumber and corrugated tin they had moved out in a hurry and only moved part of the building.

We decided to go back to home for a visit after the fire, at Christmas time. We ask the boss if we can go home for Christmas. He said yes but be back by Jan 1^st as there is a strike called and it should be over by then. We spent time with my folks and Ivy’s Dad Ivan Turner and sister Vera. After our visit, we decided to go back to Oregon. Ivy’s father and Vera, decided to go back with us. Ivy’s father had a cow he wanted butchered, so we canned it and a lot of vegetables. Nearly two hundred cans of meat, and a hundred of vegetables. We had a very good supply of food. We had built bunk beds in the camper. We stacked the cans under the beds.

We went back over the John Pay road through Oregon. When we came to the coast range, it had snowed. We stopped to inquire of the road. They said it was closed for the winter. It was four hundred miles around, so we decided to try the mountain. They had plowed the road to the top of the mountain, but weren’t going to touch the other side till spring. When we got to the top, there was fourteen inches of snow and it was night, so we just kept going. It was downhill. We had to go very slow. Took us driving all night, to get to the bottom, but I would say we were the last over the mountain that winter.

When we got back to the timber camp on January 2^nd it was still closed On Strike, there were no jobs. Everything was shut down. Hundreds of men out of work. We rented a house in Coos Bay, Oregon, a mile out of town, was a real pretty place. I and Ivan searched around and found a job cutting some wood and made it last as long as we could, it lasted about a month. This bought flour and sugar corn meal and a case of canned milk. Also a case of mixed vegetables, so we are good for several months now.

The great depression is really on people are going hungry didn’t bother us too much as we have all this canned meat and vegetables. I never saw so many folks going hungry as I saw in the next two months. Everyone we knew had always worked for wages in timber or saw mill, they didn’t know how to cook a meal without going to the store.

Ivy’s father got to going down to the dock where the fishing boats came in and any of the fish that was frozen, they would give away, and he was always there to get his share. We had plenty of fish to eat, and some for the neighbors. With what we had canned, we were not worried like a lot of people.

Then the government starts giving away commodities, once a week. Each family was given so much. I said much, but it’s so little to live on for a week. Three cans of meat ten pounds of corn meal and a box of dried milk. Each family would take a sack to carry their things home. Ivy’s father would always go along with all the neighbors. Ivan and Ivy both stood in line to get an allotment then gave most all of it to neighbors as they still went hungry and were having a hard time to live.

One night we were playing cards at the Coates their baby was crying. Ivan says what’s amatter with Garry, is he sick. He is hungry and we had to put him to bed without any supper. He gets up and goes home, about a block, and gets them a box of groceries. When we start home he says maybe when ours is gone we can get some more. It’s an awful feeling to see people going hungry.

I never saw so many people going hungry. Our neighbor had a twelve year old boy picked up for stealing pop bottles out of peoples garages. The judge asked him what he did with the money? I bought a loaf of bread to give to my sister was the answer. The judge turned him loose.

At that time we could have bought the place we lived for $800. We even talked about buying it, but decided we didn’t want to live that close to town.

By summer, things were real tough. The State decided to give all people out of work six weeks unemployment for $25 per week. They were so slow getting checks, they all came at once.

We decided this was going home money, so we packed up and started for home. We went to Portland, and we came to a place where they needed olive pickers, so we decided to try our hand at olive picking. We worked at it all one day, and we really got rich, only $2.75 for the days work. We went to the boss to get our pay, they said they only paid at the end of the week. We gave him a hard luck story that we needed it for groceries, so he paid us and we was through with olive picking.

We headed up to Salem, which is known as the world hop country. We heard they wanted sixty thousand pickers, so we decided to try hop picking. We did a little better here. We stayed two or three days and left.

We went up the Columbia River, and when we go to the falls, the Indians were fishing. They had “so” many days to catch what the tribe needed to dry. After that they would sell to the cannery. I wanted a fish. They said they would, but could not sell yet. I looked around and found a half breed and told him what I wanted. He pointed at his camp and told me to drive down there, and he would give me a fish. I got a salmon for a dollar, and he threw in a steel‑head trout for nothing. Ivan was awful worried as he was afraid they would pick me up for having hot fish. We stopped in a camp picnic area to have lunch. A car pulled in right beside us and he said “there they are.” But they had stopped to have lunch too. We took off and that night canned the salmon. We got forty cans of salmon. We ate the trout. It was about eighteen inches long. We did enjoy the salmon when we got home.

While at Coos Bay, we had picked blackberries and canned them. We sure enjoyed them after we got home. We carried everything we needed to can with us.

When we got back from the coast, all my sisters and brother were married but Cliff and Orvil. Dad and Mom were living on the old place where our kids grew up, and Pa was wanting to go to Moab way prospecting. Mom wanted to go spend the winter with the girls in California. She said if her health was better she would go with Pa but her back and legs hurt her so bad, she was afraid to tackle that kind of life at her age. So she went to California to stay with Roxie and Grace. So for them they lived alone, but Mom sent Pa every cent the kids gave her, also everything she got that she thought he could use like wool blankets and wool socks. She wasn’t happy without Pa. For years she spent her summers with us and her winters in California with the kids there.

Dad wanted our tents and all our camp outfit. He said he would leave us his stock and the lease on the place for eight months. He left a few chickens, three or four horses broke to work, and eight or ten un‑broke horses. He had two cows we sold to get some to go on and get a little for Mom to have on hand . Pa died in 1951 and Mom died in 1956, they are both buried in the valley they helped to settle^a.

The Chandler’s were all the entertainment the valley had for years. Mom on piano, Dad on banjo, me on saxophone. They played for all entertainment in the ward, both Randlett and Leota⁸ as well as the new Avalon⁹ ward.

I leased the Affot place across the Duchesne river. We had it for two or three years.

Then we went over to the Barney place on the bench. We moved around from place to place. I worked on the ditch to help out with the water assessment. Sometimes I would ride ditch for the summer. When I first rode ditch, I got a hundred and fifty dollars per month. Last year I got fifteen hundred a month [1981].

The depression is in full swing, people are going hungry, Roosevelt is now President. He made it possible for the head of all families to have a ham, also $3.00 a month. That don’t sound like much, but butter is fifteen cents a pound, eggs ten cents a dozen, hamburger ten a pound. Everyone is going hungry but the Chandlers. We had a throw line in both Duchesne and Green rivers. These were checked every day, and re‑baited mostly with magpie meat, as it is the best fish bait, as it is real red. Also the boys all hunted rabbits both jacks and cotton tails. The cotton tails were fried or roasted, jacks were boned out and ground with onions and other spices. We made lots of mince meat out of ground jacks. We always had our own milk butter eggs and cheese. Cottage, also yellow cheese. We would save milk for two or three days in the ice house in five gallon cans until we got enough to fill a twenty-five gallon copper kettle. Then dad [E.M.] would press it in a press he made. Made real good cheese. We also made our own clothes in them days. Out of anything we could find. Also made our own soap.

We had a good outdoor cellar, built in the ground it could keep most vegetables in it all winter, like apples, carrots, beets, turnips, also canned and dried all kinds of garden stuff. We always had a big garden. It was got the hard way as no summer water in the canal so put gallon or half gallon cans by all the plants in hills like squash, tomatoes, egg plant, peppers and cucumbers. These cans were filled every other day with water hauled from the river, unless it was windy or awful hot, then every day. Corn and potatoes would grow with only early water. Corn was only one ear and it was as thin as the stalk. But we always had plenty. We always pork and beef that we raised. Mom and Pa always made a barrel full of sour crout and another of pickles. Dad E.M. always made a barrel of corned beef and cured the rest. We went to Verna¹⁰ l in fall to pick apples for the cellar. These were sorted once a week to take anything with spots on them, these were canned, as now some bottles were getting empty.

About this time father [E.M. Chandler] decided to go prospecting. He wanted our camp equipment we had. I let him have what he wanted, and he left the place. He was supposed to buy it from me to pay for the deed. We had to pay $1500 for it. I tried to borrow the money to pay for it, but could not get it. I told the fellow I could not get that much money, he lived in Texas. He wrote back that he was very sick and if I would send him $500, he would send me the deed. I went back to the bank of Vernal and got the money from M.J. Mehger. That was the first of a lot of business with the bank. At one time I borrowed $10,000 from him. He was a real good banker.

I spent one summer in the mountains cutting the trees out of Whiterocks and Cliff Lake for the contractor that was building the dam for the ditch company. While at Cliff lake, Vera and Kenny and family came to visit. We decided to take them with us for a week. They drove their car to Paradise Lake. From there we had to go by jeep. There were too many to ride at once, so I told the kids to start up the road and be sure to stay with the road.

We loaded the camper and took off up the road, expecting to catch up to the kids. It took about three hours to drive to the lake. After we got half way there, I knew something was wrong but did not say so to the others, but started to hurry more. We got to camp and no Kids. I hurried and unloaded and took off back down the road. It did not take me three hours to drive back.

When I got back to paradise, the kids had just got back there. They were sure scared. After they had got started up the road, they decided to take a cutoff and had got lost. How they ever found their way to where they started from, I don’t know.

On my way back, I said a little prayer asking the Lord to guide the kids back to where they started so we could find them. When we got back, Ivy and Vera were sure something had happened, but all was well.

We spent the week there fishing. You will never know how enjoyable life is in a place like this until you try it.

We went back to Cliff Lake to open the head gate two or three years later. We went on horses. We took our bed and our groceries on two horses. We were going to stay a week. We took a piece of canvas for a tent. When we got to the end of the road there was a jeep there. As I rode up to it, there was a man asleep in the jeep. I told Ivy that it looked like Morton. She said it is Morton, and she said “Morton what are you doing here?” He said, “We are fishing.” Him and Roy and two other men had came out from Salt Lake to fish.

We made our camp down to the next Lake. We put a pole between two trees and stretched canvas over it for a tent. We did all right until it started raining in the night. Ivy told me to move over, her side of the bed was wet. I told her nothing to worry about so was mine.

I had to clean the trash out of the spillway. We stayed five days. Ivy fished all the time. We have made several trips in there since. The forest service has blocked the road after we got the Reservoir done, so we can not use the jeep road anymore.

One summer we took a trip to Fairbanks, Alaska. We drove a chevy car. We had taken camp outfits. We each had an air mattress and a quilt for a bed. We took canned food from home, so it did not cost us much to live on the road. Gas for the car was our big expense. Gas at home was twenty five cents then, yet we paid as high as seventy five cents in some places on the road. You would not pass a gas station without filling up, the stations were so far apart.

We went to visit Hazel and Orvil. They both lived in Fairbanks. It took us six days to drive up. We stayed at Whitehorse one night to camp. It was a very pretty place. We just got supper started and the mosquitoes move din. We could not keep them off what we were cooking. They were so bad, we threw it all out and took off. We stopped several places, but they were just as bad, so we drove all night.

We got there on the third of July. We were gone from home thirty one days.

The next trip we went to Iowa where Vera lived. We stayed there a week and then left for Oklahoma City where Uncle Tom lived and spent a week with him and Marie, then we left for home.

We sold our place we had bought and bought another one where we still live. Things have changed a lot in the time we have lived here. We sold our place for $20,000. Today it is worth $150,000, so we sold at the wrong time.

Somewhere back along through the pages we had two more children, Earnest and Jim. They live here next to us. Elva, our oldest daughter, lives here too. They have built homes here by us. We are called Chandler Hill¹¹.

Obituary and Funeral Services

RANDLETT, Utah: William T. Chandler age 84, beloved Husband, Father, Grandfather, and Great Grandfather, died March 4, 1991 at LDS Hospital from complications.

He was born October 28, 1906 in Pawnee Oklahoma to Elbert and Mammie Chandler. Moved to the Ouray Valley when he was a young man. Married Beatrice Ivy Turner August 17, 1929. Marriage solemnized in Salt Lake LDS Temple in 1946.

Survived by wife Ivy, Randlett; Sons; Thomas Sandy; Earnie, Ibapah; daughters; Elva Dean, Randlett; Beatrice Davis, Worland Wyoming; 23 Grandchildren; 36 Great Grandchildren. Also survived by one brother Clifford Chandler, Running Springs California; Four Sisters, Blanche Rasmussen, Las Vegas Nevada; Grace Wardle, Calamessa California; Roxie Wardle, Garden Grove California; Iva Newman, Salt Lake city. Preceded in death by seven brothers and sisters, also two sons, Morton and James Chandler.

Funeral Services will be Saturday March 9, 1991 in the Randlett LDS Branch Chapel at 1 p.m. Friends may call at the chapel on Saturday from 10:30 until 12:30 p.m. prior to the services at 1 p.m. interment: Avalon cemetery.

Funeral Services; Family Prayer- Keith Chandler; Invocation Don Jorgensen; Music- Reed & Carolyn Bailey “Beyond the Sunset”; Eulogy- Lynn Chandler; Speaker- Arvene Cooper; Speaker- Rod Chandler; Remarks- Bill Harris; Benediction- Willard Wall; Pallbearers- Terry Davis, Cort M^CKee, Todd Chandler, Craig M^CKee, Lynn Chandler, Chris Chandler. Honorary Pallbearers- Keith Chandler, Rod Chandler. Dedication of grave- Reed Stanley; Interment- Avalon Cemetery^b

Notes for William Thomas Chandler Sr.

The Story of

Beatrice Ivy Turner (Chandler)

Grand-mother of Keith M. Chandler

Written By Herself

Written in 1977 to Celebrate Her 50^th Wedding Anniversary

[Editors Note; Beatrice Ivy Turner Chandler was known as Ivy throughout her life, she was born 13 August 1910 and died on 1 June 1996. Aged 85 years nine months and nineteen days. See also History of her Husband William Thomas Chandler on page 9]

Before I start my story, I must give a little family history. Ivan Vane Turner, my dad, was born in Onsborrow Kentucky in 1882 to George Washington Turner and Georgeann Yates Turner¹. He was the oldest of six kids². His folks were converts to the Mormon Church. Before that, they were Masons. Grandma belonged to the Eastern Star ladies organization of the Masons. When dad was fourteen years old, they left their home in Kentucky and came to Utah were they went to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity, on 15 Sep 1898.

The fourteen years Dad [Ivan] spent on the Ohio River, he learned to excel in boating. He could go anywhere in a rowboat, also an excellent swimmer and fisherman. The rest of dad’s early life was spent in Murray. They lived at 601 Vine Street, Murray. His [Fathers (George)] profession was a Steam Engineer.

My mother Harriot Elva Potter Turner, was born in Dover³, Utah. She was the seventh child⁴ in a family of thirteen born to Wallace Edwin and Harriot Susan Kempton Potter⁵.

My father and mother were married on 6 Jan 1904 in Salt Lake City. They were early pioneers to the Uintah Basin about 1906 or 1907. I can see why they wanted to move here as it is a Beautiful place, with the mountains and streams, many places to fish and hunt. In all our traveling around, I have never found a place I liked better for a year around climate and things to do. None of dad’s folks [George Turner and Georgeann Yates] could never understand why he wanted to come here, but at this time most of mother’s folks [Wallace Potter and Harriot Kempton] moved here. My Dad and George Potter [Harriot’s older brother] came together the first time by team and wagon and brought their first load of belongs. The trip one way took about ten days. The next trip they brought their families.

Dad’s first homestead was about where the Ballard⁶ Church house stands now^a then North to the hill, but he was getting out wood and posts north of LaPoint in the Deep Creek⁷ area. And, he found a place he liked better. So he gave up the place he had and re‑filed on Deep Creek. Dad moved his family to Deep Creek when I was very small. Here we lived for about twelve years in a three room log house with a dirt roof. They now had three kids, having buried a boy just older than me^b, just before I was born^c, in this humble home, five more children were born, making a total of nine‑five girls and four boys in this order: Bernice [Pronounced Burnis], Harlan, [Jessie] Arnold [(died)], Ivy, Wanothel, Hurley, Wilbur, Earnest, Vera⁸. We had a happy home but a busy one. One of my earliest memories is of threading green beans on a string to hang up and dry.

I was not quite three when I moved there and I remember so well getting lost in a cornfield. Seemed like to me it was hours, but mother said that it was probably twenty to thirty minutes as I wouldn’t stay in one row long enough for Bernice to find me.

My mother was a good homemaker and our log cabin was a happy home. Mother played the organ and we had one in our home. She would play and we all helped her sing, mostly church songs, as she was very religious. One song she sang a lot and there were tears in her eyes lots of the time, was “Oh Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight.” Later I realized, this was because my brother Harlan ran away so much. Even from early childhood.

Mother was very talented as all the Potters were. Some of her talents were music, art, homemaking, and sewing. She had taken a correspondence course in sewing early in life so she could make anything. One time Dad’s folks had sent a box of clothing to make over, and mother made her a dress out of a serge overcoat, trimmed it in brown satin. She wore it to a dance. Everyone was bragging about her new dress. Dad told them she made it our of an overcoat. He said he was just bragging about what she could do, but mom was real mad at him. She didn’t want people to know she made it. I am sure they must of had their quarrels, but we kids never heard them. There was lots of love in our cabin. One time when Grandma [Harriot Susan] Potter was staying with us, we had a bad storm and the house leaked. She was getting after Dad and he told her, Well, mother, when it’s raining I can’t fix it. After it quits, it don’t need fixing.” After the scolding he got, needless to say, we fixed the roof.

I have a dearly beloved sister Wanothel or Wanda as we called her. It fell her lot early in life to help mother in the home and tend the newest baby at the time, and from earliest memories I have, I did the outside chores: feeding chickens, bringing in the wood, carrying water, anything a small child could do. I learned to milk when I was seven years, but we always found some time play. We had two play houses. One was the hop house, it was about a twelve by twelve woven wire over top and all. In early spring this would be completely covered with hops. The hop house had two purposes—play house, and mom gathered the hops. We always had a hop pillow. This we used if we had ear ache or head ache. We warmed the hop pillow to put us to sleep. As a play house it was great; but our best play house was down by the creek in the willows. Here we made our furniture out of rocks, boards, or anything we could find. Any cans or bottle lids, everything was taken to the play house. We always had a few things sent from Aunt Ivy’s that her daughter Wandaquin had got tired of (dolls & dishes). Many happy hours were spent here. We could always do our washing in the creek.

Dad worked in the mines off and on all his life. Many is the time we got very little for Christmas, but they were happy times. We would go with Dad to the hills for a tree, decorate it with popcorn threaded on a string, rose berries that we gathered along the creek—also on a string, colored chains made at school, fancy cookies, and whatever else we could find. We always got some candy and nuts and whatever the folks could make for us. Dad always made the boys new sleds and tops he could whittle out of wood. Mother made clothes for everyone, and doll clothes from the scraps. One time we got cradle for our doll made from a shoe box. The lid made the rockers. Always happiness and love for one another.

One time when Earnie was about three years old (He was always a chatter box. I think he must of been born talking), we couldn’t get him and Wilbur to sleep, so Vern Sheffer, Bernice’s husband, dressed up with some wool for whiskers and a stocking cap and looked through the window. When Earnie saw him he said, “Oh Santa, am I glad to see you. Go up to the hay stack and feed your reindeers. Mom has some milk and cookies for you. We will be a sleep in a minute.” And I don’t think either of them moved the rest of the night or said another word. But, we couldn’t convince him that Christmas was only one night, so Dad put a horse manure biscuit in his stocking. Was he excited. Said Santa brought him a horse, but he got away.

Some years we spent Christmas with the folks in Bennett with Amasa, Arnold and George Potter. These are special times and memories. As I have said, Amasa played the fiddle, George the harmonica, Arnold would find something he could beat or drum on. Everyone would sing or dance or just listen, then the grownups would play cards a lot.

Sometimes we spent Christmas with the Labrum’s, Jess and Bell and family, as they had a bigger house than we did. We always played games or cards here. Sluff, Rummy, and Hi‑Five were most popular. When I was about ten, the folks sent in the catalog and got me a new bridle. I was the happiest kid on earth right then. Some of the other things we got were over boots, leggings, and wool socks; also mittens and caps. Whatever they could afford, but they were happy times for me.

As far back as I can remember, I have loved the out of doors and rode my horse. Before I was very big, I would herd the cows, go to the neighbors to borrow, and visit with my best friend, Mable Johnson. There wasn’t too many girls my age. Mable lived on the head of the creek. Ella Smith lived way down the creek. Me in the middle. I was a little older, but we three were always the best friends all through school. I still consider Mable one of my best friends.

One of my earliest memories was going with my brother Harlan behind him on a horse to the sheep camp for bum lambs. I couldn’t of been more than four then. We knew every trail, every spring, every hill & hollow for miles around; and we always stayed for dinner at the camp—fried mutton, sour dough biscuits, and gravy. To this day, I like all three. We usually hit all the herds around two or three times a week. We never got a lamb every day, but usually, sometimes two or three. We had lots die, but usually raised anywhere from thirty to fifty. We had one Holstein cow that always gave three or four gallons of milk at a milking, all through the summer while feed was good. My sister Wanda never cared much for the horses or out of doors like I did. She would only ride a horse if necessary to get where she wanted to go, but me, I was just like a mountain sheep. I covered the hills after cows or horses, always bare feet in summer, on a horse if I could catch one, but by the time I was five or six, you couldn’t of lost my any where on Deep Creek.

Dad did lots of tracking and from the time Harlan and I were quite small, he would let us go along on our pony bare back. He had a pair of hounds called them Punch and Judy. They were both big, but Judy was a greyhound and she could run down a coyote easy. Punch was a real big dog and slower, but would kill anything. Put them after a coyote and follow Judy’s baying, and cut corners, pretty soon we catch up, then Punch would kill it. He used to trap all kinds of animals. Caught several black bear, coyotes, lots of bobcats, badgers, muskrats, and a few beaver, lions, and weasels, anything to make a dollar. I loved to do anything out of doors. With the stock, I always broke all the little colts to lead, the big ones too. If I could get a rope on them and get the other end over a snubbing post, they stayed tied up until I could handle them.

I don’t think I ever talked back to my Mom or Dad in my life, and I loved them both so much. Dad whipped me twice. Both times I needed it. One time in May, mother was in Vernal⁹ with the smaller kids (just before Wilbur was born) at Grandma Potter’s, and Dad started after the horses. He said I don’t want you and Harlan playing in or around the creek, still snow in the canyons. I was seven or eight at the time. Well, he wasn’t gone long and came to look for us—found us playing in the creek. He had a rope in his hand and he gave us a good one that we needed. The other time we were playing after school till dark. He warned us several times then we got it with the razor strap.

One day during the war, Winter of 1917 or 1918, everyone had the flue. Most of our family had it at once, but Wanda and I were the last ones to get it. We really had our hands full for a week taking care of the sick and doing the chores. She was six and I was eight. Mother stayed up and around until Bernice got to feeling better, but Dad was the first one down and the last one up. For two or three weeks, he was bed fast, ate very little food, but would drink current juice and apricot juice. One day, Alf Johnson come from the head of the creek six or seven miles with team and wagon to break a road from the coal mine about two miles into our place; had all his horses leading behind the wagon to brake the road. We had a bad storm with eighteen inches or two feet of new snow and we hadn’t been out for a week or more. He also bought a fifth of whiskey. Now days the Doctors say that won’t help, but from then on Dad started to improve. Mother fixed him a hot toddy every night and he would sleep instead of raving all night.

I have always felt like he saved my Dad’s life. I have always been thankful for the things the Johnson’s did for us. Many is the times that they led a string of horses down the creek to break the trail about two and a half miles so we could go up the creek instead of around by the Government coal mine. This they did spring and fall. Made it a couple of miles closer to school. I might add here that Mable, his grand daughter was my very best friend all my life. I used to ride my pony up there every time I got a chance. Mable ‘s mother, Cloe, would always fix me something nice. Sometimes, I would ride down the creek to see Ella Smith. I think I was the oldest of the three but we grew up together, Ella has been dead many years now. I grew up chasing the horses if Dad needed one, and handling the cows. Dad always had a few to look after for folks and friends in Bennett. These took more care as they never stayed with the milk cows; but I got a few extra dollars. By now I knew every spring and stream and the face of the mountain, where the feed was best at different times of the year, where the horses and cows were most apt to be. We always went bare footed in Summer, but they would take us to town in the fall to buy our winter shoes—usually split leather, boys lace up above the ankle. These were both for warmth and wear.

Mothers three brothers still lived around. Uncle Amasa and Arnold still at Bennett, George and Abby had moved to Neola. About this time Uncle Arnold and Aunt Hazel moved in with us for one winter. They built a lean‑to on our house for a bedroom and we all ate together well. They moved some fruit and vegetables into our cellar. I went to the cellar most of the time and I opened a bottle of Aunt Hazel’s sweet pickles. I had ate most of it when Bernice caught me and told Mom. Well, I had to get the bottle, take it back, and tell her what I had done. I must of been eight or nine then, and it was a hard thing to do. I cried and coaxed Mom, but she said take the bottle to her. I finally did. She said, “Oh, that’s all right. Just ask me or bring a bottle up for dinner.”

Amasa and Arnold played for lots of dance at the old schoolhouse—Amasa on the fiddle. The Taylor’s played the guitar—just anybody they could find to play. Everybody went, kids and all, always had pot‑luck lunch and a very good time.

Dad used to tell me I would chase my pony ten miles to get to ride her two. He was right about the miles we covered as whoever went to look for the horses might cover from Johnson’s to the top of Little Mountain, then if the hobbles were broke, chase them home. So we grew up fast on foot like the Indians. Speaking of Indians, we saw quite a few usually in early spring or fall. One time Mom and Dad and the smaller kids were in Vernal to be gone a few days and three big fat Indians come up to our gate, the trail that went down creek, and just sat there. Bernice and Harlan both started on me to go let them through before it got night. Finally they won. I go out with hair in braids, bib overalls on. One of them said, “Are you a boy?” I said yes. They sure did laugh. This broke the ice. They wanted something to eat, so I pulled them some turnips. They went on down the trail.

Wanda had a real bad scare; she was about nine. She had been sent to the neighbors to borrow something from the Perry’s on the south about two miles. On the way home, she heard a noise in the brush. She said it sounded like someone screaming. She wanted to go see, but the folks had always told us never to go into the brush for anything so she ran on home. Dad said it was probably a lion sure enough. Perry’s killed one the next few days along the creek.

It’s a wonder that some of us wasn’t seriously hurt as we were thrown from horses every few days. Horse jumps sideways, off we go. If it bucks you off again, then ever so many times you just fall off. Never anything worse than skinned elbows and knees. Another thing I learned to do real young was to fish. Harlan and I started to fish in the creek for suckers with a lasso made of a piece of screen wire tied on the end of a stick. We would spend hours getting one out, getting the lasso behind the gills then jerk, land him on the bank. As we got older, we tagged along behind my Dad to help carry his fish. Was nothing for him to catch a flour sack full in a day. He was the best fisherman I ever saw. I don’t think to my knowledge he was every beaten. All his relatives tried for years to beat him. As us kids got older, he would cut a willow pole and tie a line and fly on it for us. He never used anything but flies. Guess that’s why I love fly fishing.

All my life I have spent time with Harlan, looking after him, as he ran away when he was real young. He would go to the neighbors and stay all night, but if I was with him I could get him home at night. When he was gone, either Bernice or me had to go look for him. Usually me on my pony. Most of the time I kept it either staked or hobbled, but she was constantly getting loose. So It become mine and Harlan’s job to herd the cows, round‑up the horses, do the milking and other chores—by now we had several cows.

One thing I forgot to mention so far was that I owe my life to my sister Bernice and brother Harlan. As the cows had been turned out to get a drink, they didn’t come back. So, Mom bundled Harlan and me up in leggings over boots, everything to keep warm, and sends us after them—three cows and a calf. Well, they had decided to go down the creek to Perry’s about two miles, so foolish kids, we take their trail and follow them in fifteen or twenty inches of loose snow. We were wet and cold when we got there. They dried us off, getting us ready to go home. About this time Bernice come after us. Start the cows home, us following. About half way I get cold and tired. I kept falling down. Bernice keeps butting me with her foot, making me get up and go on. I remember crying and saying, “let me lay down and rest; I am not cold any more.” The next thing I remember was mother putting my feet and hands in cold water and me screaming, “It hurts”—to draw out the frost. Bernice and Harlan had taken turns carrying me on their backs which was quite a job as I was past eight then. I never forgot the pain of getting them thawed out. My feet were froze, so when they put them in water, ice froze on my feet. Then Mom rubbed them with Watkins Liniment several times a day, but it was two weeks or more before I could walk on them. They were red, swollen and sore.

Many the times we stopped and built a fire and we very seldom left without a pocket full of matches.

With all the work we had to do, we found lots of time to play.

Seems like Harlan and I were always wet from playing in the creek. Sometimes Wanda was with us. Or we were going rabbit hunting with a flipper and a barb wire to twist them out after they ran down a hole. Mother was always glad when we brought home rabbits as it helped with meals. Many times Mother spanked us and scolded us for leaving our assigned jobs to do things we wanted to do. This I still do—what I want to first—the rest when it has to be done.

Some of the other things we did that was fun at the time, was taking the entrails out of a rabbit and rolling it in a ball of the mud, then roasting it in the fire for several hours. Then break the mud ball. The hair and hide will stick to the mud. The meat comes out clean and very good. Also corn thrown in a fire with the shucks on is very delicious, also onions and potatoes.

We had a spring about a mile from our house; about half way up a hill. It was Dad and Mom’s dream to build a new house at the foot of the hill and pipe water in for pressure. We had a big garden planted here and when Harlan and I were sent here to weed it, we always found something to cook for dinner in the fire. Many of a Sunday picnic was shared with all the family watering or weeding the garden, or just having fun. We never seemed to worry about what we would do. We made our own entertainment. Of course, there were parties and dances most every week and everyone went, brought a pot‑luck lunch, and fun times for everyone.

One time when I was about nine, we had a real bad winter and all the cows had to eat after February was what Dad would carry home from the mine, where the guys that come after coal would feed their horses and leave the scraps. This he brought home from work in a sack so we had to quit milking her. Well, about May, Harlan and I made our first trip to the sheep camp and came home with two bum lambs. Dad says “We can’t buy milk for no lambs. So after crying a while I took my lambs to the coral and milked the old cow, got about a half cup, it looked just like water, and fed the lambs. Next morning one was dead, but we milked the cow again. Milked her three or four times that day and fed the lamb each time I got a few more squirts. By the time the herds quit lambing, Harlan and I had thirty lambs and enough milk for the family besides. Now the feed was good and it was late fall before she had her calf. So if you have enough determination and stay with it long enough, you can finally get milk.

Another thing that stands out in my mind was the good times we had with the Arnold boys. There were four of them. They lived about one and a half miles to the north of us on Crow Creek. They were the first family I remember on this place. Wilbur and Bill were older, but Manford (or Kay), and Kimble were our age. Me being a tom‑boy, Harlan and I mixed right in. We went by their place to school. One day we gathered pine cones before they were ripe, put them in my stocking cap, got pine gum on two braids as big as your wrist. Well, my head was washed in coal oil, turpentine, then just combed and pulled out. Dad would never let us get our hair cut.

Another thing, every day for a month before Easter, all the Easter eggs were hidden by Easter time about a bushel basket full. To color eggs in them days, we used onion skins, rabbit brush, cedar bows, and beet juice. For years after, the Arnold’s left the creek, I couldn’t eat eggs. Ate too many every Easter until I got sick.

Another day, we played hookie from school and spent the day throwing rocks carried from the hill at a badger caught in one of Harlan’s traps. Needless to say, we spent the next Sunday carrying the rocks out of the hay field. Lots more work than carrying them down. Another job Harlan and I took on about this time was going to the store for groceries once a week on our ponies. At first Harlan always went with me. We always rode Indian style, no saddles, but Harlan could never go alone as he never got back the same day and sometimes I would have to go find him. Sometimes Wanda went with us. Bud Mullins was the store keeper then. It was around twenty-five miles round trip.

We would carry a seamless sack with the necessary things that Mother would need for a week in each end of the sack. Threw it over the pony’s neck. Then a fifty pound sack of flour on top of that. Bud Mullins would load me up then give me a can of coal oil to carry in my hand. The trips we had the oil were the hardest ones to make, but we always found time to visit with Ella Smith either going or coming; so, I was always in the dark getting home. When I got close to home, I could always hear Mom calling me. I can see now how she must of worried about me. With a little effort, I could of made it before dark. During these years, I spent more and more time on my pony either hunting cows or horses or going to town for groceries. By now I am doing the milking alone and most of the things Dad don’t have time for.

All the schooling we got up to now, we had to walk up by Johnson’s two and a half or three miles up the creek, or four or five miles around by the government coal mine. So we didn’t go to regular in the winter time. Never if there was a storm on. We always had to walk as we never raised enough hay to feed the horses. They had to winter like the deer on a sunny side hill and eat brush and weeds. We never had one die, but they always come out in the spring real poor. All this time the school had been up by Johnson’s, ten or more miles from the kids on the lower end—the Smith’s, Justice’s, the Guy Long family, and later on Parish’s, so they built a new school house—one room, one teacher—half way. Less than a mile west of the government coal mine.

Now we were one of the nearest ones to school. We did, a time or two, get up to twenty or twenty five kids, but most of the time around fifteen. I have a picture of the whole school, fourteen kids. Five of them were Turner’s That’s the last year Bernice and Harlan went to school. Bernice went to Salt Lake, Harlan just quit.

My Mother was never very well and most of the time Bernice stayed in the house to help Mother; and Wanda tended the smaller kids a lot. But Harlan and I helped Dad in the field, but Harlan got worse to run away as he got older, so more and more I helped Dad in the field. By now I could do most any kind of farm work. It was did in those days with a team. But I harrowed, mowed or raked hay, or planted whatever was to be done. Every year or two Dad would trade off the lambs we raised for cows or horses or whatever he needed the worst, and buy new. We were milking ten or more cows and had a small cream check. Dad was still working in the coal mine part time. Us three older kids did the milking.

About this time, my sister Bernice met Vern Sheffer who was working in the mine for Dad. They met at a dance. Well, they started going together. At this time, there were dances at the school house once or twice a month. Also parties around the community. At this time, Vern would come to see Bernice on a big Chestnut Sorrel passing [sp?] horse. All that first summer, Mom would send me and Harlan along with them to the dances on our pony as a chaperon; but by fall they were so serious and Bernice was only Sixteen, so the folks sent Bernice to Salt Lake to go to school. But she went to work at the Murray Laundry instead. After two years, she come home and married Vern anyway. They moved into a two room log house on Vern’s homestead on Mosby Creek. Vern still worked for Dad at the mine. Here they lived until Mother died in 1928. Then they lived on our place on the creek for a year or two; then we lost the place and they moved back onto their homestead.

I will never forget the first time [I remember] Grandma [Georgeann] and Grandpa [George] Turner came from Murray to see us. They come in Uncle Earnest new Model A Ford. There was Earn, Odie, Grandma and Grandpa Turner, and Florn Brown, my cousin. Well, they stayed two weeks and we fished and hunted sage hens most every day. We had borrowed all the saddles we could form the neighbors, also a few horses to have enough to go around. Grandpa never went unless we took the wagon, as by then he was getting quite crippled up.

One morning before day light, we were getting ready to go. Everyone had picked their horses the night before. Dad was always playing tricks on them. We had one horse that had been tin canned. This is tying a string of cans to a horses tail to scare them away from your place. Naturally she was afraid of anything that rattled so Dad ties the tin cups and coffee pot behind the saddle. This was Earns horse. So we had a rodeo before we left. We took the wagon and went over to White Rocks and the Uintah River so Grandpa could go along. Grandma and Mom and the small kids stayed at home; also Bernice, as she never liked the outdoors or fishing like I did. Usually Grandma and Grandpa stayed home with mother as Grandma was afraid of bad roads with either car or wagon, Uncle Earnest said she walked half way. Every time they come to a narrow dugway, she would holler “LET ME OUT.” That’s why it took them two days to get here in a new Ford. I think it was a Model A. Grandpa and all the boys loved to fish, but she never went along.

The next year, we had this group plus Aunt Polly and Uncle Gerold Brady. Also Aunt Ivy Brown, a widow. She was my name sake. Her son Florn, Earn, Odie, Grandma and Grandpa Turner in two cars. In them days it took two days to get to our place from Salt Lake. The first night they stayed at Heber. Come on in the next day.

Dad would never let Wanda or me have our hair cut, and we had so much—two braids as big as your wrist and below our waist. The first thing Aunt Polly done was grab the scissors and cut it off. We felt pretty naked for a while.

We never saw to much of Dad’s folks for it was so far away and the roads were so bad, but after this whenever they could all get vacation at once, they would come out.

One time when all of Dad’s folks were there from Salt Lake, we took everyone on horses and in the wagon up to Dry Fork River fishing. Grandma was afraid of bad places. This was the only time her and her two girls, Ivy and Polly, ever went. We went up past Mosby Creek, up the face of the mountain past Lighting Springs to the end of the road and made camp. Had a couple of tents that they had brought. We spent three or four days up there. Some of us had to go down each night to do chores, but fun times for me. The ladies and Grandpa stayed in camp as it was a mile down steep hills to the river. Well, in them days, we salted our fish to cure them in a box. Needless to say, we had lots of boxes of cured fish when we come home. The ones we brought home fresh, Dad would put a layer of fish and a layer of leaves. These would keep several days; kept as cool as possible, wrapped in a wet blanket. As I said, this was the only trip Polly, Ivy, and Grandma ever went on with us. They enjoyed the scenery, but to much hassle for them.

I always rode a little pony with not enough shoulders to keep a saddle on. Well, Earn insisted on riding her with a saddle. We were going to White Rocks Canyon. we got to the Canal coming out of the canyon, the pony put her heard down to drink. Earn and saddle went down onto her neck and into the creek. Earns feet stuck in the stirrups, his hands on the bottom, his head above water. Well by the time I got him loose, we were both soaked. The rest stood on the bank and split with laughter. Earn was sure mad at them—would’ve let a man drown.

Uncle Gerold Brady, Dad’s youngest sister’s husband had a good car and him, Earn and Odie Turner, and Florn Brown come out quite often for quite a few years to go rabbit hunting and go fishing; and they loved to hunt sage chickens. The first time they brought home a bunch of sage hens, my cousin Florn said Aunt Elva “If I can have the gizzards I will clean them all.” Mom just laughed and when he got started to cleaning them he found out their gizzard is just like the crow—no meat on it. He was sure one surprised guy.

Another experience we had with Dad’s folks. They had all gone fishing with the wagon and tents and taken Grandpa. I was left home to catch up on my cow herding and Uncle Royal Potter had got in the night before, and Harlan stayed home too. In the afternoon we had a cloud burst up near the spring and above it where our main garden was planted. Well, it was a ten foot wall of water down the draw, one‑half mile south of our house. Aunt Ivy had been in a flood in Bountiful in the spring. When she heard the rocks hitting together and the noise, we had to leave the house and cross the creek that went by on a foot plank and go up on the hill on the other side. Needless to say, we really got wet. Harlan and Royal come home. They had been up on little mountain side where the cloud burst was. Pretty soon they are down at the house looking for cigarettes or bull durum. Polly and Ivy are screaming at them to get over here before they get washed away, but it took them (Royal and Harlan) more than an hour to talk Polly and Ivy back home. But a few days later when Dad took them up to the garden and there were tons of rocks and sand covering the bottom of the garden, some rocks two or three feet across, they felt like they had a right to be scared.

After this, Harlan ran away more often and I spent more time looking for him at the neighbors. As far as LaPoint and Bennett. I always felt like part of Harlan’s trouble was the way Dad treated him. All my life Dad never thought that I could do no wrong or there wasn’t anything that I couldn’t do. So for this reason, I put forth more effort to please him; and he picked at Harlan who was slower and compared him to me which I think was unfair to him. And he quit even trying to do things. When I tried to talk to Harlan he would say, “Well I can’t do it right anyway.”

About this time, he ran away and went to Salt Lake to live with Grandma. He left on my pony; road her to Heber. By then she was so sore footed he sold her and hitch‑hiked on. In a year and a half later the pony came home. Needless to say the time he was on the road and I couldn’t locate him, Mother nearly lost her mind worrying about him. When he got there, Grandma called Burton’s, the only phone on the creek, and Tom brought us word he was in Salt Lake. Harlan and I were awfully close and I missed him the year and half he was in Salt Lake. All my life I had looked after him.

The scaredest I ever was, I believe—one time (I am thirteen now) my Dad sends me to take Mother to White Rocks to the doctor. It was just before Vera was born. In the wagon had Wilbur and Earnest with us. By the time Mother got in to see the doctor, it was late afternoon. We started home—come to the forks in the road, Mother said take the right. I said no mom, the left. She was so positive that I gave in; couldn’t defy my Mom. After dark we end up at the end of a wood road. I get the horses headed back, got about a mile, Mom says stop the wagon lets rest a while. We had a little hay in the wagon box so Mom and the two little boys lay down. We had a couple of quilts; this is the first of November; and I built several big fires as I knew Dad would be looking for us. He had went to White Rocks and back home not realizing that it was me building the fires until he got home and we weren’t there. At the time, our fires were five or six miles north of Tridell—they could see the lights in the homes. About midnight Mom asked me if I could find my way to Tridell on one of the horses. I was so frightened. It was no problem me getting out for help or getting back to her, but leaving her. She said I’ll tell you if its necessary. Dad found us at daylight on his second trip, and Vera was born that night after we got home.

Mother was never very well. She used to pass out for no reason she knew of. And no doctor ever told her what caused it. She never knew when she would have a spell. She might be in the yard or garden or in the house. She would be limber as a dish rag. Many the time I have run from our place to the Little Walter coal mine four or five miles and Mother would still be out when we got back on foot. Have known her to be out for twenty four hours. She would tell us that some times when she was out that she could hear us crying, but she couldn’t move or say anything. The Doctor never did know for sure what caused her to do this. Not to often, but sometimes, two or three times during the summer. The doctor just said “Put a wet towel on her head and keep her warm.” She did have some medicine she took, but I don’t remember what for; but she hadn’t had a spell for several years before she died. For this reason Dad always had one of the kids old enough to go for help with her at all times.

When I was fourteen, we moved to the Little Walter coal mine. Dad had bought half interest in it and Mother and Wanda and I were going to run the boarding house. There was anywhere from six to twelve men working depending on the demand for coal. By now, Wanda and I were getting to be young ladies, but if we had a date to take us home, the boyfriend tied his horse behind Dad’s wagon and rode with us. And Dad was always pulling some trick on the boyfriend. One time a guy asked Dad if he could take me home. Dad said if you are man enough to crank my truck. Well he spun the crank for half a dozen times, then Dad says “Vern you try it,” and then he turned the key on this time and it starts right up. Well, after kidding him a while I was allowed to ride home on his horse with him. This was the summer I was sixteen. Most of Mom’s brothers and sisters now have moved away five of them with their families had moved to Anderson and Redding California, most of them had sold out and gone into other kind of work.

Grandma Potter was getting ready to move to Park City with Millie and Cliff. Mom’s one sister Aunt Chrystol and Charley Lewis have lived in Vernal all their lives, both of them are school teachers.

While we were living on the creek, we had a branch Sunday School in the summer time and one day the Bishop come to see Dad and wanted him to be Superintendent of the Sunday School and have it the year around. Dad said no. He couldn’t do it because he smoked. He couldn’t set up front and have people know that. The Bishop said, “Ivan, you work in the timber a lot cutting posts and poles. If you break the reach or tongue of your wagon, do you unhook and go to town to get a new one?” “No,” Dad says, “I just find the best stick I can find, whittle it down and use it.” Bishop Morell says “In the Church that’s what we do. We go into a community and choose what we think is the best we can find. We give him the job, and the priesthood and responsibility will whittle him down and make him fit for the job. We know you have a testimony of the gospel. We think you can do it. You are honest and fair, always as good as your work. Just try it for a while.” Day says, “No, I will quit smoking first,” which he never did.

After Dad bought the mine, he rented the place on the creek to our school teacher, brought three or four horses to the mine and also the cows, but sold the cows after a year. Our neighbor, Jess Labrum, wanted six of the best ones; would give him $10 a head more if he could pick them. Well, the first cow he picked, I had named kicky. She was to have her calf in a couple of weeks. One of the best cows. Dad told him he couldn’t milk her—that no man could. Only I had milked her for several years. Then we proceeded to tell him why. About three years before, I was milking ten head by myself so Dad decided to help me. He choose this cow. She would run over a three gallon bucket night and morning, but she was nervous anyway; and Dad’s hands were so calloused and cracked that he pinched her tits and she kicked him. Dad had an awful temper so her beat her. This goes on for over a week. The only way he could milk her was to tie her so she couldn’t kick, then she would stand and beller. So Dad gave up and turned her out. The calf had frozen so after the first day her bag hurt so bad, I started working with her, just kindness. Finally I got her milked out. After that, I had no more trouble with her, but she was afraid of men. But Jess said, “If Ivy can milk her he could”. But a few weeks later he told Dad you were right. He had made her a nurse cow. Had four calves on her. This is another case of kindness. I handled both the cows and horses with kindness.

Wanda and I become much closer now that we were at the mine and doing the same kind of work. We were happy there and Mom and Dad seemed real happy too. Dad had talked her into moving, but she said it wasn’t to be permanent. She still wanted the dream house by the spring. The work wasn’t too hard compared with what I had been doing. Usually from six to nine men besides the family, Wanda and I had lots more time to read or do what she wanted to. I still had two horses at the time, so I rode a lot just for fun. We brought hay from ranches for them. Well, before we realized it, three years had gone by. I am now seventeen, Wanda fifteen.

Well about this time, Jim Rasmussen asked Dad if I could go to Randlett and stay with his wife Bessie and help his boys do the chores—mostly the milking. My folks talked it over and decided I could go, but before I left, Mother had another real long talk with me about the facts of life and boys I might meet, and what to expect from them. Mother was a good teacher. All our life we lived by the ten commandments: Thou shalt not steal, shall not lie, shall not commit adultery, love one another, keep the Sabbath day holy, all these and many more were taught to us regular. Now she tells me I am leaving home so young, and that I must never drink or men will take advantage of you. I was young for those days, mainly in experience as I had been sheltered so close. But she ended her lecture by saying always act like a lady and you will be treated like one. Never be ashamed of the standard you have set to live by. I can testify this is true. For the next two years, I went out with dozens of boys, but was always treated like a lady. My mother had never drank any liquor in her life and never been around drinking. Right after they were married, Dad come home drunk. He was so sick she thought he had been poisoned. She was holding his head with a wet towel, but he got no better. So she ran down the block get Grandma [Georgeann?]. The minute she opened the door, Gram said the darn fool is drunk—end of sympathy.

Grandma said that when Dad [Ivan] first started thinking he should be big enough to get drunk, it was Christmas time. He was going with Mom [Harriot]. He had a date. Well Gram told him to bring his bottles home, not to make a fool of himself in town. As he come through Murray that night, he stopped two or three places to have a beer. Each place gave him a fifth of whiskey. He brought it home, told Gram to fix him a drink while he got ready to go. Well he had two or three stout drinks and passed out. Grandma put him to bed. He slept in his new suit until the next evening, gets up and says, “What did you give me? My head feels awful.” “I only mixed what you told me to,” Gram says. He started to get ready for the dance. Gram says, the dance was last night. She says it was a good lesson for him. It must of been as I never saw my Dad drunk in my life. He did drink a little after Mom died in later years, but not while he was raising his family. It’s a wonder we didn’t drive him to drinking.

Randlett

Well, Mother helps me pack my few clothes in a sack. She also made me two new dresses. I get on my pony, still no saddle. I had just turned seventeen then, when I started for Randlett.¹¹ I had never been further south than the China man’s store east of Ft. Duchesne¹². Had my favorite dog and horse. She had a colt. I gave the colt to the Rasmussen boys. Well, I fitted right in at Bessie’s. She said I was the girl she never had.

She worked in the M.I.A. She knew all the kids both girls and boys. The first M.I.A. night she said this is my new daughter. Make her welcome so she will stay. This they did. There were probably twenty or more girls and boys around my age at M.I.A. I was immediately absorbed into all activities in the ward. I never lacked for an escort no matter where I was going.

I worked hard. Here they had three boys. The oldest about thirteen and we milked twelve or fifteen cows all winter besides the feeding. Also chickens and pigs to take care of. And they gave me $1.50 a week and board and room.

I got along good, but missed my folks so much, I made two or three trips home by October. About the first of October I brought Wanda down with me. We were both going to school—the 9^th grade. She stayed with Ella and Robert Moore, [Ella is] Bills sister.

Bill drove mail for Moses Moore Robert’s Dad and they furnished him with a car. This gave him an added attraction. Then too, he was four years older than me and that also made him more attractive to me.

The very first time he asked me to go anywhere with him, Iva was coming home for Thanksgiving for a few days and Bill was supposed to pick her up in Roosevelt¹³. I had come up to the store, was just starting home, when he stopped and asked me to go for a ride with him after Iva. I said “Yes,” and got in. We went first up to Wing’s store. He needed a pair of gloves and he bought me a pair too. They were red with green and black stripes around and around, made of wool yarn. When he got into the car he dug his out to drive and said here, put these on to keep your hands warm. When we picked Iva up and went back to the car, Iva got in next to Bill and he said to her let Ivy in first. You ride on the outside. I don’t think that from that day Iva ever liked me very well, but from then on I started going with Bill.

I was running around with Bud Aulmiller. Bessie liked him better. She never liked Bill very well. She said later that it was because Bill was older. Jess Jensen was five years older than Bill and he ran around then with Vera Knight. Bill was going with Arelda Jobe, but they had quarreled. There was a special show in Roosevelt The Robe, I think. The school bus was going to take everyone that wanted to go, but I got there to the Randlett store just in time to see it leave. About that time, Bill come along with Mildred Knight as his date. I had saw Bill a few times but Millie was real active in M.I.A. She said lets stop and take Ivy. This they did; so my first time out with Bill was by accident. After the show, he took Millie and I to the drug store for ice cream. He turned to me and said what would you like. Well dumb me I didn’t know what they served there; but Millie come to my aid said, I’ll have a banana split; so I’d have one too. Well he took Millie home first, brought me back to Randlett, and we made a date for a week away—our first real date.

Well gossip had it that Bill was practically married to Arelda Jobe and I was going out with Bud Aulmiller and William S. Merill at the time, so it was a month or so before we started to go steady. Then too Bessie didn’t like Bill. Main reason he wasn’t LDS and to old for me, she said. My sister, Wanda, ran with a younger crowd at this time, but we both rode our horses home for Thanksgiving weekend. Mother didn’t feel to good and Dad had hired a women to help her with the work, Dorothy Brant. So we went back to Randlett.

Bill and Jess ran around together. Jess with Vera Knight and I started going with Bill quite a bit to dances and parties. Well, one night he told me if I would drop my boy friends he would drop his girl friends. Just before Christmas we started going steady. Wanda caught a ride home two days before Christmas. I didn’t go as I had a date with Bill on Christmas Eve at Leota and one Christmas night at Randlett.

I felt real bad when I got home to Bessie’s after the dance. And when they came in, I was crying. So Jim took me home early the next morning. But I felt so bad when I got home to think I had missed Christmas with my folks. Mom was so sweet. She said don’t feel bad. It is right that you should go out and have fun at your age. What kind of a fellow is he. I tried to tell her. She said, just remember to always be a good girl. I didn’t realize then that I had spent my last Christmas with my Mother.

We had never been to Church much as we were part of Tridell, ten miles by team and wagon. In good weather they had Church in the school house at Deep Creek, but Mother was a good teacher; very religious. She taught us from Church works, The ten Commandments: Honor they father and mother; Love one another; Honor the Sabbath day to keep it holy; Thou shalt not commit adultery. We always had blessing on our food. These teachings and many more were always part of our daily life. These teachings had helped me keep from doing some of the things other kids did. Then she taught us that the veil was so thin that people that had passed away could see what we were doing and greave for us, but could not help us.

I often thought of this when I was asked to have a drink or smoke, or come up against temptation. When dating I often felt myself saying to myself, what would Mom have me do. Then I could hear her saying act like a lady and be treated like one. No truer words were ever spoken. The young girls now days don’t want to look like a lady and most of them don’t act like one either.

Mother ‑ The Sadist Time in My Life

Jim Rasmussen come home one weekend and said my Mom was real sick and bed fast. The next day, me and my pony started for the Little Walter coal mine and home. I got an awful shock when I got home and one of the first things she told me when I got home was that she wasn’t going to get well, and that Dad was going to take us kids to the temple and have us sealed to him and her. Well, we all cried and tried to talk her out of this. Told her she had been sick before, but she said not this bad. Then she would say be good girls, help your dad, and remember what I have told you, and always act like a lady when out with boys.

That night she was worse. She was not rational. She would talk about her family and sing Church songs, talk about the ten Commandments, The Articles of Faith, all about religion. I sat up with her the first two nights, then Wanda come home too.

The next day I went to Roosevelt for the doctor. He did not help her at all, so I went to Tridell for the Elders. When they got there, as soon as they lay their hands on her head to anoint her, she would quiet down and by the time they finished with the sealing and the blessing, she would be OK, and stay that way for many hours. These next three weeks gave me quite a testimony of the gospel. To see this happen over a period of three weeks. Every couple of days we would go get the Elders she could be singing and not know any of us for hours, maybe 24, but by the time the Elders left, she would be OK again. Then we could talk to her and visit sometimes up to fifteen or twenty hours; then she would drift back again. We had the doctor three or four times during this three weeks, but nothing seemed to help her. The doctor told Dad she was pregnant. Mom said she wasn’t. After nine kids she should know, but she hadn’t had a period in months.

Nothing anyone did seemed to help and after three weeks, she passed away.^d The day before she died, she told me while she was awake that she had been for a walk with her Dad into the most beautiful garden; that he was coming back for her soon. The next day she was gone from us.

Well, most of Mom’s brothers and sisters that were anywhere in Utah came to the services. Arnold, Amasa, and George with their families were in Anderson and Redding California. Dad’s were still in Murray. They all came. I can’t remember to much about that time. Seems like I was in a daze. I remember Grandma Potter holding me close and saying why couldn’t it of been her instead of Mom. That she was old and worn out, but Grandma lived another twenty years or more after that. I know most of the folks were there and friends by the dozens. I remember Bill didn’t come, and I was real disappointed with him. I remember Jim and Bessie Rasmussen were there.

We had the services in Tridell, as we were a part of the Tridell ward. I think this was the saddest day of my life. Also end of our happy home, as a home isn’t happy without a Mother. My sister, Bernice, had two little boys by now. Dad lived seventeen years after Mother died, but his life was shattered and he never forgot my mother. And raising the family was nearly too much for him. Also, the farm on the creek could never be home again for him. The cabin by the spring would never be built. My Dad got old nearly overnight losing Mother and leaving him with seven kids at home, two of them teenage girls. Vera only four was nearly more than he could take.

Well, in them days, you made your own casket. The neighbors came in and made her clothes. Also, the casket. They lined it with cotton bats, white satin and lace. When it was finished it was real beautiful. We buried her in Tridell ^e. We were never left alone for the next two or three weeks, but nothing seemed to help much. Things didn’t go to well. Dad had promised Mother he would go to the temple years before. Now he blamed his self. Said she didn’t put up enough fight. Well, he threw his Bull Durum away. In less than a month he was sick and looked like an old man.

We took him to Doctor Franks in Vernal. He told him his first responsibility was to the family he had left. He gave him some medicine, told him to get a sack of Bull durum, and go ahead and raise his family; that he could fulfill his promise to Mother when he got his kids grew up. Well in the few weeks since Mother died, his hair which was black and waving had started to turn gray, and he began to look old. I have been around death quite a bit, but never have I saw anyone suffer and as lost as my Dad was. He couldn’t sleep and didn’t try much. He would sit up most of the nights and drink tea. And this really took his health away. He worked long hours, ate very little and worried about his family. We that were close to him watched this change take place. So I was real glad when he started to talk about going to California among Mom’s folks. I realized later that this was a bad thing to do as it brought back to many memories.

Planning A Trip

About this time, he started to talk about going to California, to pay the Potter’s a visit. Uncle Amasa lived at Bennett all the years we lived on the creek and he was a horse trader, also broke horses. He would buy a balky horse then fight with it until he made a pulling horse out of it. Then trade it for two balky ones. He was to our place two or three times a month over the years as he cut posts and hauled wood from the creek so we were real close. Then several years they lived at the mine and worked for Dad.

One time when we lived at the mine, I was just getting ready to go to the creek to get five barrels of water when Amasa drove in. He said, “take my team and wagon. Save going after yours.” So I did. He didn’t tell me he was driving a balky horse. It was one and half miles to the stream; got there OK, filled up, got half‑way back before they balked. I was nearly two hours getting home. Tried to ride him, to lead him, to beat him. This is the kind of things he did for a living; but he and Dad were the best of friends. Also Dad and Arnold. They all loved fishing. Spent many days together so when he talked about leaving that’s where he would go.

Dad had an old Model T truck with a low speed rear end. Fifteen to twenty five miles was the best it would do. This we started to get ready to go.

During the next few months I didn’t see much of Bill. He came up one time on his horse. A time or two with Jess Jensen and Vera Knight, so when I left in June I felt pretty bad. Didn’t really know how things stood between us. I decided it was more on my side, the love, than Bill’s. Well, Dad leased the place to Bernice and Vern Sheffer and he had borrowed $500, on it to make the trip—they were going to pay it back, and turned his half of the coal mine to his partner, Clarence Jensen. Visit all the folks in the Basin. George Justice was working for Dad at the time and he asked him to go along so in June, we packed up what food and clothing we had, bedding and camping equipment. Dad and George and seven kids. Well, the next twenty-five days were quite an experience. We made it to the other side of Heber the first day and camped on a stream. Had fish for supper and went on into Murray the next day. We spent a couple of weeks in Murray with his folks.

This was an exciting time for us. Since Mother passed away, Wanda and I had been closer together and I knew that I needed to be a buffer between her and Dad as they both had fire hot tempers.

Well, Odie, Dad’s brother, was about twenty-two at the time, and Florn Brown, my cousin, a little older than me. They really took us around. Odie was always the center of the group. No matter where we were he knew everyone. Out at Salt Air, Lagoon, the Old Blue Bird Dance Hall in Salt Lake, also the show, our first show time. They really gave us the works. This was our first trip to the city. It was hard to believe the things that went on in the city.

From this time on, Odie held a special place in my heart.

California

Up until now, every time I went any place in a car I got car sick, but after nine days on the road to California, in the back of a truck, I never got car sick since.

We left Murray, went out past Wendover, Lovelock, Reno that route. It was worn out gravel then and a hot 110 or 115 degrees in the shade but no shade. So hot if you patched a tire with a cold patch, all you could try then, the patch would melt off. And we couldn’t keep a spare. So when we would have a flat, Dad would have to push his tire to town and back while all us kids sat under the truck. This went on day after day until Dad decided to drive at night while it was cool. Thought maybe he could keep the tires on it but couldn’t keep the lights going so decided to drive by the light of the moon. Decided to camp about midnight. Dad was going to get some sticks to make a fire to make some tea. First sage bush he got close to had a rattler in it. “George, I think there is a snake in every bush, drive on.”

The next day, Dad stopped and picked up enough wood to make tea when we camped. So that night when we camped, we camped in a sand flat. Just got the fire going good when the scorpions started to crawl out of the sand. “Drive on George.”

After that, we either camped by a town or stayed in the truck. One morning we had got within about fifty or sixty miles from Reno, had a blow out. Dad had to walk to town, after he had been gone a while, it was so hot I told George to take the old tire off and fill it full of old clothes and rags and see how far we could go on it. He said “It won’t work.” “Well if you don’t do it, I will.”, so we did. We started slowly down the road, me sitting over the tire, watching it. “Hold it George, It’s smoking.” He stopped it with the brake up and filled it full of water. “Drive on George.” By the time we met Dad coming back, we had used two ten gallon cans of water but we were nearly to Reno. Was Dad glad to see us coming. When they took the tire off, the rags were just like paste. Well after nine days of these kinds of things, we got to Redding California. We had quite a reunion with Aunts, Uncles, and cousins.

For a while we lived with Uncle Arnold and Aunt Hazel, as they had a farm with cows, chickens, and a small orchard. Since Mother died, Wanda and I have become real close. I loved her dearly and I thought that I should keep her with me as much as possible because things that the other kids did were a temptation to her. Drinking and smoking and worse. These things were never a temptation to me and I thought if I kept her with me, Dad would have to blame both of us for the things we did and I could be a bumper between them. When they were having a battle, if I stepped in he never slapped me. But by then I was crying and she would be yelling back at him. If I stepped between them he would always cool down. He had a real hot temper. So did Wanda and they always clashed. He would never let us wear anklets or bobby socks in them days. It never bothered me but when she got away from the house, she always put them on. We were to wear long stockings and a garter belt when we dressed up. Dad was always showing up and catching her. Then sparks would fly.

These next few months were fun times for Wanda and I. Everyone accepted us and made us welcome. We all went to work picking fruit. This was hard work but we were all used to working hard. Wanda and I went to work for one of the wealthiest families in the community. They had a big orchard and owned their own packing house. They also had a big family. Both girls and boys about our age. Their oldest boy, Lee Grisson, was twenty-two. They had all the things money could buy. Fancy house and several cars.

Well, we started work, picking peaches at eight cents a box. Well, the field boss watched us awful close. “Only pick the straw colored ones. These are for packing. The next crew will get the ripe ones for drying.” Well, after the first day, the boss’ son, Lee, started stopping at our trees to help us. He drove the truck to pick up the full boxes and leave us empty ones. Lee would hurry like the devil then stop and pick peaches for us for fifteen or twenty minutes out of every trip he made. With this extra help, we could just about keep up. Uncle Royal’s ex‑wife could pick one‑hundred boxes each day. More if she really hurried.

When we arrived in California, Lee was going with my cousin Laura Potter, or so I was told later. From the time I met him, he never went with anyone else. He tried to get me to go with him. He had a brand new Chevy Coupe with a rumble seat. He would pick Wanda and me up and take us home from work as it was two or three miles to Uncle Arnold’s place. Lee worked for his Dad on the place. His trade was a mechanic. His logic was, “Why work if you don’t have to?” Working for his Dad, his time was his own. He could come or go as he pleased and he always had lots of money. Well, I wasn’t engaged to Bill, and hadn’t saw him for several months when I left Utah, but I thought that I loved him and I didn’t want to hurt Lee, so I told him when he started asking me to go out that I was engaged to Bill. “Well, where is your ring? If you were my girl, you would have a diamond. Bill, he is in Utah. He can’t expect you not to go anywhere.” So after a few days, he won out. Wanda and I went to the show with him. All the time we were in California, I very seldom went without taking Wanda, so after a few times he brought his buddy along for Wanda’s date. Uncle Arnold told Dad that he saw Lee out with Royal’s ex‑wife so Dad didn’t want me to go out with him. Well, that’s the only time I ever lied to Dad in my life. But it didn’t take long for him to find out. George Justice told him. I think that was the maddest that Dad ever got at me because I lied. But after a while I won him over. After a lecture on the does and don’ts of life, he gave his unwilling consent to go out with Lee but he set a curfew. Lee was six feet tall, black hair and brown eyes. He was twenty-two and at this young age, he had really been around. He thought there was nothing that money could not buy, until he met me. I had been taught different standards in life. I lived by a different set of rules.

I always took Wanda with me everywhere I went. She started going with Lee’s, buddy Benny. There were always two or three couples or maybe two carloads went together. Laura Potter, my cousin, was always along with her newest boyfriend, at the time Cliff Cox.

For the next eight months we went everywhere together. Out to dinner and a show. Every show that came to Redding, Anderson, or Chico. To two green kids from the hills, who had never saw a show until a few months ago, it was a great time. We went to every fair, both county and state, for miles around. To roller-skating or just stayed home with the crowd and played cards. This we did quite a lot, as the house Dad had rented was an old house, but had a big front room. We could even dance at home as several played the harmonica or just we would just play the phonograph. We went to every carnival we heard about. Into Sacramento for special events. It was about as far away as Salt Lake is from the Basin. Lee was a pitcher for the ball team. He later pitched for the Boston Red Socks, so we had enough stuffed toys, dolls and junk from the carnivals to fill a room. We would all take turns throwing but he never missed. Finally, the manager would have to stop him. Sometimes it would take the cops to make him stop.

Dad went with us lots of times to the fairs; both county and state. He finally learned to like Lee. Anyway, he quit fussing about him, but we never quite got in on time and Dad always waited up for us. The later we were, the madder he got. I tried to be a bumper between Dad and Wanda, she always yelled back at him and got in trouble. She never learned. Lee was the only guy I ever went with that never ran out of money. I wonder since, how much the four of us spent on those carnivals. They always had a girl on a high-diving board. You threw the ball through a six-inch hole, trip the catch, dunk the girl. He would stay at this until he would nearly drown the girls. Lee always treated me like a lady. He was a perfect gentleman. When the four of us went out to dinner, he always picked up the ticket. Also, for most of the other places we went, all four of us. And I think that I might have married him if things had of worked out different.

In the spring, Lee was trying to get me to marry him. I liked the money and good times, but fate stepped in and my Grandfather Turner died in Murray so within two days we were ready to come home on the train. Uncle George took Dad and the kids, Wanda and I went with Lee in his car to Sacramento to catch the train. He tried to get me not to go, but to marry him. I told him I couldn’t leave Dad at a time like this and it was the last time I ever saw him. I am sure my life would have been different if I had married Lee and if Grandpa’s death hadn’t come when it did.

Just one more thing about lee. I want to say here. It bothered my conscience for years and that was the nasty letter I sent Lee after I met Bill again. And what caused me to do it. I didn’t know that Laura Potter held a grudge against me about Lee until eight years later when Bill and I were in Oregon with four kids.

After I had been back in Salt Lake about two months I got a letter from Laura saying that our old crowd thought that I had changed Lee but that she had been out with him several times the past week and that she had saw him several times with Royal’s ex‑wife a lot lately. This hurt me but made me mad too, and I wrote Lee a real nasty letter and told him what Laura said and that he needn’t write me any more because Bill was back in my life. And I still loved Bill and I sent his ring back. I got one more letter from Lee just before I married Bill. He said he was the one that took the chance. He thought he could win but I proved to him that money couldn’t buy everything. But Laura had lied about him and that if I every needed anything, I knew where he lived. But the nasty letter I wrote has always bothered me. I could have let him down more like a lady should, as Lee was always a perfect gentleman where I was concerned. He treated me like a lady. Right then I didn’t feel like one.

We buried Grandpa^f the first of January and we all stayed there with Grandma Turner. Here is where our city relations got even with us for the tricks we played on them. Like telling them the sage chickens in the field were our turkeys until they told Dad he sure had a big flock of turkeys. Dad said there was not a turkey on the place. Then we told them we had a pony that had been bucked in the rodeos and never learned to let a man ride her. We were always putting one of them on her and then laughing when they got dumped off. Now Odie got even by telling his friends, “Well, we have had the girls tied down by the track to get used to the trains and traffic.” Then he would say, the girls were, “here for a month before a man got shoes on them.” Or he would say, “You don’t need a phone. Just put your head out of the windows, they can hear you.” Then he would tell my date, “A good thing you didn’t get here early. Man just got her shoes on her.” But Uncle Odie always took us with his crowd to Salt Air, or Lagoon. He always saw that we had money for rides, also partners for dancing. We used to go to the old Blue Bird dancing in Salt Lake. Odie was always the center of the crowd and he always showed us a good time. But he never got over joking with us and telling his crowd that we were his nieces from the sticks. But Uncle Odie was always my favorite Uncle. He always had a spot in my heart.

In the Spring, Dad came back to the Basin. He brought Hurley, Wilbur, Earnest, Vera, and Harlan home with him. Traded his part of the mine to Jensen for forty acres in Tridell with a four‑room house on it. But Hurley was awful young to take over the managing and cooking for a family of six people. She was only twelve years old then and Vera was five. Wanda and I stayed in Salt Lake with Grandma but I realized later that it was a selfish thing for me to do, as I know now that things would have been different if I had come home with the family. As Hurley was like Wanda, very hot tempered, and she needed a buffer to keep the tempers down. But we got used to the good times we were having in the city. Wanda was not sixteen and I was eighteen. We had, both of us, found jobs we didn’t want to leave. But Dad wouldn’t stay in the city. I went to work in a broom factory making brooms for $4.50 a week. Wanda was doing house work for people. We paid Grandma $1.50 a week for room and board.

Well when I got back to Salt Lake, I got to thinking about Bill. I hadn’t written to him in months or heard from him so I wrote him. He wrote back and said that a group of them from the stake M.I.A., were coming to Salt Lake some time in March to dance at Salt Air in a dance festival. It would be groups from all over and he would like to stop and see me. Then when I saw Bill again, I was so thankful that I had not married Lee Grisson as I knew that I still loved Bill. It was the new car, the money, and the places he took me. The lovely home his parents had and all the glitter that went with it. It was all things that I had never had so far in my life that fascinated me.

I didn’t see Bill again until spring when he came to Salt Lake and went to work in the cannery.

The six months that Wanda and I stayed with Grandma, we followed two continued shows each week. For four or five months and only missed three issues. We saw every show that came to Murray. If we didn’t have a date, we went by ourselves.

Every Saturday Grandma Turner would take Wanda and I out to dinner and a show. We always ate at the New York Cafe on Broadway and went to the old Pantages Theater. They always had a vaudeville between the acts. Grandma enjoyed these trips to Salt Lake on the street car as much as we did. We just gave her an excuse to go. We always went in time to do a little shopping too. Grandma always paid for these good time Saturdays.

One time I will never forget they had a Spanish dancer between acts. She had a snake wrapped around her waist and up around her hair. Well that was the end of that show for us. Grandma said “Let’s get out of here. That darn snake might get away.” She was deathly afraid of snakes or mice. One day she was getting ready to go and a mouse was inside her dress. It started to run down inside her dress. She grabbed the mouse through her dress, got the scissors and cut around her hand. When she dropped the mouse on the floor, it was dead.

Grandma was a kind and generous person. She always kept sweet rolls and fried pies for us on hand for us to eat. Grandma raised six kids of her own. Also two orphan boys just younger than Dad. They were five or seven when she took them. Florn and Wandaquin Brown that were early teenagers when her daughter Ivy died. Then Earnest’s wife ran away with his boss and left her four to raise the youngest, eighteen months old. The four were the age of my four oldest kids. Grandma was in her middle sixties to sixty-five when she took on these kids. She told me that every night when she prayed, she would ask God to let her live long enough to see Earn’s kids through school. This she did with the help of Uncle Odie. As Earn died with cancer of the lungs a few years after his wife left him.

Grandma worked hard. She had two or three acres of ground. Some fruit trees of all kinds. She raised her own vegetables. Always had a lovely garden and until the day she died, she did her own canning of fruit and all kinds of garden stuff to help with their living and to take care of Earn’s kids. About the time the youngest of the four started high school, she fell and broke her hip. This made it real hard for her as it never healed proper and she must work from a wheel chair now. But she still did her canning with the girls help. I went there one time and found her canning peaches with the girls help but she tightened every lid.

SHARING

Come share the joys of Life with me

For all of our tomorrow.

And if sad days we sometimes see

Then we can share our sorrows.

The sun will shine and make days bright

If we can be together,

Our lives will be a sheer delight

No matter what the weather.

Come join me on this joyous way

And hear the steady beat;

Of music in our hearts each day

That makes our lives complete.

Bill Chandler

The rest of my story will be about my life will Bill. It has been a happy one and a busy life. He has always been good to me. We have done lots of traveling all our married life. We have both worked hard but hard work never hurt anyone. All our life we have taken lots of time out to play also to take care of our church work.

Bill come back to Salt Lake in early spring and went to work in the cannery, and we went every where in Salt Lake and saw a lot of each other for the next three or four months. We got married right after my nineteenth birthday, the 17^th of August 1929. There were several who went with us when we were married in the City and County building by a Justice of the Peace. Iva Newman, Bill’s sister and Uncle Earnest Turner, Dad’s brother signed for us.

We moved into an upstairs apartment on State Street. Here we spent our honeymoon. This was just when the Great Depression was getting started good. Jobs and groceries were hard to come by. Bill’s Dad, Elbert Morton Chandler, was trying to get Bill to come home and help him make a living for us all, by working getting out posts and wood. So when the cannery closed down in the fall we come home, back to the Basin.

We came back around the first of October, we moved in with Bill’s folks on Grandpa’s homestead south of Pelican Lake. They had three big rooms. There was a bedroom fifteen by twenty, a living room twenty by thirty, and the kitchen twenty by thirty on one end with a coal cook stove in it. A big pot bellied wood stove in the bedroom. Grandpa and Grandma had their bed in the living room. They put a partition in the west end of the kitchen to make a bed room for us. Here we spent the first year of our married life.

Bill had filed on a homestead south of his Dad’s place. These places were below Pelican Lake, which was dry then. We had to build a house the first year on our homestead. Bill and his Dad and brothers got out pine logs for our house. It was as good or better than most. It wasn’t cottonwood. It had two big rooms, kitchen and bedroom. The kitchen had a floor but the bedroom didn’t, as we couldn’t afford it at first. Later Bill went to the mountains, and got out the logs. He had them sawed, and worked out the saw mill to pay for the floor. There was an old shack on the homestead when Bill filed on it. It was made of lumber. This Bill tore down and used the lumber for the roof. There was also enough lumber for one floor.

These next six years were hard years, and we moved six or eight times. We did everything we could to make ends meet, but we never went to bed hungry. Maybe not the best variety, but plenty. We lived off the land in those days. At one time when we had two kids we got $3 a month from the County or State to buy staple groceries, plus a cured ham. We bottled everything we could get hold of. We dried things and stored things in the root cellar. If you have the right kind of cellar, most things like potatoes, carrots, onions, squash, cabbage, beets, and turnips will keep all winter.

We could always get apricots and apples in Vernal. We could pick on shares, they would give you some for picking them. This was team and wagon days. It would take three or four days to go for fruit. Then we would bottle all the jars we had full, dry the rest. Apples would keep all winter in a root cellar.

This was a report written in 1965 by Jim Chandler of Ouray¹⁴ Valley. This is where Bill and Ivy spent the first six years of their married life in and around Leota¹⁵ and fifty years in Ouray Valley.

History of Ouray Valley

My grandfather E.M. Chandler came to Ouray Valley in 1917. At that time the valley was open for people to file on homesteads. Under this act one person could file on 160 acres of land. And he must cultivate, irrigate, and build a house on it. Then after five years you could prove upon it, and it was yours.

During this time my grandparents, (Elbert and Mamie Chandler) were very active in community activities, as they played for all the dances. As Grandpa played the banjo and Grandma played the piano and my uncle Robert Moore played the saxophone. Also my dad, Bill Chandler played the sax.

One of the first thing they did was to build a canal from White Rocks River. The canal was sixty miles long. This took lots of hard work as it was built with a team and scraper. Everyone worked on it. This pioneer life was a very hard one. My grandparents, along with all that lived in the valley hauled water from the Duchesne River for the house use and for stock, but in spite of this, at one time there was a thriving little town at Leota. With a store, a school house, also a church house, and a post office, and a good sized ward was established.

But then the drought and the depression starved people out. During the thirties, the people had to leave to keep from starving and the town disappeared. Only a few families were able to survive. Among them was my grandfather.

After the depression years all the people were in the north end of the valley and the Avalon¹⁶ ward was organized. During this time, the people had dug wells for use in their homes, and for stock. This helped living conditions. Also, the Rural Electric put the power to our valley. This was one of the greatest improvements.

I think our roads were next in importance as it was nearly impossible to get to Roosevelt or Vernal in spring of the year.

One time the school bus was stuck in a mud hole for nearly a week, and it was nothing to get a car stuck for a week or more at a time.

Then over the years the telephone was added. Also the water system has been improved and they built two lakes up in the mountains, Cliff Lake and White Rocks. This gave us some summer water for grain crops. These lakes are also ideal trout fishing and over the space of time we built Pelican Lake here in the valley. It is stocked with Black Bass and Blue Gill. This lake is open to fishing the year around.

My grandparents met the hardships, and made a living for twelve children, and lived to see most of these improvements accomplished.

The Beginning of Our Life in Ouray Valley

After one winter with Bill’s folks, we built our homestead house and moved in when Tom^g was a baby. My dad gave us twelve Rhode Island Red Chickens and we had two milk goats. During this time I didn’t like to stay alone, so Grandpa Chandler always sent one of the girls to stay with me when Bill went to the mountains to cut posts of make fence with his dad. This first winter on our homestead, Bill worked out two cows, traded posts for them to a guy in Heber. They have a post camp up in the cedars this side of Fruitland. One cow was a white face. The other was a roan durm. They both turned out to be good cows.

The next five years I really learned a lot of things from Bill’s mom and dad. How to make all kinds of quilts and rugs. We washed the wool, pulled it, then corded it to make bats for our quilts. We never threw any scraps away. We made crazy patch quilts. Sewed the small pieces on squares of paper to keep them from scratching. We always saved the good parts of all clothing for patching of quilts or rugs. then they taught me how to store and can all kinds of things. We made sour kraut, by the barrel, dill pickles by the barrel, too, and also corned beef. We also learned how to cure the pork to keep it. After the pork was cured, it was always stored in the wheat bin to keep from molding. We also made cottage cheese, yellow cheese and yogurt. So people can live off the land if they have to. And live good. But it takes cooperation form the whole family. Everyone has so much to do.

After I joined the family, quite a few things changed. As Grandma and the girls used to saw wood with a two man rip saw and split it everyday. This I changed. The men could saw as much in one hour as Mom and the rest of us could saw in all day. Also the splitting. So Bill started talking Elbert and Orvel into sawing and splitting wood before breakfast every day. I can say Bill never allowed me to cut wood in our married life. Then too, if Elbert or Orvel came by the wood pile and didn’t bring an armload, I would tell them off. Pretty soon the wood box was always full. Everyone worked hard.

At this time we were hauling water from the Duchesne River for our garden and I planted trees every spring and every fall the goats ate all the bark and limbs. I have always hated goats. They ate the clothes off the line, ate your hat if you laid it down. Years later, when Mort and Tom were small, Bernice, my sis, gave them two little billy goats. They made harnesses for them and worked them on their wagons. One time we went to town, they bunted the door open and spent the day on my bed. Ate up a new house coat my sis Wanda gave me—all but the zipper. Last of goats.

Bill’s Folks

Grandpa Chandler was a real entertainer. He played all kinds of instruments, but his favorite was the banjo. He could really make it talk. They were a happy family. Nearly every night he would play and get one of the kids to chord for him on the piano. He would sing and play. Grandma played the piano real good too, and Bill and Robert Moore, Ella’s husband, played the saxophone. The girls all would sing.

Bill’s folks really made me one to the family and I loved them all Hazel and Irma were both in Salt Lake Muriel and Willie Stevens lived in Randlett. They owned one of those big brick buildings that had been a dormitory for the Indian girls to live in and go to school. Ella and Robert Moore were living in there with his folks. Robert drove the mail. That left eight kids still home, Bill and I and Mom and Dad Chandler. With all this big family, they always set a good table. Most people think Jack Rabbits aren’t good eating, but Mom Chandler could make the best hot Tamale out of ground Jack Rabbit that you could ever eat. Also real good in chili. We made mince meat out of them too. They aren’t bad baked with dressing. Usually fried the cotton tails. Then too, Grandpa Chandler always had a heavy fish line with five or six hooks on it thrown out into the middle of the Duchesne River. That someone checked everyday. We ate lots of fish—any kind we caught. Carp and hump‑backs are really good baked in catsup or tomato sauce.

We always had milk and butter, cottage cheese. Then too, we made our own yellow cheese. Dad Chandler made us a press for it. When we come home from Salt Lake, the Chandler family really make me welcome, but I was expecting Tom and they treated me like they thought I would break. They didn’t want me to do anything. They had quite a bunch of horses and someone had to take them to Duchesne River to water each day. Well one day the girls were fussing about who would have to take them. So I took them Grandpa and Gram really had a fit when I got back. Pa said I would keep on till I lost my baby. So I asked Doctor Miller. She said I could ride all I wanted to if I was used to riding. Wouldn’t hurt me unless I got bucked off. So now I could take them and I was back doing something I loved to do. Riding a horse again. She said as long as it didn’t hurt me to ride, go ahead.

I was happy living around Bill’s folks as they were always good to me. I was just another girl in the family. I loved Mom and Dad Chandler, as I had no mother now. I adopted Bill’s mom and she taught me many things about canning and gardening and about life in general. They would both tell me their problems. I was the only one at that time that would say what I thought to him. If I thought he was wrong I told him so. One time the boys saw Dad Chandler was breaking a horse. The horse got stubborn and threw herself and wouldn’t get up. They were beating her. I said I am going out and stop them. Mom says you better not interfere. Grandpa will send you back to the house and tell you to mind your own business. But out I go. I tell them the horse doesn’t know what she is being beat for—to let her alone. Him and I have a short argument. I win. They turn the horse loose. The next day she was better. They finish breaking her. Mom says I never would believe it. We had been married six months then.

Dad Chandler’s homestead house was built next to a ridge, so the back was about four feet in the ground. This made it quite warm. But in those days the winters were real cold—anywhere from 30 to ‑50. Anyone really had to dress to keep warm. Orval, Bill’s brother, was about fifteen when we got married and I remember the first Christmas. Ella and family were there. And I believe Muriel and Willie Stevens and family were there. They had cooked a big dinner and it was so cold that day. Mom said come and eat. It’s so cold probably need coats. So Orval gets up, puts on a sheep skin coat and a pair of sheep skin mittens on, his stocking cap, come to the table. Everyone laughed until we could hardly eat. Grandpa finally said either leave the table or quiet down. Was half hour before anyone could get back to the table to eat.

Another time that same year, the next spring I believe. There was a scare about Rabies. Everyone was worried about the skunks, and coyotes, and one day Elbert and Orval caught a coyote about as big as a collie dog. Brought it home. Pushed it in the living room door, and watched. Someone saw it and yelled. There it stood with it’s tongue sticking out panting, while we were all trying to get on the table. We heard Elbert laugh. They had a wire on it’s back legs.

Most of this first winter with Bill’s folks, the guys spent getting out posts and making fence for Ron Smith, West of where the lodge is now in Deep Creek Canyon to keep their sheep off the road. The Smith’s owned all the mountains this side of Strawberry and at that time, over to the lodge on Current Creek.

In the spring, we started building on our own homestead, so we could get moved to ourself as it was always crowded with Bill’s folks. When we moved onto our own homestead, we had a dozen chickens my dad gave us, and two milk goats. sometimes we never had much variety, but we never went hungry. One day I rode my horse to Leota store about two and a half miles. Took four dozen eggs, got twelve cents a dozen for them. It was winter time and frosted my ears through my stocking cap. They were sore for a couple of weeks. Bill hauled wood in the winter time, $3 a load, and still got out posts. When we proved up on our homestead, we borrowed our first money, $25, from N.J. Meagher. Bill paid it back with 100 posts. All our life if we really had to borrow money, N.J. never turned us down. He was a really true friend. I always liked to go into the bank, as no matter how busy N.J. was, he always said, “Wait a minute, I want to talk to you”. He would call me over to his desk and we would visit and talk about the valley and the water problems. Several times when he was in the valley, he stopped by our old place to visit with me, as Bill was never home when he come.

The Chandler’s were the main music for all the dances, as they were the only ones that would play for nothing, or a few dollars, when they passed the hat around. But with the others, Reese Timothy and the Smith’s, they knew they had to pay a set amount. So Chandler’s played most times. Other music in the Leota ward was Leona Jorgenson’s sister. They lived about one and a half miles south of where the little store is now. Her name was Connie Smith. She played the accordion with other help when the Chandler’s couldn’t be there. But as they had a camp up in the cedars above Duchesne¹⁷, once or twice a month the guys would come home over the weekend to play for dances at the town of Leota. There were thirty or more families in the ward then. Mom and Dad Chandler were responsible for most of the entertainment for both Randlett and Leota.

Grandma played the piano, Pa played the banjo, Bill and Robert played the saxophone. Mostly Floyd or Ted Bryant played the guitar. Then for a variety, Pa played the violin, the juice harp, mandolin, or harmonica. He could play anything that made music. When they played for dances in those days, they would pass the hat around. Everyone would divide it. About midnight, they would pass the hat again to get them to play another hour or two. Usually got as much money the second time around as they did the first time. One or two dollars a night a piece. Always had pot‑luck lunch. Everyone always went.

At this time, there were quite a few families out on Willow Creek, also Hill Creek. They had a one room school house on both places, and the Chandler’s used to go to those places several times during a summer to play for dances. They would take their piano on a wagon. It would take part of a day out, play all night, then back the next day. Pa and Mom, Bill and Robert Moore. Same wages, pass the hat, but anything to make a dime in those days.

I want to put in here that I stayed with Muriel and Willie Stevens for a couple of weeks when each of my first four kids were born, in the old brick building. They had a store and run the post office too. Bill would haul wood from the Green River with team and wagon to pay them. We were living on the homestead now and it was one day to the river for wood, the next day take it to town, Randlett. Five loads for two weeks logging. He got $3 a load for it. Bill would have to walk behind the wagon to keep from freezing, as it got to be forty five below the winter Elva was born. I remember we had an old car with disk wheels and that Bill had put up ice for the Episcopalian preacher Mr. Howes that year. That’s another thing Bill and his folks did, was put up ice. Everyone had an ice house. Would have blocks of ice sawed with a hand saw, two by two foot square, and anywhere from ten inches to twenty inches thick. They packed snow between the blocks and covered with sawdust or gilsonite. It would keep all summer. They put up ice for lots of people. If you had anything that had to be kept cold, bury it in the ice house. We would put up enough to take a block out every day with extras for ice cream. Mom had a five gallon freezer. They made lots of ice cream and sherbet in them days.

Well, back to when Elva was born. I woke Bill up at eleven p.m. and it was forty below weather. We were living on our homestead then. And Bill couldn’t start the car. He took an old dish pan full of hot coals out of the stove and it took him until five a.m. to get enough fire under it to start. He was really worried. But it took me forty eight hours to have Tom, so I figured we had plenty of time. Dropped Tom off at Mom’s. Got to Muriel’s she said, “It’s supposed to be another month yet, I don’t have your room fixed or cleaned”. They put me to bed in her bed, sent someone to call Doctor Miles. She come and gave me a shot. Said they were false pains. By night they had me upstairs. Called the Doctor again. She, Elva, was born early the next morning, about thirty hours. But she was full time. Fat as a little pig. When she was eleven days old, we took her home in the wagon, with hot rocks under the quilts to keep us warm. By now we had a floor in both rooms and a wood heater in the bedroom. She got along fine.

The Leota ward then was thirty or forty families. A church house, a post office, run by Frank Roberts, and a store owned by E.D. Lewis. We had a half holiday every Saturday afternoon. Everyone turned out to play ball, The men had one of the best teams in the basin. Bill played short stop and backed up third base. Very seldom did they play a game that he didn’t make at least one home run. Then too, until Bill was 50 years old, he was never beat in a foot race, at these half holidays. They played games, run races, had tug‑of‑wars, sack races, all kinds of things. Bill’s mom never missed a ball game, very few practices. Her and Ella was the main cheering section. The same ones that were at the half holidays, attended church on Sunday.

E.D. Lewis was the team manager on our half holiday. They played every Saturday one game at Leota and one away. Every other Saturday they went to another ward in the basin and played their team. Leota was very seldom beat. Cal Jorgenson was the catcher and main ram rodder. For such a few people to choose from, we had an awful good ball club. They went through one season and only lost one game. Another season they never lost any. Some of the outstanding players that I remember was: Harry Larson-pitcher, Lewellyn Jenkins-left handed pitcher, Bill Chandler, Hef Kimball, Max Jenkins, Clifford M^CKenna, Floyd and Ted Bryant, and Aaron Larson. Cal Jorgensen took the his school bus and E.D. Lewis his big truck. They took anyone that wanted to go, usually most of the town. The biggest game they played was played at Fort Duchesne against the Indians at the U.B.I.C.. The Indians were supposed to be one of the best teams in the basin. Well they were pretty good players. Leota was a little shaky when they started to play, but the players from the dust bowl, as they were called, beat them 8 to 0. Quite a glory for Leota. Another sport that people turned out for was ice skating in the winter.

The U.B.I.C., Uintah Basin Industrial Convention was held at Fort Duchesne each year for three days during the early part of August. It had activities for everyone, both Indian and white. There were classes pertaining to farming, homemaking, socials, and sports. People drove their team and wagon and pitched their tents all around the army parade grounds. The Indians camped on the river. There was something going on all the time from the Bugle in the morning. Band music to eat by. There were classes, baseball games, horse shoe pitching, pulling horses, tug‑of‑wars between wards and always dancing. Also dancing lessons.

As I look back now, I remember Grandpa Elbert always stayed home from U.B.I.C. and did the cores. Mom and all the rest of us went. We camped in tents the full three days. We all went in the wagon with bedding garb and kids. The road come down the east side of the river, then dirt, and poor. It rained the morning we left to come home and we got the wagon stuck in those blue clay hills. Unloaded all the people and we all pushed. I never forgot how muddy we got, but we really enjoyed those times visiting with old friends. When we would see childhood friends that you hadn’t seen since last U.B.I.C. as these were team and wagon days.

Now we had two or three dry years. Practically no crops. Grandpa had gone to Green River to raise a garden and this spring Bill leased the Lyman place across the Duchesne River. It had a four room house with sheds and graineries, underground cellar. My sister Bernice and her husband Vern Sheffer are still living on Deep Creek, but the drought had hit them too. Mostly the creek had gone dry. So, they moved into half of the Lyman house. They now have four little boys. There was lots of hay, quite a big farm. Well, Bernice and family had a few cows, by now we have a few cows, Bill and Vern start farming. We now have a small cream check. But butter fat was ten or eleven cents a pound. We both have chickens. Eggs is ten cents a dozen, but we raise beautiful gardens. We get along fine.

We still come to the half holiday at Leota. Now its team and wagon from over there. It’s all day Saturday, but fun. Bernice and I bottle and dry everything and pick wild currents and blueberries for jellies. We also made a barrel of sauerkraut and a barrel of dill pickles, so we live good for two or three years. Then, Lyman’s wanted it back. While living there, I had one real frightening experience. Hazel, Bill’s sister has been in Alaska for two or three years as a missionary for the Episcopal Church. She is home now for a few weeks. It is spring, and high water time for the Duchesne River.

Grandpa Chandler and family are living here in the valley on the old place we leased when she left. It belonged to a Rogers in New York. This end of the Valley still has some high water. They had hay on most of the place, and Bill had been swimming his horse across to help his dad hay. He rode a big black long legged horse named Nig. Well, one morning he gets up and says you and the kids can go with me this morning and visit with Hazel. The river is down now, we will take the wagon.

When we get to the river I am really scarred. It has dropped about a foot, but is still a raging torrent. I pick the kids up off the bottom of the wagon, put them on the seat, Tom between me and Bill, and hold Elva as she is tiny^h; about one and a half years old. It’s a good thing I did, as the water got about six inches in the wagon bed. Scared, but safe across.

Spent the day with Bill’s folks and visited with Hazel. Got back that night. It had raised about eighteen inches. And muddy with trash and sticks floating down. I was so scarred. Bill said we could never make it in the wagon, so he unhooked the horses off the wagon, left the harnesses on them, put me and Tom on Nig. He was used to swimming the river real often. He said, “Put your feet through the tugs, your arms around Tom, and hold onto the harness, whatever you do, don’t turn loose, he will take you across, I will lead him”. He got on Bailey with Elva and started across. We were facing up steam across the riffle to get home and the trash frightened Bailey. He tried to turn back. Bill yelled “Kick old Nig, get on across”. So, I did, but when his feet didn’t hit bottom, I thought we were gone, but made it fine. Needless to say, next time I went around the road by the bridge, it was fifteen or twenty miles that way. That was the only time I ever swam it, but Bill continued to swim it whenever it was necessary.

That same year he tried to swim it with the mowing machine. Him riding one of the horses. The horses got scarred and turned down stream fighting each other. Bill held their heads apart, but it was a quarter of a mile before he could get them out on the bank. Then they landed on the same side of the river that he went in on. Well, the mower went around by the bridge too. I think now if the mower would have caught on a snag, both horses and Bill would probably of drowned. He took lots of chances, dangerous one, in them days.

Another experience with the river and high water, years later, after Tom and Leah were married. We had the Abbot place across the river. Tom and Bill were running it. We had a real nice bay horse and we had got Tom a new saddle when he graduated from high school. And Tom was swimming this horse across the river to change the water each day. One day he got within about twenty or thirty feet of the other side, when his horse lunges and comes over backward and goes under. Tom slides off and grabs a stirrup, but the horse goes down again and he has to turn loose his stirrup. Tom was washed down stream. The horse never come up again. This could have been a real tragedy, but Tom didn’t fight the raging river. He just fought to stay on top and float down stream. He was a good swimmer, but he knew he could never make it across current to the bank. A quarter of a mile down stream the current he was in hit the bank and he made it out. He was pretty sick for a half hour or so. Then he went down stream looking for his horse. A mile or more down he found the horse caught on some drift wood by a tree that had caved in. He got out to him, cut his new saddle off him, got the saddle out. Evidently, the horse either had a cramp or a heart attack. He had been swimming the river for a couple of weeks then, but this stopped too.

Another experience we had while living across from the river, Bill and I and the two kids were going to the Randlett store. Had to cross an Indians place. He was real mean when drinking, old Ben Werrow. He stopped us with a gun, said he was going to kill us. He was drunk. He said he never liked Pa, but had never got a chance to kill him. Stella, Bill’s younger sister, was with us too. We nearly died of a heart attack. Bill just kept talking to him. That’s one time I couldn’t say a word. Stella was in tears, but he finally let us go. Never fired a shot, but said “Never let me catch you on my place again”. I went for most of the groceries on horseback, for both families, needless to say, I went way around his place after that.

They were a happy two years with my sister. Vern joined the ball club as an extra pitcher. This he loved, but he didn’t think it was necessary for the whole family to go, so he rode his horse and Bill brought the rest of us in the wagon, Bernice and I, kids and all. Bernice was always a poor housekeeper—worse than me, if possible, so she loved being with me. I did sewing and mending for their family too, as I had a Singer machine. They (Vern and Bernice) lived in half of the house, but we usually ate together, one big happy family. Well, not quite. I used to argue with Vern about the way he treated his family. He didn’t think they needed anything, just Vern. But as a whole, we got along fine. I made an effort not to quarrel with him. Bill made it understood that Vern helped with the milking and chores instead of Bernice. Up until then she did all the milking.

In them days meat in the summer time is hard to come by as it won’t keep. The nursery rhyme that says four and twenty black birds baked in a pie are pretty good. Vern Sheffer went out one day, there were hundreds of red‑winged black birds in one tree. He took the double barreled shot gun, got fifty two birds with both barrels. Well, he cleaned them, just saved the breasts, two bites on each breast. I cooked them, made meat pies with potatoes, onions, and vegetables and crust on top. It was delicious.

Another time Bill and Vern went down on the river, found a still for making whiskey with a barrel of corn savings. They drained the water off it, took the wagon and brought the corn home for the chicken feed. They didn’t let it dry long enough before they started to feed it to the chickens. Got the chickens drunk. Got their two black giant roosters drunk. They put on quite a circus. We all nearly died laughing at them.

Another thing that was unusual was Vern hit one of his cows with a pole end and broke a front leg. The blood made him sick. He went to the house. Well, Bill and I and Bernice threw the cow and splinted her front leg. She got all right, was a little crooked though. She was one of their best milk cows, couldn’t afford to loose her. Went right on milking her, did keep her in the pen though. Bernice’s two little boys carried her water and feed.

After two years, Lyman’s want their place back, so we move back into the valley on the Howard Stevens place. That’s where Jess Jensen lives now. Bernice and Vern Sheffer have five boys now, and move to Tridell, up to the north end by the canal by the murky place. W.P.A. is now in swing and head of families can make a few dollars each month there. The drought is still on and we are now about a mile from Bill’s folks again.

These were hard times, but we were happy. We did things together. Whole families would get together with friends on Sunday afternoon, after church, and have a picnic lunch, play ball, pitch horse shoes, or jump rope with the kids. Then too everyone played jacks, both boys and girls.

They also learned to dance real young as everyone took their kids with them to dances. If they got sleepy, put them on a quilt in the corner or on a bench.

I must of picked up mother’s knack of sewing, as I could make most anything. Made all our clothes for both boys and girls. We never threw away any scrap, no matter how small. We made all kinds of quilt. We also sheared the sheep, washed the wool, corded it, made the bats for the quilts. We also made several different kinds of throw rugs for the floors.

These last two or three years have been real hard to make ends meet. We moved around so much, can’t keep it straight for sure what time we were at which place. But, it do remember two Summers on the old place that we hauled water from the Duchesne River to raise a garden. [We] would take five barrels on a wagon, drive out into the middle and fill the barrels. We made a trip every other day. Sometimes every day if it was real hot. This water hauling was my and Grandma’s and the girl’s job. The men were busy with other things, but the water hauling was a pretty steady job. We would put a two quart or a gallon can by each plant that is like tomatoes, squash of all kinds, egg plant. These cans have quite a large hole or several holes and are buried about half way in the ground so it puts the water down by the roots. These cans were filled every day or two, depending on the weather, heat, and wind. The carrots, beets and other things that were planted in rows were planted real close to the furrow, on both sides of it. Then the water was poured in the row and run between the vegetables. We raised enough vegetables to eat and for canning like this. The potatoes and corn would make do with only what little bit of water they got in the spring. Would have to plant twice as much as normal, as corn would only get two or three feet high and have one small ear by the ground. The potatoes would be small, mostly cook them with jackets on them, boiled.

At this time too Grandpa, Bill’s dad, had a couple of cows and fifteen or twenty milk goats. They would live and give a gallon of milk where a cow would starve to death.

During this time, we made all kinds of cheese. Would save the milk, put it in the ice house for a couple of days, until we would get enough to make yellow cheese. This we made and pressed. Got so we could make pretty good cheese. Used cheese coloring and rennet tablets. Grandpa had made us a cheese press.

When we butchered a cow we saved everything, but the belly. Saved the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the tongue, the brains, and the sweet breads. Plus all the tallow was rendered out to be used for frying meat and cooking, pretty heavy but beats nothing. Then too, Grandma and me spent all one day, this is the only time I figured out time was wasted. Spent a day peeling the meat from between the two layers of stomach to make pickled tripe. Took all day to peel this thin layer of meat, enough to make two quarts, then it wasn’t too good—was tough.

Another thing that happened that I thought was interesting was Grandpa E.M. caught a twenty-seven lb. white fish on one of this throw lines, he had caught an eleven inch bony tail. The white fish swallowed the bony tail. Then they had the big one tied up. They had just got it pulled out on the bank, and the bony tail pulled out of him and turned it loose. Orval was with his dad that day and fell on the fish and held it until Grandpa could get a good hold on his gills. There used to be lots of white fish in the rivers then, but they have all died off. They were real good eating.

Another thing we always had plenty of was honey. Would go to the river and find a big dead cottonwood tree. The bees would clean out the rotten wood, fill the space with honeycomb. Would cut the tree down, take the honey. Get anywhere from a tub full to three or four tub fulls out of one tree, depending on the size of the tree. They always saved the bees, put the queen in a bee box with some of the brood and honeycomb and she will call the workers in. This way we finally got bees of our own.

Another thing we did about this time. Dad E. M. Chandler, Bill, and Robert and Ella Moore took Robert’s old truck, went to Grand Junction, Colorado after peaches. Got to a place, they had ten acres. No sale for them, they told them they could have all they wanted of them, so they bought five gallon honey cans and canned them in the field as they were too ripe to haul home. They sorted and brought a truckload home, both canned and fresh, so we had peaches for several years. Things like this and the Chandler’s great love for hunting is why the Chandler’s always had plenty to eat.

We moved into the Howard Stevens place, that’s the place that Jess and Viola Jensen have now. We moved there in the fall of 1933, was there about a year. That winter, Morton was born. We didn’t think that we could save him, he was born with the cord around his neck. Was real blue for over a week, then he got yellow jaundice at about three weeks old. Turned yellow, even his eyes were yellow. He was always tall and real thin as a baby and little boy, and I really worried a lot about him. Took him to the doctor more than any of the other kids. He was always bothered with liver trouble, inherited from Bill’s dad I think. In the spring the Stevens was back and we moved across the road to Wallace Jensen’s place. Here we stayed about a year. All this time my Dad and the kids are living in Tridell. I made it up to see them three or four times a year. But was team and wagon time. Took most of the day to get there, so [I] would stay three or four days when I went. During these years my little brother, twelve years old had died with a mastoid earⁱ. He was in the hospital at Vernal for six weeks before he died, but in those days they didn’t know how to treat it. Then they didn’t have the medicine that they have now.

Then Dad had blood poison in his foot and I went up and stayed a couple of weeks until he was on the improvement list.

About this time, Hurley had trouble at home with Dad and ran away to Salt Lake and went to work at sixteen years old. Dad always managed to raise a good garden. Worked a little on W.P.A. and managed like the rest of us. Willis and Ardell Hackford lived close to him and Ardell helped what she could with Earnest and Vera. That’s all he has home now. Bernice and Vern have spent several winters with him since they left us on the Lyman place.

Now the drought is in full swing. Most of the Leota town have dried up and moved away. The new church house burned. The store and post office are gone. Most of the families left. The stock is starving. No feed for the cows, so the government come in, bought all the cows for $17 a head. Killed and buried them. We could keep all we wanted to eat, but they would see that you killed them. Grandma and the rest of us bottled all the bottles we had. Grandpa made a barrel of corned beef and lots of jerky. We all gave up the farm and moved to Randlett. Bill and I lived in two big rooms upstairs at Muriel’s and Willie Stevens. Grandma and Grandpa Chandler moved into the other government building across the square. It was the boys housing unit for the Indians, now they (the Indians) are at White Rocks. Now Bill is working in the gilsonite^j mine. This I hated as when they come up out of the mine, they were black as nigger’s. As far down his throat as you could see was black. I was so afraid his lungs would fill up. It would take thirty minutes with lava soap to get it off, but never got it out of the pores of your skin. The sheets and pillow cases get black too.

This winter Beatrice was born, November 9, 1935. Most all of the people now have left Leota also the valley. Only a few stuck it out, the Wall’s, the Jarman’s the M^CMullin’s, a few others, but most have given up and left.

Now the Chandler’s are all living at Randlett. Grandpa makes a little playing for dances. Then too about this time, they got started doing building for the Indians, little log shacks. They put up ice, built a little fence. The Chandler’s still do a lot of hunting rabbits, pheasants, anything else they could find. They always had plenty to eat. It’s been so long ago, I can’t remember if Bill worked in the mines in the winter Bea^k was born or helped his dad with odd jobs. They built a fence for Preacher Howes that winter. Seems like he only worked there in the mines for a few months before I talked him out of it.

Grandma Chandler loved to play cards, any kind. We got together now and played cards lots of evenings. Played canasta, rummy, pinochle, sluff, or any kind, just cards. She was lots of fun to be around. And Grandpa still played the banjo most every evening. They were a musical family.

In the summer I hear through the grape vine that my sister Hurley that left home a year and half ago was in Murray and was going hungry and her little boy, the same age as Bea, was about to starve. That she was married to George White and he was too lazy to work even on W.P.A., so I took my baby Bea, left the others with Bill and Grandma, went to look for her. She was to proud to go to Grandma Turner’s in Murray for help. Also, Wanda was married to Owen Hanson. Then he worked for the railroad, but she never went to her either. Well, it took me a week to find her. She was living in an old sheep wagon down by the Murray dump. I found her about 11 a.m. Could hear her trying to make George get up. She was cussing him because he wouldn’t get up to go to work that morning. About that time I yelled, “Is anybody home?” Well rumor was true. All they had in the place to eat was a half dozen dried up oranges. Well, after reading George the riot act and telling him if he couldn’t get out of bed and even try to find something for his family never to show up at my house as I was taking them home with me. We gathered up what few clothes they had, and took them to Wanda’s. Wanda felt real bad to think that Hurley never come to her for help. Well, the next day we saw George again. She told him she was leaving him and to never show up at our place.

I had gone to Salt Lake with Mildred Night on the cream truck. The next day, she would be in again, so I bring Hurley and Glen home with me. I felt so sorry for poor little Glen. He was the same age as Bea and she was crawling all over and he couldn’t even sit up alone. She stayed with us for three or four months upstairs at Muriel’s. Then one day, George showed up. He had a job at Moon Lake and had got an old car that run pretty good. Also, he had rented a house a block from Dad in Tridell. Well, he come two or three nights a week until she went back to him. By now we have an old car, so I see them and Dad quite often that summer. Well, Dad felt bad about her leaving home and was awful good to her. He saw that she had eggs and milk and garden vegetables to eat.

For the next few years they lived there and did fine. When Glen got old enough to talk and walk, he would come over to Dad’s every day. Dad would take him to gather the eggs. Any cracked ones we eat them. Then he would scramble some. Well, Glen goes to the coop one day, gets two eggs, gets just inside the door, hits his eggs together and says, “Here Grandpa, two cracked eggs. Cook them”. I think he was born talking. He remained me of Uncle Odie still yet.

I still see Glen and family once in a while. He lives in Salt Lake. Has a lovely wife and family. They come out some times on their vacation. His mother, Hurley, died when he was eight years old with cancer. She was in the hospital for months before she died. Her and George had separated, she was engaged to Johnny Barns. He and his dad and two brothers drove taxies. It took all the bunch of them could make to keep her in a private hospital. They didn’t want her in the county one. But, the family had to furnish someone to sit up with her nights, so I went to L.A.. Took Earnie, he was a baby. I stayed six weeks. Sit up with her every night. Dad tended Earnie. I was nursing him and I would be gone ten or twelve hours. Dad said he never cried, but he wouldn’t have told me if he had.

That was the hardest six weeks I ever went through. I never saw such suffering in my life. One hates to think of death, but when you see what I did in those six weeks, it is quite a relief to know she won’t have to suffer that kind of pain any more. I hope she has some happiness where she is at, she didn’t have much in this life.

The next two years were really fun times for us. We would make good gypsy’s. The depression here was in full swing. Everything burned up or blew away. No snow in winter, just cold. No rain in summer, just hot breeze. Bill wanted to go some place else. I said OK with me if we go to the coast where Mother’s folks live. So we sold everything we owned, horses, harnesses, saddles, bridles, what furniture we had, everything but our clothes and kids and a camp outfit. With the old car we had, we made a down payment on a new Chevy. A new one then cost $800. We now have four kids Tom-Six, Elva-four, Mort-two, Bea-eight months. We put our camp equipment, bedding and clothes in the truck. Took the kids, headed for Redding, California. Took the same route I had been over in 1928 with Dad, but the trip was somewhat different. Little better road, new car. We didn’t have any trouble. Landed at Uncle George Potter’s the next day. Not much money left. They really made us feel welcome. They were all glad to see us. Uncle George and Abby’s kids were all married but two, and they all lived close, within twenty or thirty miles of each other. Had quite a reunion. All kids come home the next day to see us. Then too, they were having a Fireman’s Ball the night after we got there. Blocked off a bridge and danced on it. Took a good part of what little bit of money we had left for a ticket. But everyone insisted we go, so we did. Had lots of fun; danced all night. Good thing we both liked to dance. These were dancing Potter’s. The Potter’s were all musical. Different ones spelled off the music. They knew every one, as they had been there for years.

I forgot to mention on the way to California, we were going through Nevada and we come to an army of crickets. After we saw this sight, it was lots easier to see how the crickets took the crops of the early Mormon settlers in Utah.

This army of crickets that we come to was about one and a half miles wide, and they never left one green thing. The leaves and bark off the brush, a dust bowl after they went through. There were hundred of people trying to stop or turn them. They were plowing furrows with tractors across their path, pouring gas in each furrow, then as the crickets filled up the furrow they would light the gas. These furrows were a hundred or so yards apart. This was in 1936. In this day and age, they would just spray them by plane. They were crossing the road when we went by and they were an inch or more thick, mashed on the road. The people were trying to get them stopped before they got to the next town, which was ten or fifteen miles away. It was quite an unusual sight to see.

This same day we were going along about forty five or fifty miles an hour, that was fast in those days, when a rim and tire passed us up. It was really traveling. We had a two wheel trailer we were pulling. About this time Bill pulls over, he had a flat. But it was our tire and rim that just passed us up. He had to walk a half mile to get it. It went straight down the road to a bend. The rim was separated from the wheel, the bolts had broke.

Uncle George got Bill a job with a friend of his who owned a farm on Cottonwood Creek. Paid $35 a month, cash. Furnished us a house, milk and eggs. Bill’s boss drove a produce truck. Delivering to the big cities and he brought home sacks of two‑day‑old bread and lots of rolls and doughnuts. We managed fine, even though we were paying $30 a month for car payments.

My cousins, Wanda and Ray Giles, Winnie and Leo Reynolds, Cliff and Vera Potter, Bill and I were together at one place or another nearly every weekend, playing cards or monopoly, or going dancing. Then as fall come on they spent their time spearing salmon out of the Sacramento River. Got some as big as fifty or sixty pounds. These were filleted, salted and smoked—just like a side of bacon. Their spears were made out of a pitch fork with either one or two of the tongs left on with a sharp thing that fit over the end, four or five inches long, with a hole in the middle, a wire through the hole. One had to throw the pole hard enough to put the tong clear through the fish, then it would come off and turn sideways in the fish. Then you had him tied to you, as there was a rope on the end of the pole tied to your wrist. The ones that did the most fishing were Bill and Ray Giles. We had more fun when we got together than a bunch of monkeys. The guys would go fishing. We would bed all the kids down and play cards or just visit. Next day, take care of fish. When dried it would keep, could be stored. Many of the steaks that we cut, that one round off a fish, filled a big skillet. Nothing could beat these red salmon steaks. These good times hold a special place in my memories.

Wanda and Ray Giles had a boy two years older than Tom. They, the two boys, go down on Cottonwood Creek one day. They spear two salmon about twelve pounds each. They had watched enough to know how it was done. While the salmon are spawning you can catch them with any kind of snag hooks they are so thick. They were two proud boys. These were the biggest ones they had caught.

For the month or six weeks that the salmon were running Bill, Ray Giles, and Winnie’s husband Leo Reynolds really spent a lot of time on the river. We all used to go part time and have a picnic or winnie roast, but most often a red salmon fry. It’s delicious anytime, but best cooked on a camp fire. I have never tasted any red salmon like what they used to get there in the Sacramento River.

Now both Wanda and Ray Giles have passed away. Ray died of a heart attack six or eight years ago. Wanda died of Hodgkin’s disease, it’s a form of cancer, four or five years ago. We were going to L.A. to spend a few months with folks there and went through Reno down through Redding. Spent a week with Wanda and Aunt Abby. She was living with her. I was always glad we went that year, as Abby died in the spring and Wanda got sick. They said it wasn’t a killing disease, but by fall she was gone. She left a family of wonderful kids. Laray is just like her mom, always welcome.

Had a real bad scare while we were living on the farm on Cottonwood Creek. It snowed about a foot, it never snows there as a rule. Then started to rain.

Needless to say, we had floods. The farm we were on was about a mile from where Cottonwood Creek dumped into the Sacramento River. Well, the river was so high that the creek couldn’t run in, so it started backing up. The creek was in a swell not too far from our house. The creek was so big I was scared. Before it got dark I tried to get Bill to go up to Uncle George’s on the hill. About the time I got him convinced the boss came over. He said that they had been there twenty five years and had never had water up around our house. So Bill stayed.

We went to bed, but I was too nervous to sleep. Was laying there reading. Sounded like the water was getting closer. Well, I stood it until about eleven o’clock. Got up to look. This is wet country in the winter and our house is built up on three foot posts. When I opened the screen door to look out, the screen hit the water. Run to the back door; same thing. There was a forty‑acre orchard behind the house. The water was up to the first limbs, three or four feet, and a pile of muddy foam by each tree. I run in the bedroom to wake Bill, he was really scared too. I thought I would die of fright. The boss’ house was on a knoll about hundred yards away. We had a clothes line stretched from our house across a swell over to a tree on high ground. Four little kids, and I can’t swim at all. Bill says if it gets into the house I will take the kids one at a time, hold onto the clothes line, take them to high ground. It didn’t raise any more. Needless to say, we got no sleep that night. About four in the morning it starts to go down. As soon as it had gone down enough to get through on a mule my cousin, Cliff Potter, come riding one mule and leading one. Well, me and the kids went with him up to Uncle George’s and Aunt Abby’s. There we stayed until it dried up. Every time it started to rain after that we headed for Uncle George’s.

Uncle Amasa and Aunt Maggie Potter live there close too. Aunt Millie and Uncle Cliff Daniels lived at Redding. Grandma Potter lives around among her kids from one to another. Now she is just like a little kid. Play hop scotch on the walks, jump the rope, also run away if they didn’t watch her. Uncle Royal and his wife lived in Red Bluff.

Uncle Arnold had lost his wife a few years before and two of his kids with typhoid fever. So, he had moved on to Empire, Oregon. Laura and Glenn Perkins had gone up there to Oregon in the winter a few months after we got to California, and Glenn went to work in a saw mill, making pretty good money.

We got along fine and had lots of fun. The few months that Bill’s job lasted. But, around Thanksgiving time he was out of a job. We moved in with Wanda and Ray Giles. They were my favorite. We were about the same age, liked lots of the same things. Ray and Bill did odd jobs around for a while. We got behind on our car payment, so we traded it for a one and a half ton truck straight across. The truck was paid for, but a few years older.

Then Leo found a job, if Bill would help him with his truck. Tearing down an old smelter. There were big cast iron pots four inches thick and four or five feet across. They had to blow them up with dynamite. Would put a stick on the side, put mud over it, blow them up. Then haul it to town. The smelter was up in the timber by a big river.

We bought a big tent, or George gave it to us. Leo and Winnie had a tent too. Pitched them by the river in the big timber. They had tree kids, we had four kids. Their oldest one was a girl—a little older than Tom. Winnie played the accordion in the evening. We all sang. We had a ball up there.

We were told before we left to go up that there were rattlers in that part of the mountains. So, for a while, we were real careful, but never saw a snake. Had been up there two or three months or more. They were making pretty good money, and we had been up there all summer. Got up one morning, Winnie and I took all the kids for a walk up the mountain. Then we heard a shot. Hurried back to camp to see what had happened.

There sat a big black nigger by our camp with a big mountain rattler, three or four feet long. He had shot it in a bush beside the kids swing. He said where you find one, there is usually two. So he thought he had better stay and tell us. Well, I have always been terrified of snakes, so while Winnie gets dinner I am throwing sticks and rocks, looking for snakes. Well, when the guys come to dinner I was determined to go back down to Winnie’s and Leo’s place immediately. But Bill and Leo convinced me we could stay one more night and go down tomorrow when they got their load ready.

When it gets dark I am flashing the light around, looking for snakes. Next morning, we keep the kids real close to camp. Can’t do anything. When we get dinner ready Winnie says, “While I finish up, you take the kids, go call the men to dinner”. We go two by two behind each other, past an old office. Lots of books and junk around. Our little dog, Brownie, was over there messing around. I heard this noise, but didn’t know what it was. Bill says, “Just a minute, we will be down”. We are going back the same way. Get by the old office, there is a rattler. Reaches clear across the road, his head up about a foot on one end, his rattles up about a foot on the other end. He is about fifteen or twenty feet from us, with Brownie right behind him. I am petrified. I just stand and scream. I hear Leo holler, “A snake!” Here they come on the run, each with a 2x4. By then, the snake had got under a piece of tin, his old tail a singing! They kicked the tin over, the coil of the snake was nearly as big as a tub. I don’t remember now, but he had twelve or fourteen rattles. That did it. We went back to Leo’s place after dinner.

We left one tent up there for the guys to finish the job. Working back and forth from Leo’s place they never saw another snake.

Laura Perkins writes her folks that there is work in the timber up in Oregon.

Well, I think we had one of the first campers ever made. We build one on the back of that one and a half ton truck out of plywood about six feet high with a window on each side that could open inside. Took the window out of the cab back, made what they call a boot now. As our kids would be riding back there, we had bunk beds full size across the front, one on the floor, the other just above the cab to look out. This would sleep our family of six. We were getting ready to go to Oregon. Loaded our camp outfit and tent. We were going to Coos River out of North Bend to a logging camp. If we didn’t find work, we would go to Uncle Arnold Potter at Empire until we did find something to do.

We landed on Coos River at the logging camp with about $6. There was quite a tent community there. We pick a spot between two huge trees and pitch our tent next to a pond full of water. They have it full of logs, as they unload the logs into this pond, float them down the river to the saw mill on the ocean shore.

Bill went to see the boss about noon. He said they didn’t need anyone then, but might in a day or two if Bill had any experience. Well, Bill stayed there at the unloading dock. Helped each truck that come in unload. They have guys they call river rats, that work in the “Splash Pond” with cant hooks to get the logs all turned the right way. Bill, being real nimble, he gets a hook to help them. By night, the boss is convinced he is an experienced hand, and he had never saw a log that big until we landed there. That is, since he was a kid around ten at Klamath Falls, Oregon. Some of these logs, they cut would make a load on a truck. They would get two and three cuts forty feet long from one tree.

That night, the boss told him to come to work the next morning. This was great news, as they had a commissary there, that’s like a country store. Carry anything needed in the logging camp. They take it out of your wages, anything you buy. This was the middle of April and Tom’s first year in school. By now, he had been in four schools all ready, but there is a school bus goes by to take the kids to North Bend to school. But as I remember, we didn’t start him until fall. Well, needless to say, when he started the next fall, he was a little behind, so he took the first grade over again.

Well, the pay was real good for them days. $1 an hour and they worked all the day light hours. They were on the mountain by day light. Pay started when they left camp.

Bill bought another tent, ten by twelve. We pitched them end to end and put a floor in them and boarded up the sides three feet. Made a pretty good home. Small one the kitchen. The big one was sixteen by sixteen It was living room and bedroom. Here again our home was better than average, as I built cupboards, tables, and chairs. We also had an outdoor fireplace with a grill on it to cook on, if it wasn’t raining, which was very seldom it rained that summer, as the drought had stretched to there.

We still had quite a few folks living within a fifteen or twenty mile area. Uncle Arnold Potter at Empire, his daughter Ivy and Chance Willmot at North Bend, George’s girl Ida and Less Desmond at North Bend. We visited back and forth on weekends, played cards and partied.

This winter was the only time I ever got drunk in my life. Was at Laura and Glen’s. Laura was always drunk, and making a play for all the guys. Never saw her husband Glen really drunk. I always thought he had to stay sober to get her home and to bed. Bill drank some, had done ever since I knew him, at parties and dances. I have thought since it was a poor place to take him around the Potter’s, most of them were drinkers at that time. They would get to drinking and acting like fools, was always calling me a party pooper.

Well, this night I got mad and took a drink out of some guy’s glass. Well, everyone was drinking something different, and instead of fixing a drink of my own, every guy that offered me a drink, I took a few swallows. Pretty soon I was so deathly sick, thought I would die, and wished I could. One of the guys held my head under a faucet until he nearly drowned me, but didn’t help. We all stayed at Glen and Laura’s that night. All the relatives—three families of us. Next morning every one was too sick to get up, including me. But there were eleven little kids all crying because they were hungry. I said to myself, “You damn fool, get up and feed your kids!” I got up, my head felt as big as a barrel and every bit of it hurt, but finally got all the kids fed. Then took a drink of water, rushed to the bathroom to heave up my shoe strings again. Well, it was sprinkling outside, so I decided to walk over to North Bend, a little over a mile in the rain. But it didn’t help much.

Was afternoon before Bill felt like going back to camp. Well, this was my first and last drunk. I decided right then and there that I couldn’t stand the after effects. Never another day like that.

Another thing that happened that first summer in the logging camp was a fire. They had stopped for dinner, had left a steam engine running while they ate. A spark come through the screen on the exhaust, started a fire. All grabbed a shovel, get it about out when a whirl wind hit it and carried it right up a ridge. Everything was dry as powder and it really spread.

This was a real big logging company. They had thousands of logs piled up in what they called cold decks. They had over a hundred regular workers, but by night, they had four or five hundred fire fighters. They had eight or ten big cats out on the mountain in an area where they now couldn’t save them so they put them all in a draw but one. Used it to bury the rest. Well it was seventy two hours before Bill got back to camp.

It burned up thousands of acres of timber all their cold deck piles. Most of the equipment on the mountain. The next day a fellow came to camp, told everyone to pack up and be ready to pull out. The fire was one and a half miles from our camp, had to keep throwing water on the tents to keep them from catching fire as hot sparks were falling on them. Well, I had never been by a fire before so wasn’t to worried, but some of the old hands took their families and left. By the next morning, both roads were closed. But luck was with us as it didn’t come into the river bottom. They managed a fire trail down a ridge that it didn’t jump.

The third day Bill come in and said the main fire had passed us by, we were safe. But it did millions of dollars of damages. These days with the fire on three sides of us were about the hottest days we ever spent. All the kids in camp played along the river bank and carried water to throw on the tents. Also, on any dry sots of grass. Talk about fireworks! It was like the Fourth of July, especially when a tree a hundred and fifty feet tall fell. The sparks really would fly. At night the fire was quite a sight, needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep in camp until the fire was under control.

Had one quite bad accident in our camp town. A little four‑year old girl was frying slices of potatoes on an outside fireplace. Caught the back of her dress on fire. Burned her back from shoulder to knees, one solid blister. We heard her screaming. My other neighbor and I got there in time to help smother it out. Alta Smith had a good car, she said “Wrap her in a blanket, let’s get her to a doctor”. The mother said, “No, go tell the boss to send word on the next truck after my husband”. This we did, but knew it would take hours to get him in. It did—three hours. But she wouldn’t change her mind and let us take her to town. But three or four days later she was back. The girl had to lay on her stomach. If she moved the cracks would drip blood, the worst thing I ever saw. Don’t know how they got her out of the hospital. We wondered if they ever took her in. A few days later her dad got fired, so don’t know how she got along. It takes all kinds to make this world. Now I would of wrapped her in a blanket and started out on foot if [there was] no other way, to get to the doctor. The mother waited seven or eight hours before starting down with her. Some people don’t seem to care about their kids. She was that kind.

We had lots of good times here on Coos River. The fishing was great and we made lots of friends in camp. Here again we played cards, mainly the ladies as the guys were working all the daylight hours, so they were ready for bed early. Another thing we picked and canned lots of wild blackberries. By now we have a pressure cooker and a tin can sealer, so we are canning fish too.

I guess that the years I lived in the valley near Bill’s mom who made me food conscious, so I still can and dry and store anything I can get my hands on.

About the middle of December Bill asks his boss if he could come home to Utah for Christmas. He has been with them eight of nine months now, and he tells him, “Yes, But try and be back by the first of the year.” Well, we come home in our home made camper. Got here and things were worse in the basin, if that is possible. Folks all still living at Randlett. All doing anything they can to make ends meet. While we were home Robert Moore and Orval, Bill’s brother, made a trip to Oregon to look for work, but they wasn’t as good as Bill had been, couldn’t make anybody believe that they had worked in the Timber. By now, my Dad [Ivan] and Vera are alone. Earnie, my youngest brother, had joined the C.E.E. camp, a government created job for teenage boys. Some jobs were digging canals by hand, making roads with pick and shovel, cleaning up the forests, anything to keep them busy. They were fed and clothed, paid a small wage for spending money.

Dad decides to go back with us and spend some time with Uncle Arnold Potter, his favorite brother‑in‑law. Dad and him had been close until Arnold moved to the coast, a couple of years before Mom died. Well, Dad had one milk cow, we butchered her, put most of her in tin cans and took it back with us. Give the bony parts to Bernice.

Hurley and George White and Glen are now in Salt Lake again. We stopped by to see them. George was working. We left right after Christmas, as the road over the coast range is closed around the first of the year. Then it’s clear around by the Columbus River. So when we got to Redman, they said it was closed over the mountain, that they had about a foot of snow, that they had cleared their half to the top of the mountain, but they weren’t going to clean the other side till spring. Bill tells them he has got to get over for his job, and if it’s cleaned to the top of the mountain he can make it. The road boss tells him he is taking quite a chance. My dad tells them we got everything with us to stay till spring plenty of food, so they let us go on. We didn’t have to much trouble. A little where we hit any up hills. Took us all day to get down the other side. Well it was quite an experience, but it was a beautiful drive.

Well we took dad straight to Uncle Arnold’s. Him and dad go out and pick up his crab nets. Arnold cooks a pressure kettle full of fresh crab. When my dad took the shell of and saw the entrails inside, he said, “it looks like a fresh cow pile”. That was his first and last fresh crab. Was quite a reunion for Dad and Arnold.

Things went along fine for a while after we got back to Oregon. Then towards Spring the Unions moved in an called a strike in all the Timber work. No more long hours without overtime. Well, depression had hit the coast. Hundreds, no, thousands were out of work. After a week most of them were going hungry. Well, bread lines formed. You would go and stand in line for hours. Would take all day. The government was issuing a little sack for groceries to each head of families, a small sack of rice, beans, corn meal, a few cans of beef to last a family of six or eight for a week. Well, it would last part of the week if you were careful.

Well, the next two months were the worst I ever put in. There was stealing and robberies every night. It didn’t effect us too much as we had all this stuff we had canned, like meat and dried fish, and blackberries by the case.

Well Dad gets up, walks the block and a half home and brings her a box full of our groceries. When we leave Dad says, “Well Ivy, when ours are gone, maybe we will get some more.” Gennie and George’s boy eleven years old was in juvenile court three times in the six weeks they were without work or pay, for stealing pop bottles and beer bottles out of people’s garages. Judge ask him “What did you do with the money?” “Bought a loaf of bread to take home to my little brothers and sisters.” [The Judge let him go.] Gennie called her folks for help, hoping they had forgiven her, but they hadn’t. They told her they would send her and the kids tickets to come on home, but otherwise no help. She said, “No thanks, we will starve first”. When one like her has always had everything she needed, it’s hard to try and manage. Now us, we had always been short on worldly goods, but lots of happiness in our family.

About this time, we heard there was work in Klamath Falls, Oregon, so we loaded up again and go there. Bill had lived there when he was small and wanted to go back anyway. Well, we got there, a hundred jobs with five hundred in line for them. Well, we camped on the river. Dad caught a mess of fish while we decided what to do. Didn’t have enough money to get back to North Bend, but had to, as we were waiting for our unemployment checks to come. Was to be $25 a week. We had four or five coming now, if they ever got to us.

Well, I went to the county commissioners, told them our hard luck story. Told them they would either have to keep us or send us back. So they filled our gas tank and gave us orders on the county for three more fill up’s to get us home and a $25 order for groceries. So we bought a hundred pounds of flour, sugar, salt and all the things we need to add to our supply of groceries. I never saw so many people going hungry. Many of our friends put their kids to bed with just a boiled potato for supper and was glad to get it.

During the next month, we fished a lot and Dad spent a lot of time down on the docks where the fishing boats come in. They got to know him and were always giving him fish, anything that was bruised or rejected from commerce selling, so he had lots to give away. Then Dad got to know one of the county commissioners and talked him into giving him and Bill a job cleaning up bricks out of an old house they were tearing down. Didn’t make much, but kept us and several of Dad’s best friends in stable groceries.

One trip I will never forget was a trip up the Coos River fishing. Took our camp outfit, but money was scarce and Dad wouldn’t buy a license. Said he didn’t feel too good and wasn’t going to fish. We should have known better. We get up there and Dad starts out following Bill, but every time Bill missed a big one, Day would say, “Give me that pole Bill for a minute”. He would catch that one, then go on fishing. Pretty soon he would remember it was Bill’s pole, he would give it back and say, “I am give right out”. Needless to say, by the time we started to go home we had several limits cashed away. Are going home around a dugway, Dad looks down, a huge redwood had fallen across the river. Dad says, “Bill let’s fish that one more hole. Only fifty yards.” Bill says, “You go fish it, I’ll wait for you”. Dad gets down there, takes him quite a while to climb upon that huge tree, just gets started to fishing, hears a car coming. He runs to the end of the tree, jumps off, lays the pole down and sets down. Sure enough, it’s a warden. He checks Bill’s license and fish, then he spies Dad down by the river. Down we all go. He says to Dad, “Let’s see your license.” “I am not fishing today.” “How come you’re all wet? Your son‑in‑law is dry.” “He has boots in the car.” “How come he is up on the road, you down here?” “He went up to check the kids.” “Them your tracks that jumped off that log?” Dad says, “Yes. Any law against me jumping off that log?” He gets out his book, but don’t write anything in it yet. He says, “I still say if you weren’t fishing, you wouldn’t be wet to the waist.” So up the hill we all go to check the boots. He finally puts his book away. Says,”I know you were fishing, but I didn’t see you.” Dad just out talked him. As he drives away, Dad says, “That’s a relief. I was expecting Elva May to say any minute, ‘Grandpa’s fish are in the grub box.” Needless to say, next time we went, Dad had a license. We were luckier that a lot of our friends, as we could always drop over to Uncle Arnold’s for any kind of off shore salt water fish, such as crabs. Also oysters and clams there for digging. Then, we knew how to make a meal out of what we had. Never in my life did I live where I could run to the store or send a kid.

We had one other scare that comes to mind. Tom, Elva, Mort, Perky and Pat Perkins went picking black berries. Started at our back door. About two miles out to the road on the other side. Well, they were gone for hours. We started hunting them in the late afternoon. We finally drive around on the other side. Here are five badly torn, scratched, tired, and hungry kids coming home around the road. Everyone had said not a chance in a hundred that they could make it out on the other side. Ask Tom, he said, “When we went in, we were facing the sun, so when we got mixed up, I knew if we went toward the sun we would come out on the road coming home.”

Well, about this time, everyone got their unemployment checks. Got the first six all at once. It was $25 a week for six weeks ‑‑ $150 in one envelope. Well, I was ready to come back to the farm. I told Bill, “I am going home one way or another.” After about a week, he decided we better come home, so we loaded everything we were taking in the camper. But, with Dad and Vera, had to have one bed outside. Tom and Dad slept outside. If it was stormy, we pitched a tent. We left lots of good friends, happy times, and one of the most beautiful spots to live I was ever in. The timber, the flowers, ferns, the ocean, the fishing. We left some very good friends. Some family and lots of happy memories. I left a few sad memories, but won’t dwell on them.

We come over the mountains to Eugene. Went north from there on, what is now Interstate 5. Got up in a beautiful valley. Saw a sign “Olive Pickers Wanted”. So we stopped. The whole bunch of us made about $7 in two days. From the ground looking up the trees are loaded, green olives. But get up the ladder and couldn’t see anything but leaves. So after two days, Bill tells the boss, “We got to have our money for food and move on.” So we get it. Get up into the hop center around Salem, sign says “Hops 8 cents a pound”. Dad says, “Bill, we should be able to do pretty good picking hops”. Well, they gave us baskets about three feet high and eighteen inches across. Well, by now, you got about four or five pounds in it and are still pushing it down. We had three baskets and all the kids and Vera helping. The best we could so was a couple of dollars a day. We stayed three or four days, then moved on again. We saw a lot of beautiful country on this trip and got lots of new experience. But now we decided we better get for home, and get the kids in school. We go around Portland and head up the Columbia River Drive. This is a beautiful drive.

We got up the Columbus River Falls. There was an Indian camp there, catching fish and drying them for the whole tribe. They had two or three platforms built on each side of the falls with two or three Indians on each platform with huge dip nets about three feet across with about eight or ten foot handle with a rope on the handle. They would dip down on the falls, get the fish trying to go up. Catching salmon going up the river to spawn. The size, anywhere up to 50 or 60 pounds. They had a cable car across the river to bring them across from the other side. They had dozens of tents. Rows and rows of them with wires stretched across them to hang the fish on to dry. It took two or three weeks for them to get enough fish to do their tribe. I don’t have any idea how many pounds of fish they would have dried. Then they were allowed to sell all they could catch for one week. This would be tribe money for the fish.

Well, Dad and Bill hunted up the officer in charge, tried to buy one or two, but he said we would have to wait two more days before the Indians would be allowed to sell any. We got part way back to our outfit when a half‑breed stopped Bill and told him to go to his camp on the edge of the tents and he would bring us a fish in thirty minutes. He sold us a red salmon that would weigh around 45 pounds for a dollar and gave us two steel‑head trout close to ten pounds. Well we canned 47 cans of salmon. The can size like beans and peas you buy. We ate the two steel‑head that day and the next.

Dad was really worried about Bill getting the fish. Said the law would be after us for having hot fish. Dad kept looking back for miles, but no cops. Well, we pulled off by the side of the road under some trees, was a small camp spot to eat dinner. Just got everyone around a quilt eating, when a car with two cops in it pulled off and stopped near us. Dad says, “I told you Bill”. I thought for a minute he was right, but they had stopped to eat too.

Well, we stopped early that night and canned them, as we carried cooker and canner also cans along with us.

I have just touched a few of the things that happened in this two years. Would probably get boring to go into anymore detail. While we were hop‑picking, Beatrice had an abscess under her arm. Couldn’t wear anything, only one of the boy’s shirts for a week. Took her to the doctor’s to get it lanced.

Another time, Tom was having a sword fight with one of his buddies, using broom handles and broke his thumb. But, as a general rule, things were pretty good.

Home

Well, we decided it’s time to get started for home, as it is now the first week in September and time for school. Must get the kids home to Randlett. Don’t have any trouble getting home.

Did stop at Grandma Turner’s for a few days. She now has her son Earnest’s four kids, as his wife Dorothy had run away with Earn’s boss. They are managing pretty good and Earn and Odie are both working at Kennecott Copper, part‑time anyway. Grandma has a wonderful garden spot and several different kinds of fruit trees. She does her own canning of vegetables and fruit.

When we get back to the valley, Bill’s folks are living on the old place where our kids grew up. Things are a little better, but not much. Vera, my sister, stayed with us. Dad went to LaPoint for a while, around Willie and Ardell Hackford. Roxie and Vera were going to Alterra High School. Clifford going to Fort Duchesne school.

The first fall we got home, the horses all had sleeping sickness, or brain fever. Old Topsy used to fall in the pond if you let her go for a drink and someone would jump in and hold her head up until someone could get something to pull her out.

Now there is only Grandpa and Grandma [E.M. and Mammie] and Roxie and Clifford at home. Elbert, Stella, Blanche and Grace had got married. Then Bill and I and Vera and our four kids at home now.

It become necessary for me to go back to working out in the field, driving a team to plow or disk or plant, as crops all had to be planted before school was out. Now we have three in school—Tom, Elva, and Mort^l. Also Roxie, Clifford, and Vera and Bill working there. Mom, Dad and me had Beatrice [? does she mean her child Bea, as she is the youngest now?] to take care of.

This first summer back home, we took our truck and went up White Rocks Canyon to fish and camp. Grandpa stayed home again to do chores. We took Willis and Ardell Hackford, and their four kids and Clifton Hackford, my Dad and Vera, Grandma, Roxie, and Clifford. Bill and I and our four kids and Moses or Junior Moore.

Sharon and Clifton Hackford and Tom and Clifford rode the horses from here to above the last ranch. The rest of us with bedding and food come in the truck. When we got to the end of the road, the boys were there waiting with the horses. We packed tents, bedding and food on them. Then everyone else walked. We also had Pearl, Grace’s little girl. Well, the guys and horses went off and left the women and kids. Well, we had walked about a mile. We’re all tired, we’re walking along a trail beside the mountain when in the road were two big bulls. Frightening. Well we weren’t very tired because before we stopped to rest we were way up the mountain going around the bulls and we never dropped a thing any one was carrying. Needless to say, we finally made it to camp to find the tents all pitched, shelters all made, camp things all laid out and part of the guys gone fishing. Well, that first night it rained and before the boys drug their beds into the tents, they got pretty damp. So all the next day, the ladies dried bedding. But, we stayed the week and had lots of fun. Me and Mom Chandler made doughnuts one day. Also, stew in the dutch oven several times. And we brought home lots of salted fish.

Later that same fall, Willis and Ardell lost their youngest boy. The doctor said it was from eating a bad water melon. As far back as I can remember, my folks were real close to Willis and Ardell Hackford, and Bill and I have had lots of good times with them. They were really true friends to us.

We in the Avalon community are now building a church house and everyone puts in all the time helping they can. I spend a lot of time this next two winters taking a hot dish to the men to eat with their sandwiches and helping what I can when they got to the painting stage. I spent all one winter every day helping paint it. I would walk up, me and Beatrice. There was someone there every day, but different crews. Only me and Genecice Jarman went every day. So the church boss, Mr. Bagley, that came out to check on us an tell us what to do put me in charge of the mixing of the paint and bossing the painters, because I was there most every day and still brought a hot dish for lunch. Then the Elders decided it was too much for me and began to assign different ladies to bring the hot soup or whatever. I kept going every day.

The next summer we take two weeks to move Dad and Vera to Baldwin Park, California. Hurley and George White now live there. They have a big place with lots of nice chicken coops on it. Dad wants to go into the chicken business, so again we take our big truck. We have taken the homemade camper off of it, so we put sheep wagon bows over the top and buy a new canvas for it. Again we take the same twenty people we took fishing and load up and leave for California. We had two bad scares on the way down. We went through Zion’s Canyon through the tunnels. They had a check station to check your lights just before we went into it. When we got into the tunnel, the kids all started yelling turn on your lights. Just around the first bend, there was a turn out and a hole cut to look down the canyon, but our big long truck couldn’t get off the road. Here we are in the road, when here comes a bus barreling through. He just got stopped about a foot from us. Jumps out and starts cussing Bill for not having his lights one. Bill says, “no lights”. “In that case, I will stay here with mine on until you get it fixed”. This he did. We were all pretty shook up.

Camped that night in southern Utah and the first thing Dad does is kill a rattlesnake, so we spent an uneasy night. The next day, we had another close call, there was a cow standing in the road on the left hand side. A car coming about 80 mph towards us. A small raise in the ground kept him from seeing the cow. He only had a very short distance to decide what to do, and he cut across in front of us. Missed us by inches and was a quarter of a mile out in the desert before he got stopped. If Bill hadn’t been going so slow, he would have hit us square. I shut my eyes and yelled, so did the other ladies. But we made it on to Hurley’s. Then the next day, with the canvas rolled up on the sides we picked up Hurley and Glenn and Amy Bower and her kids an went down to the Ocean. We were quite a novelty to California. They thought the circus was coming. But that was the first any of the bunch had seen the Ocean. And everyone went swimming in it, but Mom. Was quite a sight. Some of us only waded, but we all got wet. In those days you could pick up lots of big shells on the beach, now you can’t find anything.

Well, Dad [Ivan] raised him five hundred laying hens. He had plenty of chicken coops. He did all right with them. In a couple of years Vera got married to Kenny Weidner. Dad stayed on with his chickens. It wasn’t long until Willis and Ardell moved down with Dad. They later bought the place, and Dad moved in with Ken and Vera. By now, Dad’s not too well. Has got heart trouble. Had to sell his chickens, too much lifting. He come up and spent a summer or two with us, but the high altitude bothered him quite bad.

Dad never gave up trying to get us to move to L.A., but my experience in Oregon with the strike in the logging camp was all the working for wages I wanted.

Dad gradually got worse and every time he had to go to the hospital, they would call me. Dad is asking for you. In the next two years, I made ever so many trips to California. Sometimes I would catch a ride with someone on vacation and sometimes I would go by bus.

We moved in with Vera and Dad. They had a real big two story house in Corona and Vera’s husband, Kenny, was in the service and Vera had two little girls. She worked nights in a cafe. Earnie was about nine months old. Vera tended them days, I took care of them nights. Dad was real bad all winter. He was to be operated on and we were hurrying to get there in time for it. Just barely made it. Went in the next day, and they said they would operate the next morning at eight a.m. to remove one lung, as he had cancer of the lung. They shaved him, got him all ready. I was the only one allowed in with him that morning. I thought it was probably something they had given him, but when the specialist got there, he said “How do you feel, Ivan?” When Dad spoke, he said, “Put him back in bed.” Then they called us all in and told us it was too late. The gruff voice meant that it had spread to his voice box and he wouldn’t operate. Said he knew Dad real well and he knew Dad would rather be dead than hang on for another year or so and not be able to talk. Well Dad felt like the doctor, so no operation.

They kept him in the hospital for a couple of months, then said, “Take him home if you want to, that’s where he wants to be”. So we did. He was in a lot of pain and was never rational at night and I spent most of my nights with my head on Dad’s bed and sitting on a stool, as he smoked if he woke up rational, so someone had to stay with him. Then too, it was a problem to keep him in bed when he got restless. It’s a very hard thing to watch one you love so much die by just wasting away. I watched my Dad die with cancer, watched my sister Hurley die that way too. When I look back now, I think my mother died with cancer too. Then Uncle Odie, Dad’s youngest brother, was with us for four months just before he died with cancer of the lung and throat. His older brother Earn died with cancer too. That’s five out of one family. Dad used to tell my kids “When you are tempted to start smoking, just remember what your old Grandpa suffered, and don’t start smoking”. It worries me as most of my kids smoke. The specialist told me that you didn’t inherit cancer, but you inherit the weakness that caused it. But none of them believe me.

We made a rush trip home to Salt Lake in the spring because my sister Wanda’s husband, Owen Hansen, was killed; got hit by a train while at work. He was putting in overtime on Sunday. Dad said, “You will have to go back Ivy, to be with her, as she has no one else.” He said “I’ll be all right.” Well, it wasn’t too long after we left until he was back in the hospital, as Vera couldn’t take care of him alone, but Wanda moved down in the summer to Pasadena and I kept the road hot all summer, running back and forth. I don’t think that Wanda every forgave Dad for the trouble they had when she was young until she came to California that summer. She told me later that she went in everyday and spent hours talking to him. She told me she didn’t know how much he meant to her until then. But every time he would get worse, he would say “Call Ivy, ask her to come down again”.

I never had any trouble with my Dad when I was growing up. And I never talked back to him or argued with him. I loved him too much to quarrel with him.

Dad

The winter before Dad died, we spent the winter with him. He was in and out of the hospital. When he was at home, I spent most of my nights by his bed, as most of the night he wasn’t rational and he would rave and talk about his not keeping his promise to mother to have the kids sealed to them. This had bothered him ever since she had died. That’s what aged Dad so fast. He was a young man of 45 with black wavy hair when she passed away, but in a couple of years, he was an old man with gray hair. Now he knows he is about to die and according to our and his belief, he would see her again, if his temple work is done. Then he would say, “I don’t know how I will face her after not keeping my word and doing it myself. But better to have you do it than not to get it did”. I made ever so many trips to L.A. that next summer. Everyone we knew told everyone else that I would like to ride to L.A.. I made several trips with Young’s, Bert and Bill.

But I wasn’t there when he passed away.^m But, he had also made us promise to bring him home and put him beside my mother. So, Willis and Ardell Hackford brought him home on the train to Murray. He was in the mortuary there for twenty four hours, as Grandma was in a wheel chair and couldn’t come to the Basin. But the rest all come. We held services in Tridell. Buried him beside his loving wife Elva Potter Turnerⁿ. It was hard to bury my father, but not as sad as seeing my young mother laid to rest at forty one years old. As now, he has all his family grown up. Vera is married to Kenneth Werdner and has two little girls and she was the youngest.

The Old Home Place

Well, the next few years just coasted along. Grandma [Mammie] and Clifford moved to Randlett and Roxie got married. Grandpa [E.M.] went to Southern Utah, prospecting for Uranium. He just had the place leased. We traded him our tent, camp stove and camping equipment for what few things he had left, which was mostly a bunch of horses. He had two cows left. He butchered one of them, sold the other. Years later we bought the place from a Rogers in New York. Borrowed the money from N.J. Maugher, that’s the old place where we raised our family. Times were hard the next few years. We built a cistern for drinking water. Dug a couple of wells to help with the garden. Built a bigger pond for stock watering. The drought had gotten a little better, but many’s the time we planted forty or eighty acres of grain and watched it burn up or blow away. We all worked hard to make a living and until Tom got old enough to drive a team, I did. Helped plow and plant and harvest what little we could grow. We got a few cows, pigs and chickens all these helped us live and raise our family. Then we had two more boys when we come home from Oregon: Earnie^o in ‘44, Jim^p in ‘48. After Earnie was born, I had what they called milk lag. It’s a blood clot, and I was in bed for three months. This didn’t help. At this time, Tom was fourteen, Elva was twelve, Mort was ten and Bea was eight. They managed pretty good job with the house. By canning time, I was up and around, able to help some and do the bossing. Bill and the boys helped, too.

While the kids were growing up, we usually took our truck or Jess took his and we took the kids to Roosevelt Saturday afternoon. Took our kids and all their friends to the afternoon show, while we did what little shopping we had to do. This continued all through their teens. One time we sure got a scare when Jim was about three. Bea and Veda Wall used to take him with them. We didn’t realize that Jim’s eyes were so bad he couldn’t see the show and he used to run around a lot. When the show was over, one time they couldn’t find Jim. He had gone out the back door and left. The girls all come out a crying and the search was on. It was poppy day in town. We ask a guy selling poppies if he saw a little lost boy. He said “Yes, we saw him. But he wasn’t lost. He talked to us quite some time ago. We gave him a poppy.” Well, Bea and Veda found him five blocks west of town throwing rocks through a fence at some chickens. That ended his shows for quite some time.

Then too, we all used to go to the Duchesne River Sunday afternoon, so all the kids could go swimming. Well, Carol Jensen and Elva had just learned to swim and they were racing across the swimming hole. One got ahead, the other grabbed her foot, they both went down. They popped up and down like a jack in a box. At first they were laughing, pulling each other down. But they nearly drowned before the boys realized they were in trouble and pulled them out.

We had the Chandler kids, the Jensen’s the Wall’s, the Wahlquist’s and the M^CMullin’s and the Harris boys for most of the places we took them. In the winter, they used to hitch the team on the bob sled and go sleigh riding. They would put straw, the hot rocks wrapped in gunny sacks on the bottom, then some quilts. This made it so they could play in the snow or slide behind the sled. Then get in and get warm. So they always come home wet from head to toe. I don’t know how they stayed well.

Speaking of sledding, when they were all going to Leota by bus, we had about a foot of snow on the ground, we had a blizzard. Wind and snow started about noon. Drifted so fast that the bus never left the school. Mrs. Cooper was one teacher, they had two then. They were fixing to keep them all night. Bill gets the harness on his team, on the big sled, when here comes Harold Dudley with his team. They put four horses on the sled and went to Leota and brought the kids all home that lived here in the valley. It took them six or seven hours to get through, some of the drifts, the horses could hardly make it.

Another thing the kids did was ice skating—that’s more winter fun. Another thing they did was pull each other with a rope on a sled behind the saddle horses.

Ever since Bill and I have been married, seems like we have had someone living with us off and on. When we first moved onto the old place, after we come back from Oregon, we had my Dad and my sister live with us for a while. Then we moved him to California. This is in 1939 and 1940. Then Robert Moore got out of work. Jobs were hard to come by and pay was small. He went south to look for work. On the farm we always had plenty of milk, butter and eggs. Also, chickens and pork. So Ella, his sister and her four kids moved in for several months. But she always carried her share of work and was good to be around. We never had any trouble. Only Elva and Bob fought but Ella was one that I hated to see leave. But they ended up in California and did fine from then on. Then when Grace and Mort were first married, they lived in for a few months. Then Grace and Mort and Roxie and Marvin drifted to California and went into the clothing business. They did fine, too. Then we lived across the Duchesne River for two or three years and my sister Bernice and Vern lived with us for about one and a half years. She was one that could do less and expect more than anyone I ever had around. Then Bill helped Earnie move a house down from LaPoint and rebuild it over on the sand wash. They lived here for quite a few years. Then over the years, our kids have lived with us at different times. Sometimes months and sometimes a year or more. We have always loved to have the kids come home, but one hates to see them out of work. But there is always plenty of work on the farm and plenty to eat, but the pay is always poor. While Roy was in the army and over seas, Elva lived at home. She had Craig^q then. When Roy got out of the service he was here too for one summer. Bill had just bought a new wire tie hay bailer, it was a hand tie. One guy sat on each side and each tied a wire as the bail went through. Roy said he never ate so much dust. Then he helped Bill put up hay across the river on the Abbot place and ate mosquitoes, they were really thick. He said every time he opened his mouth he got it full of mosquitoes. Roy was fun to have around, and no matter what I fixed to eat he always flattered me about my cooking. Made one feel good anyway.

Then our place has always been a place where all Bill’s folks and mine could come on vacation and go fishing and hunting. So we have always had lots of company. This we enjoy too. Most of them help out with groceries while here.

Then my brother, Harlan, lived with me for about ten years before he died. Him and Helen and Annie lived with us off and on over the years. Annie has always been like my own kid to me. Harlan’s wife, Helen^r, had diphtheria and it left her real deaf and real bad eyesight too. So it made it real hard for her to take care of Annie, so she never got much care. Mainly, Harlan took care of her, and I had to run back and forth to take them to the doctor. Mainly, Harlan, as he had high blood pressure most of his life and developed a heart condition in early life too. When Annie was real small we built them a pine log house down by the pond at the old place. Here they lived for about four years. Then Helen’s dad convinced them we should pay Harlan for anything he did around the place. They paid no rent and we kept them in milk, eggs and we had a garden and I could look after them. The garden Harlan helped me with but he, Mr. Woodruff, talked them into moving from here. Annie had a hard life. She learned to do for herself real young. We went and helped her what I could, as she was always asking to come and stay with us as my girls and her got along so good. Well, Helen got the idea that I was trying to take Ann away from them, so she always made a fuss every time she come down. But Harlan still let her come a lot over the years. She stayed and went to school with our kids several winters, but Helen never really liked this. Well, I could see why as Ann was all she had, but I thought that Ann needed our family. We all loved her and she was just one of our girls. She has always been a part of our family.

We didn’t see much of her after she married Bryan as he was a twenty year man in the service but we saw them a few times over the years. Now she is back with our family as they live at Randlett and I see them as much or more than I do my own kids. We are proud of her and Bryan and their family as I am happy that they live close to us. When she was staying with us we would take her home every week or two to spend the weekend with them. I realize this was hard on them and hard on Ann, but she grew up to be one of the sweetest people I know and I love her like my own daughters.

We built a new home in 1946 or 1947 on the old place. It was a real nice home and big after what we were use to with three bedrooms, a den and a fireplace. Altogether, we had eight rooms. We was only use to three big rooms. Bill and I and the kids built it. In them days we sawed the boards by hand, also mixed the cement by hand. Took us two years to build it and make a living too. When we moved into it we had the power in the valley. At this time, my sister Bernice had been in Hurricane, Utah for six or eight years and she had developed kidney trouble and was real sick. One time when she had just got out of the hospital, I went to Hurricane and spent six weeks with her. Left the kids with Bill. This was summer time and was real hot. But she was never well again.

Another time during the war when it was hard to get tires or car parts we went to Hurricane to spend Christmas with them. Dad and Vera were coming up from Los Angeles but we did have trouble going down. Left here after the school program about eleven p.m. Was about a foot of snow here and real cold but our car was in pretty good shape. This was the Christmas before Earnie was born.

Well, we got to the old rock service station that use to be at the head of Daniels Canyon and Bill says I got a flat. Its about two a.m. We coast into the station and it is closed. You could see they had a pot bellied heater, it was red hot. Bill tried to get him to let him in to fix the flats, two of them, both nails. One tire had two nails. He wouldn’t open up. It was so cold Bill was about to freeze, so I get out and hammer on the door and tell him I am going to set the place on fire if he don’t let us in. So he gets up and lets us in, but he was sure mad about it. Several years later the place did burn down but we never stopped there again.

But those flats started our trouble. We had seven flats before we got there, mostly nails. Had one at Cedar City, had the service station fix it. It was the night before Christmas. The guys were drinking and partying and he put air in it to find the hole and blew up the inner tube. It took them two hours to find another tube. We were about twenty two hours getting to Hurricane. I sure hated to start back but never had a bit of trouble coming home. We stayed ten days. All our married life, if we wanted to go some place, we would get the neighbor kids to do our chores. They usually do them for the cream check and the eggs.

Right after we got our new house built, Bernice and her family moved into our old house. Some of the boys were married then, they came too. Here Bernice lived until she died^s two or three years later. I was always glad that she was there so I could help her and look after her when she was sick. I think she was happy there with me. I know I loved having her, but it is hard to see your loved ones suffer like she did. Just die by inches over a period of years.

Grandma Chandler is now spending her winters with the ones in California and her summers with us so we built a shell camper on our pickup truck, take all our kids and Bea’s girlfriend, Veda Wall, to California for Christmas. Mort takes Bill Harris, his friend. Well, we stop at Stella’s and Darwin’s in Price¹⁸ to spend the night and they want to go so we load up them and their five kids. The four grownups ride in the cab. We stayed ten days. When we got back to Price, Stella and Darwin were digging a basement under their house but didn’t have it blocked up yet, so they found their water heater frozen and broken and washed away one side of the wall and the house had caved in on that side. So they moved to California. Been there ever since and doing fine.

Grandma Chandler always loved pheasant. And one time just a few months before Ruth, Elbert’s wife, died with cancer mom was staying with them. She saw Mort one day and said “You know Mort, I still love pheasant.” Well, Elbert was game warden then. Sunday morning they had all gone to church. Mort takes his four/ten and kills three big roosters. Slips them into Elbert’s kitchen, lays them on his table feathers and all. When Elbert got home he was quite upset. “Who would do this to me?” Mom said she never said a word, just cleaned them and cooked them. My kids all loved grandma. She loved to play cards. She would help the kids finish their work so they could play cards with her. Any kind, rummy, pinochle, canasta, or sluff or high five. That’s some of the games she taught the kids. They sometimes played poker.

The Family

By this time the older kids are married. Tom married Leah Pickup^t, Elva married Roy M^CKee^u, Mort married Carolyn Ross^v. Bea was working at Sweet’s Candy Company in Salt Lake.

When Bill and I decided to drive to Alaska, Bea quit her job to go with us. There was Bill and I, Bea, Earnie and Jim. Jim was about eight or nine years old. We had a brand new Chevy car so we gathered up a camp outfit, we took a butane hot plate, we took a small butane bottle, a quilt and a sheet for each of us, also an air mattress. Fold the sheet inside your quilt, lay it on the air mattress, you got a good bed. We also took our groceries: Canned chicken and fish, canned soups of all kinds, also tomatoes canned and fresh, also vegetables canned and fresh and eggs. So all we had to buy on the road was bread and milk or anything extra we wanted. Elva and Roy are now living in Idaho. We go to there and spend a few days with them. The first night we drive to Glacier Park on the Canada border. Even that far north the sun didn’t go down until ten thirty. When we got to Edmonton, Canada, that’s the first big shopping center we had ever saw. It was like the Cottonwood Mall in Salt Lake now.

At Dawson Creek, that’s where the road forks, go any direction from there. The only road north was the Alaskan highway sixteen hundred miles to Alaska. The road was built by the government for a transport road for trucks and equipment and was it crooked and worn out—pot holes and really rough. It was one long day’s drive from Dawson to White Horse. This is on the Yukon River. They had a big river boat docked there. This is where the river boats use to come up to here from the ocean. There was some places along the way where they had tracks to pull the boats around the places that they couldn’t go up the river. They used horses for this job. From here on the Fairbanks, Alaska, it is wilderness—just like a jungle but no big timber, nothing big enough to even make good poles and water and lakes everywhere. Water in both bar pits. The only place you could get off the road was on manmade camp grounds. Rivers and lakes. Natural lakes—some of them eight miles long. You had to fill up at everywhere there was gas and carry a five gallon gas can with you to make it to the next gas. Very few places that anyone could buy groceries and not a living thing—bird or animal—for at least a thousand miles. The reason for this was it was to far to migrate and too much snow and cold to stay there. Most of this sixteen hundred miles of road was through Canada and they had the best and most well kept campgrounds anywhere we have ever been. They furnished wood and at least one screened in building that people could put their sleeping bags in if they want to be in out of the mosquitoes.

This was their youth program and there were two young people who would bring you wood and water as soon as you stopped. Everything was so well kept and clean. We bought fishing licenses in each Provence so we could stop and fish. They were only a dollar then. All the lakes and streams had fish in them so we had fish anytime we wanted it. I can’t remember for sure but it seems like it took us five or six days to drive it—long days and nights.

We were gone from home a little over a month. Grandma Chandler [Mammie] had flew up to be there when we were there. Hazel, Bill’s sister, lived at Fairbanks. Orval also lived there too. He was a carpenter at Ladd Army Air Base. We were there two weeks and saw everything of interest in two or three hundred miles. The only way back was back down the Alaskan Highway. For probably a hundred miles or more we went down the top of a mountain, going due north and between two of the biggest rivers in the United States. One was the Yukon, I can’t remember the name of the other. Not a drop of either river at that time was used for anything but to look at and to fish in. About half way in we stopped to camp. The mosquitoes were so big and so thick that we couldn’t cook dinner. That’s the only time we traveled all night.

When we got to Alaska, we hadn’t been there an hour when Mom and Hazel got us into a card game. We played for an hour or two, then Hazel said “We’s better break it off and let these guys get to sleep”. I glanced out the window and said, “The sun is way up yet.” She says, “Look at the clock”. It was eleven p.m. I asked “How do you sleep when the sun is still up?” “Well, you pull the blinds down and go to bed.” We were there the middle of July. The sun went out of sight for about an hour, but never got at all dark. Bill took some pictures at twelve midnight without any flash. Hazel said, “By the end of July the sun would only be gone from the sky thirty minutes, then in the winter they never see the sun for months.” She said for three months it never gets light. We are always so glad, even when it gets so it is light a few hours a day. Then too the season is so short.

They had a beautiful garden, most everything they started in their green house. Lots of things won’t grow there because the ground is frozen the year around at a depth of three feet. Then too, there is no bees and they have to pollinate everything by hand. Pick a squash bloom, dust the others with it. T

his goes on with everything. Hazel took the state fair with a fifty pound cabbage. They plant their tomatoes from their green house by a wire fence. Tie them up to it to keep them off the cold ground. Then too, they put bright tin on the north side. Also tied to the fence. This reflects the sun back on them, helps them get ripe quicker.

When we come out to Dawson Creek on the way home, where the roads fork, we went west to the coast. Down the Hart Highway to the Fraizer River. I think this drive at that time, about 1956, down this river was the most unusual I have ever saw. The road was built down the river canyon on trussels out over the water as the sides were to rugged to make roads at that time. It was really beautiful. We went into Seattle, Washington, down into Oregon, across the bridle and up the Columbia River. Drive another beautiful river, then down through Idaho. Took the Snake River back to Roy and Elva’s. Was gone a little over a month from there. I forgot to mention that when we were coming out on our way home, about five or six hundred miles from Fair Banks, we stopped at the last store for hundreds of miles to stock up in a few things. They told us that they had a terrible storm about a hundred miles ahead and had washed out a hundred and fifty miles of road down a canyon. Took out bridges, road and everything and the state said it would take four or five days to get through at all. They had started two big cats at each end and they were just bull dozing holes full, breaking banks down so the traffic cold go through. So we just pulled off on a river and went fishing for four days. Then drove down to see how it was doing and there were four or five hundred cars lined up for miles waiting to get across. Most of them didn’t have bedding, food or anything for such an emergency. Well, it took them four days before traffic started through. Then it took about a full day to cover that hundred and fifty miles of terrible canyon. Again, we pulled out of line and camped. We let all that traffic get out of the way before we went through. We heard on the radio that there was between four and five hundred cars on each side of the washout. Those that were pulling trailer houses sure got the back end tore out coming through that awful road. Was just a cat trail.

The Fire and Beatrice’s Marriage

This is a good place to tell about our house burning. The first home we built burned down the first of January 1958. It was about eleven years old. I was up at the school house helping get things ready for a ward reunion, when I come out to go home, I could see some smoke but I wasn’t too worried at first, as Mort and Carolyn and Keith (Carolyn was expecting [Kim]) also Annie [Harlan and Helen’s daughter] and her three little girls were living with us at the time. Bill, Earnie and Jim were watching TV. Mort and Carolyn were still working outside. He come in to tell Bill there was smoke coming out from under the eves of the house. It had started in the attic. Annie’s three babies were in the bedroom asleep. They got them out first. Got the piano out and Bea’s new case of silver service and Bill’s guns—part of them. The Dudley’s got there right behind me, and Ron and Mort got the deep freeze off the porch. Don’t know how they ever did it, excitement I guess.

We didn’t save hardly anything out of the house. One gets so excited. We had hinged copper shingles on it. If we could of got our heads to work, we could of cut a hole in the roof with an ax and let the smoke go up as the pressure in the attic blew the sheet rock off the ceiling in the hall and smoke boiled into the house. Probably ten or fifteen minutes before there was any blaze in the house. One don’t think until it’s too late.

Two days after the fire Beatrice called. She was working in Idaho. Said she was coming home May 3^rd to be married^w at home. Well, the neighbors were real good. Also the church. They brought us new sheets and blankets, clothes for everyone. Jessie and LaRue [Pickup] took Annie and the girls for a few days. We went to Tom’s until we could get into Bert Stoddard’s basement across from where Willard lives now. Well, it’s the Barrit place now. Carolyn moved out to her folks and Mort started right in hauling off the ashes and appliances. Quite a job, getting the junk out of the basement. And as soon as we got our insurance we started to rebuild. By then, Mort had gone to Salt Lake to work.

I guess that’s about the hardest we ever worked. As by May we had it finished. Made a quick trip to Los Angeles after carpet. Got it from Bill Stevens, below wholesale prices. We also brought Roy and Elva and family back for the wedding.

We rebuilt on the same basement and Bill and I did most of the work. But this time, we did have a electric saw. But we were younger then. Then we sold that house in 1967 and built this one. I liked the house plan better in the old home, but am quite happy with this one.

Fishing and Hunting Trips

I can’t remember dates on times these trips were taken, but the first time Bill and I went Elk hunting we went to Hill Creek, way out. Made camp. The next morning we were out on the mountain before daylight. Well, we were new at this and we followed a fresh trail for about a mile and caught up with some white face cows. Well, then we started down a big long ridge. I always tell people we run this elk down. Bill was on top of the ridge, I was about a hundred yards down on the side, in the timber, when I saw a herd ahead of me. I yelled to Bill to make it down to the point. He puts the whip to his horse and makes it ahead of the elk. He hollers at me to see where I am at. When I answer, he shoots and hits it low in the back, but not enough to kill it. He tells me “Tie your horse up and follow him down the hill.” This I did. When the elk started to run down that hill, he never stopped for nothing. He would hit quakie’s four or five inches through and snap them right off. Well, we trailed him about a mile straight down to the bottom of the mountain. He crossed over and started up the other side. Well, Bill kneeled down and shot two more times. The elk went into a little bunch of quakie’s in a small draw. Bill says, “You stay here and watch him, if he comes out holler and tell me which way he is headed.” Well, he never come out. Pretty soon Bill called me over. You will never believe this, but that elk had fallen where the bank was quite steep and he had one front leg on the upper side of a tree and a horn stuck in the ground down side of the leg. He was just hung there. But dead, of course. When Bill gutted him out the entails fell fifteen or twenty feet down the draw. Then Bill goes and gets the horses. But when we try to get him out of there we have to quarter him up, tie a rope to one hind quarter, with couple of half hitches around a tree as far up as the rope will reach. Then he cut the quarter loose. Then he lifts. I take up the slack. That’s the way we got that whole thing up to where we could load it on the horses. We unloaded it about the same way. Put a half on each horse, but the horses had a hard time to keep their from feet on the ground as the meat would swing to the back. I thought he was sure going to lose a horse down the hill, but finally made it to the top about sundown. Had killed it at 10:00 a.m. By now I am so tired, I don’t think that I can make it to camp, which is two or three miles, so Bill puts a rain coat on top of the meat on the biggest horse, leads him up to a dead tree, says “Climb on.” Well, when I got up on top of that meat I told Bill, “Now I know what it’s like to ride on top of a camel!”

Well, we have killed lots of elk since, but that was the biggest one we ever got dressed out. Between four and five hundred pounds.

Deer Hunt

Another time we went deer hunting out in Greens Canyon, that’s east of Hill Creek. We rode our horses two or three miles from camp and Bill shoots a two‑point. After he shoots we see a big one go into the timber. Well, for years he tells me you can’t drive a deer any where. Well I proved him wrong. I ask him if he cares if I go look for the big one when he dresses this one out. He says, “No, but its miles from here by now”. But I get on my pinto horse and made a big swing out into the cedars, about a half mile and hit the draw he is in a mile or more down stream. I am coming up the trail. There are little draws coming into the main one and I come up to one of these and about fifty yards across the draw is a big four‑point laying under a tree. I jump off and shoot, missed of course, so I take off up the trail on a dead run. Bill hears us coming, picks up his gun. That buck is about forty feet, coming right at him. He shoots him right into the chest, right through the heart. When I come around the bend right behind the deer I said, “Don’t tell me I can’t drive a deer to you any more.” This is only one of the many dozens of deer stories I could relate. I will put down a few of the most outstanding.

Deer hunting close to home while Harlan, my brother, was still living with us we decided to go down south of the old place. Between the Duchesne River and the Green River on opening morning. Bill and I load our horses. Harlan won’t ride anymore. Well, we go down the west side of the hill until the road is real close to the river and there is a big four‑point buck standing on the skyline. So we unload our horses. The draw forks up there about a quarter of a mile. The deer is on the middle ridge. Bill tells me to get on my pinto horse and go back to where the pipeline comes across and get behind it. Well, I just get to where he sent me and I hear him shoot, so I pile off my horse. Just then he comes over the hill. I shoot an break a front leg. It turns and goes back down the draw past Bill. I hear him shoot two times, so I get on my horse and gallop down where he is. I said, “Did you get him?” He said, “We got all three.” They had two right close together, but when he went to cut the third ones throat it was gone. It had rolled to the bottom of the hill and looked like he was flopping one leg. I asked him if I could go look for it while they dressed those two out, he said yes but it is probably ten miles from here. Well, it was about two miles to the Indian drift fence, four foot high. Well, I head for the drift fence. There is a trail around it, and I am going down it on a trot looking for him. When my horse spots him out in the timber about fifty feet away. He is really going on a run, so I kick my horse, he keeps up with my horse on a gallop. I think if I can beat him to the next clearing I might get him. Something looked queer about him. All I could see was that big set of horns. When he comes out into the clearing I start and break a front leg. I can see now what looks wrong, both back legs were shot off at the hock joint. My horse runs away. I follow him into the brush, get another shot at him. About that time here comes Bill, leading my horse. I tell him I got him, no use of me going after a good deer as I had a heck of a time getting this one with both back legs off at the half way mark. We had all three filled up, all four‑points, and all big. They dressed out 205-210 or 215.

That was my last deer hunt with my brother as he went to Washington in the spring to spend the summer with Annie. He stayed until just before Christmas. Died in Salt Lake on Christmas day. We had gone to California to spend Christmas with the kids, I talked to him as we went through. He said he would come out after the holidays, and take care of his rabbits and help Earnie and Joan do the chores. We got to California one day when Tom called to tell us what happened, so we flew home to take care of his services. Flew back the next week. I really missed Harlan, as I had looked after him all his life, and for the last ten years he had lived with us. Him and me had fished every stream and lake in the Basin. He would buy the gas, and we would go some where two or three times a week. Well I had lost the best fishing partner I ever had. He would help me with the yard and garden so I would have time to take him fishing. These are special memories to me.

I don’t think that Bill has missed a deer hunt since we come back from Oregon. Tom either, since he got old enough. Most of the guys in the community all went the same place, and they all took horses to the Book Cliff mountains. Two guys would take all the horses, ride one, tie the rest to each others tails and lead them. It took two days to get out there. Bill usually was one to ride out. Elbert took his and Bill’s camp. He would leave the same day, stop and pitch their tent at the half way place, camp there and get on out the next day. Never until the last few years did they ever come back without their deer. I have always loved to fish and hunt, or just camp out, but didn’t start going much until I got my family big enough to take care of their selves and do chores.

But even when I stayed home to do chores, I used to take my pinto horse, she could carry me all day and still jump out from under me if she got spooked. This she did once in a while, but I have never got hurt falling off a horse, or not anything but my feelings. Bill hunted with his old 44.40^x for years. Then he got a new 270 and I took the 44. The next day after they left Jim and I used to go up the wash or down on the river. We would see lots of deer, but could never get off in time to hit one. But Jim was like me, loved to ride a horse, and we had fun.

Deer Hunting with Jim

When Jim was about twelve years old, him and I were home choring. We went up the sand wash, north of the valley. I had the old .44, he had the .22. We saw lots of deer, but couldn’t get close enough to kill one. I got separated from Jim and Bruce. They come home, they had got a two‑point. I rode out on one of those sand rock ledge points, got off Patches, set down to watch for the boys, and a big four‑point come out from under the ledge about ten feet from me. Well, I got so excited I fired and missed. Then I didn’t pull the lever clear down and got an empty shell caught in the gun. Couldn’t get it out, and the deer ran across the little draw and stopped under another ledge rock. Well, thirty minutes later he sneaked up the hill with me still trying to get the shell out. Next day we went to Duchesne River, got down there in the tamarack, could see the deer while on horse back, but when we got off couldn’t see them. Jim held my horse while I tried to hit one. When the gun went off he turned her loose. The horse jumped, left me setting in the tamarack.

Well, this is two of the many trips I took. Another time I rode Patches up to the head of a draw and twelve deer were just coming up. They split and went both ways around me. Mort had chased deer on Patches so much, that she took after them and I had a ride of my life for one mile. I lost my hat, as she jumped sage brush. Nearly lost me and the gun several times.

Morton is like me when it comes to stock, especially horses. Both him and Jim love horses. When Mort was growing up he rode his horse every day, winter and summer. If he didn’t have something to do on his horse, he rode it for fun. We had one little black mare that two or three people had taken for a month or two to break, and she just got meaner. They would bring her back. She bucked into a place where the water was running, and fell with Bill and rolled him in the mud. He turned her loose. No one tried to ride her for a year or two, then Mort about twelve years old caught her up. I was scared stiff. Afraid he would get hurt, but in a few months she was broke, and broke good. In a year or two anyone could ride her. She turned out to be one of the best horses we ever had.

All the neighbors used to tell me that Mort, also Jim was going to get killed. They went on a dead run everywhere they went. I used to tell them I did the same thing all my life. Been thrown or fell off hundred of times over the years. I never got hurt. The years before Bill talked me into selling my Pinto horse, she left me in the trail two or three times. Then I was pushing sixty years old. Never worried to much about the boys on horses.

Stan Nebecker told me once when we had that five hundred head of old ewes, and I was herding them and fixing fence, that if he saw someone going on a horse on the run he knew without asking it was Ivy. I still love to ride and I am sixty nine years old.

My Lyon Chase

One time when all the kids had married and left home, Mort, Jim, and Earnie and their families were living in Salt Lake. I stayed home and Bill and Tom had gone to the Book Cliff hunting. I take my pinto horse and go down in those blue clay hills five or six miles north of our old place hunting. I had Bill’s old 44 with me. I see a dust going around Austin Wardle’s west fence, right next to the hills. I think it is a deer. Well, I didn’t know a horse could run down a mountain lyon, but they can. When I caught up with it, it was a lyon. At first my horse was real frightened of him. He was out in a shale scale flat. Well, I stayed south and west of him, and chased him back and forth across those flats all afternoon. He was trying to go back to the hills on the Duchesne River and I stayed in his road. He got so tired that when I stopped to let my horse rest a few minutes, he would lay down. Just like a dog that tired with its tongue hanging out. We used to live down there below Pelican Lake. That flat is six or eight miles long. I kept him in that flat west of the road all afternoon, until sundown. I kept thinking someone would show up to shoot him. I had plenty of good close shots, but that morning I had forgot to bring a long rope for my horse. She was gun shy and I was afraid she would jerk the rains out of my hand and leave me down there with that lyon if I missed him. I drove him up to Jess Jensen’s south fence. When I got home the kids had got in from Salt Lake. But couldn’t find him. When Bill got home he said he was worth $100. If I had known that I would still be after him.

One More Deer Story

I Will Relate, and That’s All

This happened years ago when I was still staying home to do chores. Bill had been to the Book Cliffs with the crowd of men. He got home, we had two days of the season left. I tell him I am going down south of the old place, same area that I saw the Lyon a few years before, does he want to go along. We saddle up our horses. By now I have a new 243. I still have it, a very good gun. We get down next to the big draw. I am on top of the hill. Bill is going around the hill near the bottom covering the small draws to scare one up to me. Well, I ride out to the edge to look down to see where he is and he is following the biggest deer we had ever saw. The horns looked like elk horns, they were so big. But Bill hadn’t saw him yet. There was a saddle in the mountain about a quarter of a mile ahead of the big deer. I make up my mind if I can make it to the saddle first I can turn him and he will go back past Bill and he will get him. Well, I kick my horse, go on a dead run for the saddle. Well, me and the deer both make it to the saddle at the same time. Both on a dead run. The horse and the deer both stop. I go over my horses head land right beside the deer. We are both down. I come up on my hands and knees. The deer is getting up too. I could of reached out and touched him, but he turned back down the hill past Bill. That’s about as scared as I have ever been, but the deer was scared too and turned back when he got up. Bill emptied the old 44 at him and never touches him. I stood and watched him shoot and I never fired a shot. Bill has always been a dead shot, and every time he fired I would look for him to fall. Bill hadn’t shot the old 44 for ten years, and he was used to the 270 and its real fast gun. But he was out of shells for it and took the 44. The hill was steep and blue clay. The deer was jumping thirty or forty feet at a jump. And he couldn’t lead him far enough to get him. He looks up at me and says, “Why didn’t you shoot, there goes your jeep from Ziniks Sporting Goods.” [note; Ziniks sporting goods store had a “Big Buck” contest each year for the Deer Hunt, and would give away a vehicle to the winner, based on points and spread]

Well, we have had fifty years of these kind of things happening. I have only related the ones that I have been evolved in. Then only a few. Roy used to say, “I am going to stay close to mom, she always sees all the big ones.” Then if he did, you would hear me yell, “There he goes Roy, shoot him.”

Another Trip Bill and I Went On

The ditch company were trying to get some one to go back in the toollies, to White Rocks Lake and Cliff Lake to take the drift wood out of the spill way. Bill told them he and I would go. We took two horses in the pickup truck, one saddle bag, one piece of new canvas ten by twenty feet. Folded it for a saddle blanket. Took our double sleeping bag, tied it behind my saddle. Took enough food to last us a week in the saddle bags. It has a pocket on each side. We took tea, sugar, rice, hot cake flour, eggs, packed the eggs in a can and poured the rice over them. Small cans of tomato sauce. Small cans of milk, and a few potatoes and macaroni. I think that’s about all. Had to go to the end of the road and ride back in sixteen miles. We stopped at Grant’s store and Grant wanted to know how many pack horses we were taking. Bill told him “none.” He said, “How long you plan on staying?” “One week” Bill says. Grant said, “You can’t make it, you’ll be back before that.” But we got up there, stretched our canvas over a pole between two trees quite close to the ground, made our bed under that. Of course we had fishing poles. I carried them in my hand. So we had fish to eat. And after the week we had food left.

We were to turn more water in the ditch, and had to go back in ten days so we hide our food we had left under a piece of tin so we could use it when we went back in. Also left our skillet and coffee pot. I forgot to mention, the first night we were there it rained hard most all night. Just about day light I poke Bill and say, “Move over, the water is running under the air mattress on my side”. He says, “Well don’t feel bad.” It’s a good thing we are on air mattresses as I think we are floating.

Another Trip To The Lakes

We used to have a jeep, short wheel base. You could get back to the lakes in it. We bought it when the company was building the lakes, as Bill worked for them with a chain saw cutting trees out of the lake bed. Me and Jim and Bill stayed up there two and a half months then. We still had the jeep. Bill was to take Grant Brough to help him, and I went along. They were to close the head gate in the lake and move some big drift wood out of the spill way. Well, we took our tent this time and camp outfit. We got up there just before sun down. Pitched our tent, made camp.

This was the first week in October and it started to snow just a little bit. The guys said it isn’t going to snow much. You can tell from the sky. So we go to bed. In the middle of the night the tent fell down on us. There was a least a foot of snow, and the wind was blowing a gale. Well, we got the tent back up and build a fire. Went back to sleep. Pretty soon Grant says, “Bill I believe it’s getting light.” So we get up cook breakfast. Still darker than pitch out there, no one had a watch. We set around a while and went back to bed, probably another hour any way before day light. Bill says, “Let’s get up and get out of here. We’ll shut the head gate, to hell with the drift wood”.

We have never had any trouble with the jeep, but this morning it won’t start. Raise the hood, it is drifted snow inside. Bill drains the oil, heats it on the stove, and takes the battery in to get it warmed up. Bill had taken an extra battery. Took it inside to get every thing warmed up. Still no start. Run the batteries both down. Grant said, “Now what will we do?” Bill jacked up one wheel. Wound the lariat rope we had around the tire. I got in it to hold the clutch down if it started. Him and Grant would run with the rope. It would sound like it was started. I push the clutch in. They both fall in the snow. We work at this, it seems for hours. Pretty soon Bill says, “Do you think that you can walk out of here?” I said, “I can if you can.” But Grant says he can’t. So, we start cranking again with the wheel. A few more times and it starts. Well, we hurry and throw the camp in and start out. Well, the snow had covered the big rocks and we had an awful time getting out. Took us all day. But never let it stop or kill the motor till we got home and found out the coil had burned out. Had to have a new one before it ever run any more. But when we got back to Grant Pickup’s store he said, “If you hadn’t got back today, we would of sent some one after you.”

Hunting With Tom

For the last eight or ten years we have went with Tom. Sometimes Dick Williams, his buddy is along, but always Tom. One year we hunt elk with Tom from Bear River to Goslin Mountain, north of Dutch John. The season opened ten days earlier on Bear River and I think we went up every road that went into the high mountains from Bear River to Goslin Mountain before we found a herd. Got two bulls, took us three weekends and one full week.

We go with Tom every year both deer hunting and elk hunting. Some times Mort can make it up from Los Angeles and sometimes Earnie goes along. Last year we had Bryan Wickham, that’s Harlan’s son‑in‑law, Annie’s husband. Had his two boys along. Earnie and boys were there last year. Keith^y and Susan, Mort and Virginia, also Chris^z, Tom’s boy. Rod^aa Toms other boy was in the Navy. Had about fifteen in our camp deer hunting. We went way out on the head of Bitter Creek, next to the Colorado line. We have had a lot of good trips with Tom and the other boys. As I said before we love to go hunting and camping. Sometimes the last few years we don’t always get one, but love to go anyway. Earnie loves to hunt too, and if it’s at all possible he goes along. He has quit several jobs to go.

Years ago, before Robert Moore died, we were all out in the Book Cliffs, down south canyon. Had about twenty in camp that year. Bill and I, Elbert, Tom, Morton, Robert and Ella, Bill and Marge Stevens, his boss and his wife, Clifford Chandler, Grace and Morton Wardle, and my brother Earnie. We were camped on a stream by a high mountain. Two deer come down to get a drink. Well, about ten or twelve guns started to bang away. Sounded like an army. They didn’t see them until they started back up the mountain. They never got either of them. That’s one of the trips I really remember. We had such a good time picnic‑ing and visiting when they weren’t hunting.

One night around the campfire they got to talking about shells and guns. Robert Moore had a shell that he brought home from the service, about six inches long. It had been fired, and he had made a lead for it out of wood. “Did you ever see one like this?” he said. Some one said let me see it. Robert reached it to him and let it slip into the fire. Well, he sure cleared camp, down over the bank and behind rocks, until someone looked back and saw Ella standing there just laughing.

Another time when Grace and Morton [Wardle] come up, Mort forget his hunting shoes and it was before he got his gun. The first night it snowed four or five inches. Here is Mort, dress shoes, silk socks. Well Bill digs into a grub box, and gets him a pair of woolen socks. Takes him hunting with the old 44. They get up a buck, Mort starts to shoot down one side up the other. The 44 held eighteen shells. He emptied the gun and added some more before he got it. Bill was standing up on a rock yelling, “Hit him Wardle.” Mort would shoot then run to get a better shot and fall down. Shoot from laying down. Finally the deer went down. When they dressed him out he had eleven holes in it before he got a killing shot. Later Mort said he was so tired and Bill kept yelling at him. He said he didn’t know whether to shoot at the deer or turn and take a shot at Bill so he would shut up.

Wyoming Hunting

About twelve years ago we went to Wyoming to help our daughter, Beatrice, and Melvin Davis build onto a four room house that they had bought. We build on to it an made a three bedroom home out of it with a lovely big living room with a rock fireplace. While we were there we decided to go hunting with them. Bill bought a deer license, and you hunt deer and elk at the same time over there. Melvin had a sort wheel base jeep and we had a ball. Got four deer and Melvin had three elk permits. One cow and two bulls. Well we filled up. That got us started and we saw all of the Shoshoni Forest from the back of Melvin’s jeep.

The next year we saw all the Big Horn Forest from the same jeep. It was so much fun to be around Melvin. One time we were about twenty miles north of Mitesto and we had all gone different places to drive them out to some one. Well, there was about six inches of snow and chilly. Well I get up on a ridge and start me a little fire. Pretty soon here comes Melvin, he said, “I am freezing, and can’t get a fire to burn.” We are standing around the fire and here comes Bea, madder than heck. “Why didn’t you shoot them elk I drove by you?” Melvin said they didn’t come this way. Well about 50 yards away was their tracks. Melvin says, “Well I was visiting with mom, hadn’t saw her since this morning.” About that time we hear bang, bang, bang. Well they had gone by Bill. Well this got us started an was the beginning of several years of hunting with Bea and Melvin. Some of the happiest times of our lives was spent with them.

Iowa Back by Oklahoma A Hitch Hike Trip

One time we decided to go to Iowa to see my sister Vera and Kennie, at Washington Iowa. I wrote and told her we were going to Wyoming for a week or two and after Thanksgiving we were coming to Iowa. Well, Ken drove truck for North America Van Lines and Moving Company.

She had gone to Los Angeles to see my other sister Wanda and Joe. The kids got the letter and called her. She called me at Bea’s and said Kenny was loaded to Rapid City, South Dakota, and they would meet us at Bea’s and drive down together.

Well, the day before Thanksgiving here they are. Well, we go rabbit hunting Thanksgiving afternoon. Hunting is great over there. Next day we are on our way. Snowing just a little, wind a blowing. We have a small camper on our truck, and we sleep in it, also do our cooking there too. Well, we spend a cold night in Rapid City. Vera and I have been driving our truck, Bill was riding with Kenny. The next morning we are getting ready to leave. I come up with, “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could load our truck in Kens and all ride together.” No one says a word, but about two miles out of Rapid City Kenny starts to back off into the bar pit. Vera drives up beside him and says, “What’s the matter.” Kenny says, “We are loading Bill’s truck into the trailer.” He has a 60 foot trailer. We just get the tail gate down here comes the cops. He said, “What do you think you are doing?” Kenny tells him, “I am loading this truck into my outfit.” They say, “You can’t do that.” Ken says, “My license says I can haul any thing I want to, and I have a license for South Dakota.” By then we have three or four cops, someone had turned in a wreck. Kenny paid no attention to them, and went right on loading it. They did a lot of squawking, but finally decided to let him go.

Well from there to Iowa we hitch hiked in Kens van. Well, Ken is allowed to take an extra driver if he wants to, and Vera and I rode in the sleeper right behind the two seats. Ken says, “If I say close the drapes, you pull the cord and don’t make a sound if I get stopped.” I told him, “If you get stopped one of us is sure to sneeze.” He said, “You hadn’t better!” Well, we stayed in Washington, Iowa, for ten days. Crossed the Mississippi, and went over to Nauvoo. Also down to the Cartage Jail, where Joseph and Hyrum Smith was killed. Saw all the places of interest while there. Saw the Corn Palace in South Dakota. I forgot to mention we went through the Black Hills. That’s one interesting place with so many things to see.

Well, when we left there, we went down trough Missouri, through the Ozarks. Some beautiful sights there. We saw the Lake of the Ozarks, and the Bagnell Dam. The dam is only 148 feet from bedrock to highway, and it backs water up until it has 1300 miles of shore line and covers 95 square miles. When you get down in that country you can see why they have so much flooding. It’s so flat, no place for the water to go. Then we went on down to Oklahoma to see Uncle Tom Murphy, Grandma Chandler’s [Mary May Murphy] brother. Stayed there four or five days. They took us up to Pawnee, Oklahoma, where Bill was born. Showed us Grandpa Bailey Chandler’s home. It still stands. A nice two‑story frame house in a grove of trees.

We also saw where E.M. and Mamie Chandler lived before they left Oklahoma. Then we come home through the corner of Texas, through the pan handle in Oklahoma, into Colorado. Then we came up into the mountains in Colorado to the Royal Gorge at Canyon City, the highest bridge in the world. It’s 1053 feet above the Arkansas River. It’s a swinging bridge and goes up and down as you cross it with a car. Gives you quite a thrill, but is a beautiful place, and I brought some awful pretty rocks from there for my rock garden.

That’s another thing we have always picked up rocks. We have some quite unusual ones. We also have our home here rocked up, on the outside, with native rocks. I love it, as we have a spring here that keeps our yard green, even on the driest years. And we have a beautiful view from here, looks down over the valley, also Pelican Lake. I could just set and watch it for hours if I had time, but it takes me longer to do what has to be done now. Of course, I still do what I like to do first, and what has to be did comes second. So my yard always looks better than my house. But I try to keep it pretty straight, at least so we can find the bed at night. Sometimes when I get my sewing scattered around my bedroom it’s a problem, but Bill never complains.

Church and Our Part In It

When I married Bill he didn’t belong to the L.D.S. Church, but was baptized^bb the summer after Mort was born. All the time the kids were growing up, we went to church with them. We were all active in the old Avalon Ward. Some of the jobs Bill held was President of the Young Mens Mutual, also Superintendent of the Sunday School. Both these jobs he held for years. He was secretary of the Elder’s Quorum, and Ward[/Home] teacher. We as a family attended all the church organizations.

I was counselor in the Primary, also the Relief Society. Also President of the Relief Society for a while. I also taught the four and five year old’s in Sunday School for years. Taught the Guide class in Primary for years. Also was secretary of the Young Ladies M.I.A. for years. Also a visiting teacher for forty five years.

We tried hard to teach the kids what was right or wrong. Somewhere along the line over the years I failed them. I try to think back now and figure out what I did wrong. I have a testimony of the gospel, but failed to instill it in most of my kids. I tried so hard to make our home a happy home. I have thought since, that maybe I was to insistent that they be in church all the time, but they all went without any fuss. But, as they left home they quit going. We haven’t been active in the church since they moved our ward to Ballard. Not that we have anything against the Ballard Ward, but it’s a long way to go, and we have just got in a rut. Then too Bill can’t hear any more, so that don’t help.

Part of our kids married out of the church. This I can’t understand with Beatrice anyway. She was chorister in Sunday School, Sacrament meeting, also M.I.A. for four or five years. She had a perfect record in all the church organization. Then married out of the church. She took part in all activities in the ward and church, so I feel that some where we must of failed her. She was also Dance instructor.

I miss not going to church now. I am going to get started to going again.

Bill just said I can tell you why she married out of the church, and I guess he is right. He said Melvin was a wonderful guy, and he wasn’t L.D.S. I agree with him. There was only one Melvin. He was one swell guy and fun to be around. He used to tell me, “When you get old mom, you are going to stay with me. If me and Bea had you for a boss to tell us what to do we could do it. I could wheel you around in a wheel chair and you could say, “Mel put that rock there and this one over here”. Melvin lacked confidence in himself. He was afraid to tackle jobs. Afraid he couldn’t finish them. But we all loved him, and have lots of special trips, also hunting and fishing, that bring happy memories of him. Many good times.

Hunting Trips To Remember

For the last six or eight years anyway we have went with Tom and Earnie, when Earnie can make it, both deer hunting and elk hunting.. Earnie has quit several jobs to go hunting. It’s real nice to go with Tom, especially as I am getting older, as he gets up and gets breakfast, then calls us to come and eat. He has a nice camper and we have really enjoyed these trips with the boys. Once in a while Mort makes it up. I guess as long as I am able to get around I will go along. I love the mountains, either hunting or fishing.

One time when we were all together out on M^CCook Ridge. Well I guess that time we had been all over. Mort and his boss, Paul Gardner, were along. We didn’t do too good. Paul didn’t get any shooting, so when we got back to home here I asked Paul if he wanted to go with me and Tom at daylight the next morning up on the hill. He said “Sure!” We left just at break of day. Went out past George Brough’s old place, turned down towards Green River, out in those rocky red hills. Well, the first thing we saw was a coyote. They get out and start shooting. Was long shots, and he gets away. Then we saw three deer. Paul couldn’t hit them. We drove down to a deep draw, and they saw a mountain lyon. They shoot at him. Long shots too and he makes it to some ledge rock and lose him. Well, Paul got some shooting and had a ball. He said, “What are we doing out in the Book Cliffs, why didn’t we stay home?” Then Paul Gardner stayed around for another week and duck hunted. When he would get several down in the lake he would strip down to his shorts and swim out and get them. Then he picked them and saved the feathers for me. Cleaned them all and froze them. When he got ready to go I said, “Take your ducks.” He said, “I don’t want them, I took pictures of them to prove I got them, you can have the ducks.” When he got ready to go he said he never had so much fun. He had never been around anyone before that could have so much fun with so little. When we went to California he took us deep sea fishing on a charter boat. We got six or eight that were five or six pounds each. I am not sure what they were, but were sure good eating. We went out about fifteen miles, saw lots of whales. Some huge ones with tail fins eight or ten feet across.

Bill and I have worked hard all of our fifty years of married life, and so have all our kids. They were always good to help at home. We taught them how to do everything that there was to do around the house, both girls and boys. We also taught the girls how to do things around the farm. They both learned to milk and do chores. They all helped in the garden and yard. One never realizes how much work there is to keeping up a yard and garden until one has it to do by their self. I am afraid that next year part of mine will have to go back to weeds. The last few years it gets harder to keep up every year. We still like to run around and go sight‑seeing, and when we are gone a few days its nearly impossible to catch up.

I have made a special effort to keep the weeds down this year, as we expect to have so many people here in August for our Golden Wedding. We expect all the kids, most of the grand kids, and brothers and sisters on both sides of the family. Also cousins on my side of the family. Most of my Aunts and Uncles have passed away, but Mother’s youngest sister from California may be here, that’s Aunt Millie.

All the kids and most of the Grand kids were here for a week last year, and we spent most of the time fishing and camping.

Most of my mothers folks when they left the basin went to Northern California. Now the kids have spread to Oregon and Washington. Well, they have a Potter reunion most every year. My mother was a Potter, and we were awful close to each other until her folks left for the coast. About 1975 they had their Potter reunion about forty miles out of Bend, Oregon, on the DeSutes River at the Cow Camp Park. Bill and I took our camper and went. We stayed there four days, sure had a wonderful visit with all. It was a good reunion. Most beautiful.

Then Bill’s sister [Hazel] and husband had just moved from Alaska that early spring to Squim, Washington. That’s out on what is called the Island. You have to take a ferry across from Seattle, and we decided to drive on up there and see her. So we did spent three or four days with her. Ella, his other sister, was there too at the time. We had a real good visit with them. They live close to Port Angeles. It’s mainly a fishing port, and Hazel’s boy went over there and got a big bunch of big fresh shrimp. He come home, made a batter out of beer and other things, then deep fried them. He was asking each one how many they could eat. Come to me, I said “About a dozen.” So the first one he took out of the deep fry he brought to me, and said, “If you are going to eat a dozen you better get started.” I love shrimp so I think I made that dozen pretty small. As it turned out Hazel died late that fall, we were so glad that we had spent those few days with her. We were just gone twelve days on that trip.

One More Trip With Bea and Mel

In all the times that we have been to California, Bill and I have never been to Disneyland. The kids have been several times over the years. But in 1976 Melvin and Bea, their two kids, some friends of theirs, Rod and Della, and there two boys come by and took us to Los Angeles. I had been having trouble with my feet and legs for several months, but when we get down there Elva and all of them insist that we go with them. We get down there, I am limping around, and here comes Bea and Elva with a wheelchair. But it turned out to be for the best, as we never had to stand in line for any of the things. They would say will the lady in the wheelchair please come this way. All of your party come with you. Well, there was 20 of us all together. One attendant said, “Are all these people with you?” I said, “Yes, kids and grand kids.” So she said, “Glad to have you with us.”

Well we went on everything on the Caribbean Cruise, we just filled one boat. We had taken Lynn and Todd with us. We all had so much fun, we didn’t know what we were missing. Glad they insisted on us going. Then we went to the Wax Museum. We had never been there either.

Then I stayed a few days with my sister Wanda. We were down there a week, then come home through Zion Canyon, as the others had not been through.

Had a lovely trip, no trouble anywhere. We all had campers, so we stopped anywhere we wanted to. Bea and Melvin and Rod and Della had one night out on the town in Las Vegas on our way down. My niece Elva Basiel lives in Las Vegas, and my sister Vera was there with her at the time. So, Bill and I took the kids out to Elva’s. Bill and the kids went to bed, but Vera, Elva, and me stayed up all night and talked. Went on into Los Angeles the next day. Vera and Elva flew down the next day and stayed at a hotel in Seal Beach. My sister from Leisure World and me went down to spend the day with them. Elva, Vera, Wanda, and me. We had a lovely day. Then Elva took us to a swanky place to eat. The first thing they brought us was frozen forks to eat salad with. I said “WHAT” so she repeated it, so I took one. The other three really got a laugh out of it, but Elva said, “Don’t feel bad.” In all the fancy places that she had eaten in all her travels and in Vegas she had only been served frozen forks once before. that was one of the special days I spent with my two sisters Vera and Wanda. We had a lovely day together.

In 1977 they had the Potter reunion at North Bend, Oregon, and we went over to Bea and Melvin’s and they went with us. We had spent one and a half years there in 1937 and 1938, so we thought we would like to go back for a visit. This was really a fun trip, as we had Bea and Melvin and Terry then. As I said before Melvin was fun to be with. We were right on the beach there and one of the highlights of the trip was a deep sea fishing trip for salmon. My cousin Laura’s son‑in‑law was a pilot on a fishing boat and they had made reservations for all that wanted to go, had him engaged for two days. Some of them went out twice. The boat was only equipped for eight passengers and all together there were nine salmon caught. I caught two, one twelve and a half pounds and one six. Melvin caught one, eight pounds. Terry caught a big one, but never got it in. The captain said it was probably a small shark, as it bit his steel line in two. Then just as we were leaving Terry caught another one, but never did get it landed either. But we had a ball. We were out about twelve or fifteen miles, and it was quite a calm day.

Then one day we went down the beach with dune buggies, everyone that wanted to. Then one day we had an auction. Everyone brought a white elephant to be sold, and food you never saw the like of. The money from the auction went to buy the dinner, or help with it. Then each night they all got together and had a dance.

While on this trip we spent a day at Crater Lake, Oregon. And spend a few days fishing on the DeChotes River. So you see we fish every where we go.

Again I am glad we took this trip with Melvin and Bea, which was one of the many we had gone on with them. This was the last one with Melvin, as he passed away December 11^cc this same year. When Bea called and said Melvin had died of a heart attack, we went over and stayed until the first week in January. There is really nothing we could do for her, it just takes time. Melvin would be a hard guy to replace, and they were such a close family. Bea has two kids: Cindy and Terry^dd.

We are so glad that Earnie lives here in the valley close to us. His two boys, Lynn and Todd^ee, are here every day to see if we need any help or just to see how we are. Then Earnie and Joan^ff are they are there if we need them. That’s good to know.

My Sis Wanda

This same year my sister, Wanda, passed away in October^gg. Joe hadn’t called as he didn’t realize how bad she was. He said that they were both looking forward to us coming down to spend the winter. They had both talked to me a little over a month before, and I told Bill she really sounded good. Her voice seemed stronger and I told them we would probably see them for Thanksgiving that year and all get together. So, it was quite a shock when they call to say that she had passed away. Joe said she had just woke up, and didn’t feel to good. So Joe goes to help her to the bathroom. But they never made it. He felt her go limp, and caught her. She was gone. I am so glad that she went that way, as she had plenty of suffering the last ten years. Well, there were nine of us kids, now there is three of us: Vera, Earnie and me.

As I look back now, I will never forget the good times that Bill and I have had with Wanda and Joe. The many places of interest that they have taken us to, and the many nice places they have taken us out to dinner. I have many good memories of my sister and the many things she has given me over the years that has brought happiness to me.

One time when Joe and Wanda come up to spend a couple of weeks with us we took them up to Crouse Res, on the mountain, fishing. We took the camper and let them sleep in it. They really had a good time. We caught some big fish, like one and a half pound and some two and a half pound, as Ivan Sheffer [Bernice boy] had his boat up there. It was something new for them, as they never went camping. This was their first time. As when they went places, even if it was trips to Mexico. They would go to inland cities, Acapulco, and spend a week or two and go to Arizona for a week or ten days. But they always stayed at a motel or a resort. Sometimes to big Bear Lake. She had lots of expensive Indian jewelry, and things that come from Mexico inland. She liked city sights and museums, but she also loved the beach. We used to spend hours walking the beach. For years they lived one and a half blocks from the beach. Went to it every day.

My Sister Crystal Wanothel (Wanda) ‑ Joe Stienfeldt

Over the years we have been in California for some winter months. It’s been ten or twelve years since we started this. One reason for going was so I could spend some time with my sister, as Wanda hadn’t been well for ten or fifteen years before she passed away. All this time Joe was working for pest control, and he made fabulous money. He done some jobs on the side, then he got his license and worked for his self. He used to take Bill with him and they would be gone a couple of hours and come home with two or three hundred dollars. After Wanda had that first major operation, Joe never allowed her to do anything. We always ate out when staying with them. I insisted on cooking breakfast. I made ever so many trips to Los Angeles in the summer over the years to help Wands. Not that Joe couldn’t afford a nurse, but because she wanted me. I would make her get up in the morning, have Joe take us with him or over to Elva’s. Get her tired enough so she could sleep nights. Some of the times I went down for a week or ten days, was when her incision tore out after four days. Then when she fell and broke her ankle. Also when Joe had his wreck and trouble. Many other times for things I won’t mention here. But when Joe would call and Bill would find me crying at night, he would say you better go down for a week.

Bill has always been good to me. Bill knew that when I went down, Wanda would be much better in a week. The winters we spent in L.A.. Wanda would be fine by spring. One thing I must say about Joe, he did everything in his power to make Wanda happy. He would take her anywhere she wanted to go. He loved her dearly. He couldn’t stand to see her suffer. It was nothing for him to call a doctor in the middle of the night and insist on him coming out to see her. Sometimes the doctor would try to squeeze out by saying it will cost. Joe would cut in and say, “I didn’t ask how much, I said come out.” They come.

I sometimes think that I worked a hardship on Bill, leaving him to manage his work and take care of the kids too. When I look back now. I spent six weeks in Hurricane with Bernice, nursing her. Then ever so many trips to L.A. when Dad was so bad. Another six weeks setting up nights with Hurley, before she died. Then ever so many trips to Leisure World at Seal Beach to Wanda and Joe’s.

Then I made one or two to Idaho, Gallis, when my brother Earnie lived there. One time Leona called and wanted me to come up and talk to Earnie, as he was drinking. Bill said I can’t go right now, but you take the two little boys and go up with Ira and Ester Wilson to Lava Hot Springs. Then go on up on the bus. This I did. The next morning Ester brought me down to catch the bus, and I just missed it. So, me and the little boys waited five hours for the next bus. I asked the station lady if we should stand outside with our suit case. She said no, they always stop here. But he was late so he goes on by. Well, she gets on the phone. There is another one coming. We catch it, but find out that it only goes to Blackfoot. I have Earnie and Jim, one suitcase, and a bed role. The agent says where are you going to stay tonight. I say right here. I bought a ticket to Idaho Falls, not my fault he didn’t stop. Well, he gets on the phone, pretty soon here is a bus to take us to Idaho Falls. One ticket one half fare. That’s all that’s on the bus. Earnie meets the bus, no Ivy. Well, when I get there I call a taxi. When I walk in he says how did you get here. Well I tell him about a special bus.

Fishing

Well I haven’t talked much about fishing. But this is something that I have did all my life. I remember going with dad when I was a kid with a line and fly and a willow pole, as dad loved to fish. He always found time to go quite a bit in the summer. One thing we needed the fish for food, but that’s really only an excuse. It’s like hunting deer because you need the meat. But the expense of going and the time one takes off would buy twice that much meat. People that go fishing and hunting go because they love it.

Every where that Bill and I have gone in our traveling around the U.S. or Canada we have fished. The kids are always coming home to take us fishing, but some of the best fishing we have had and the most fun, have been times that we have went to Weaver Reservoir on the head of Hill Creek and Towovie Reservoir., also on Hill Creek. We used to go the Weaver Reservoir fly fishing on the upper end where the water had backed up in the sage brush or catching from a one and a half pounds to three pound fish in that brush on a fly. Probably hook 40 or 50 to get your limit in a bag.

The best trips we took there were with the kids, mainly Elva and Roy, or Bea and Melvin, also Mort and Carolyn. We have sure had some fun trips out there. Go out and camp for a few days. Then too at that time we still had Harlan with us.

One time I especially remember was when Roy and Elva come up on vacation, and brought their neighbors Mary and Bob Growell and family, and we had Uncle Odie and Harlan. We went out an camped three or four days. Did we have a ball, but could of been a real tragedy. We were going on a trail around a ledge about ten or fifteen feet from the water. There was a creek in the ledge, but we had stepped across it for years. Five or six of us had already passed it, when Elva looks back and said, “Where is Dad?” Well the ledge had broken off. Bill had fell into 30 or 40 feet of water. Well, he could swim and only lost his new glasses, but me and some of the others can’t swim.

Another time when we were fishing the upper end of the Lake across to the main channel, he stepped into a beaver hole as big around as his body. He put his arms out to catch him, but had to have help to get out. Mort was with us that time.

Another real nice trip we took was to Weaver Reservoir Aunt Polly and Uncle Gerold Brady come out for my birthday, and Elva and Roy and family were there. They had brought Orval and Norma Ganes and family with them from California and they wanted to have a surprise party for me. Bill took Aunt Polly and Gerold and Uncle Odie and me to Weaver Res, and we stayed all night. Got home the next day about 5 p.m., to find Orval and Roy with two borrowed barbecues getting ready to fry hamburgers. By now Morton and Carolyn and family with a few extras were there. I said, “What the heck are you guys doing?” Orval says, “Getting ready to feed this bunch.” Elbert and Sadie come first and he said I come down to say Hi to Roy and Elva. Didn’t expect this crew. Roy says, the more the merrier, stick around. I didn’t get surprised until someone sowed up that wasn’t a relative. In the next twenty or thirty minutes there were twenty or thirty couples there, and the food and homemade root‑beer and a big birthday cake. Elva said you got home thirty minutes to early. There’s a chair set down. We thought we would have supper ready.

At Weaver reservoir we had all filled our licenses with two and three pound trout, cut throats. Odie and I caught our limit on flies in the upper end, Gerold caught his and Bills off the dam an minnows. It’s a beautiful place can sit under pines on the east side and catch your limit, and we saw several big elk and lots of deer.

The next night all the relatives stayed but Elbert and Sadie. Around twenty five or thirty, and Elva had cooked a pressure cooker full of spaghetti, also corn, cucumbers, and tomatoes. We lined them up at the front door kids first gave them a plate and cup filled it as they went through the kitchen. Aunt Polly wanted to know if she could get in with the kids. She said the line was so long she was afraid they were going to run out. That night we had beds and sleeping bags all over the place, but Mort and Carolyn, Elva and Roy, and Orval and Norma stayed up and played cards all night. By the time we got up about six they had got to the giggling stage. Aunt Polly never forgot that trip as long as she lived. She said how come Gerold and me got a bedroom all to ourselves when she had to wind her way between sleeping kids everywhere.

Another time we were out there with Elva and Roy, Roy and me were fishing down the stream, I said, you know Roy I would like to stay out here once until I got tired of fishing. He laughed and said, I can see you now coming down the bank with a cane in about twenty years. So I was always the last one off the stream to go home.

One of the first long trips we took with Melvin and Beatrice and their two kids and Bill and I went to Washington to go Salmon fishing. We went to Lillie and Jerry Dougless. Some friends of Bea and Mel’s. We went down the Columbia river across the bridge at Portland, they lived about sixty miles into Washington at Kelso. But we were about two weeks to late into the year. The Salmon had moved up the river. Was just a few Salmon and some steel head trout. We fished hard for what we got about two salmon eight or fifteen pounds and two or three steel head trout. We canned the fish before we started home. But we had a lot of fun and saw a lot of new country. Stayed one night near the snow line at mount Rainier, Washington. This was one of the Prettiest drives we ever took. It was steep and crossed the mountain then back down to Yakima then back down to Spokane. Then back down to Lewiston Idaho and on home. It was a fun trip. We all went in our truck and camper. The one we had then would sleep six so we managed real well.

Another trip Bill and I took elk hunting up past paradise park. We drove the truck to there with two horses. We unloaded the horses put everything we needed on them, We had a sixteen by twenty ft of canvas we used for a tent. This we folded and used it for a saddle blanket, we had a double sleeping bag, we rolled it up and tied it behind my saddle, then we had a pair of saddle bags we packed our food in and we had a small fishing pole in one of them. Well we went north from paradise, this put us high near the timber line. Where Dry Fork river heads. It was just a small stream. Well it hailed four inches about noon and it was cold. We decided to camp here on the stream near a meadow. Bill staked the horses built a big fire, then he went scouting around. I went fishing. Found a big hole where the stream tumbled down a steep rocky place, at the bottom a big hole. I climbed up on a big rock and caught six nice fish. All at once the rock tipped, I went into the water and was it cold!! Lost my fish, but finally rescued two for supper. Got back to the fire just at sundown no dry clothes. Good thing we had this place all to our selves. I had to strip down and dry them over the fire. And we never did see any Elk. Came back down on the east side of white rocks river up above red pine canyon we saw eight head. Bills gun jammed and I couldn’t hit them. Never got a thing. That’s normal for me.

I can hit a target every time but when I see an elk or a deer I can’t hit it. Have killed quite a few deer over the years, hit an elk once through the lungs but it was just before dark and we lost him. It would take another notebook to write down all the special good times we have had over the years. Tommy an his boys, and his buddy Dick Williams and his boys, have come out several times each summer to go fishing, but haven’t saw much of him this summer as he is building him a new house. Have gone a few times with Earnie and family an a few times with just Bill and I and the boys. But I still love to wade in the river to fish. An with a fly pole. I don’t suppose I will do to much more fishing as it is getting harder for me to get around in the rocks and wade without falling down. But I have always did that.

Last time we were up on the Uintah, I started across with a stick, Lynn says here Gram hold on to me I never fall down. So we get right in the middle and I slip off a rock an fall down and pull Lynn too. Setting down it’s about up to our necks. But if I can’t fish the streams with flies I don’t suppose I will do much more fishing, as I don’t care much for worm fishing. I like to use spinners in a lake. But the past few years Tom has been trying to get me interested in trolling from a boat. I am not to crazy about it either, not enough action. But I do love to boat ride.

One time we took Vera and Ken, Elbert and Sadie up to cart creek before they closed the stream and fished all day. Each of us had a gunny sack we were fly fishing, we put them in the sack in the creek. If we caught a big one we took out a smaller one. By night we had our limit of big ones. The next day Kenny was supposed to leave, he said let’s leave here at daylight and go back fishing for a couple of hours. So the four of us went again. They weren’t biting as good, we stayed all day, Kenny kept telling Vera just one more fish. We got home at dark a day later.

Barry^hh and Elva still come up on their vacation and stay two weeks or a month. Some of Elva’s kids with their small families come too, and we go fishing and camping. Elva is as bad as me for fly fishing and we still have a ball. Barry has never done much stream fishing, he would rather fish the lakes, but we are trying to make a fly fisherman out of him. He loves the mountains and likes to camp out. Now they have a nice truck and a nice camper, its eleven or twelve foot, really nice.

Longest Fishing Trip

The longest fishing trip I ever went on was in 1957 for two and a half months when the Ouray valley started to build their first reservoir in the Uintah mountains. That was at Whiterocks lake and Cliff Lake. Bill took the job of cutting the timber out of the place where the water would be stored. We bought a short wheel based Army Jeep, that was the only way we could get in or out. We loaded up our tent and grub box and sleeping bags and moved to the mountain. Morton and Carolyn were living with us at the time, and we left Earnie to help Mort chore and took Jim who was about eight. We came down every couple of weeks for groceries and to see how things were going at home.

Just before dad got done Morton and Carolyn moved out, left Earnie to chore alone. I came home to help him. Me and Jim had fished all the lakes within four or five miles of Whiterocks, there were five or six of them. We fished someplace everyday. We gave our extra fish to the cook shack.

We moved to Cliff Lake and started there. We were up there about two and a half months.

While we were at Whiterocks we were fishing the lakes one morning, Jim had waded out about fifty yards on a sand bar and climbed up on a big rock. He caught a fish about a foot long, jumped of the rock and got tangled up in the line. The fish went around his legs and he lost it so he climbed back on the rock and started over. The next one was about fifteen inches long. He jumped off the rock and this time he put his pole over his shoulder and started for the bank rewinding his reel all the way. The water was about fifteen inches deep and he would fall every little ways, get up and go on. I was to far away to help him, but he landed it anyway. Dad took his picture with it he was one proud boy. He wasn’t quite nine years old yet. Another interesting thing that happened there was a young surveyor working there waded out to the same rock before dark one night, stayed there until after dark. He couldn’t remember which way the sand bar went to the bank and he couldn’t swim. He was about half a mile from camp and he stared to yell for help. Everyone from camp ran to help him. Young Ronnie Phillips was the first one to him. Everyone expected to be fishing him out of water over his head instead of him sitting on a rock, well he couldn’t live it down, any time anyone saw him they would yell help. So after two or three weeks he quit and left. Ronnie Phillips fished with Jim and me and one day he caught a seven or eight pound one on a fly and a bubble with water in it. We caught a lot of fish up to three or four pounds. It was a fun summer. Some days we went with Bill to cut trees, that’s were we found the tree root that we made the clock on the fireplace out of. Jim is to have it as he was along.

Chandler and Moore Reunion

A few years ago we were going on vacation for the winter we went to spend it with our kids Earnie lives here in the valley. So we went to Wyoming spent a month in Worland with Beatrice, Melvin & kids. Then we went to Salt Lake an spend a week with Tom and Leah an family then on to Los Angeles California where we spent two months with Elva and Barry Dean an Jim, Morton Chandler. also my sister Wanda an Joe Stienfeldt while in California we attended a Chandler reunion at the home of Bob Moore in Pasadena California, sponsored by the four kids of Robert and Ella Moore. Ella was the honored guest. Bob barbecued a 500 lb. of prime beef whole in his back yard, Ella has four kids Marie, Junior or (Moses) the twins Bob & Bert.

They all helped with the reunion. The beef was on a spit that they all helped turn. Bob is married to a Hawaiian girl they have eight girls and one boy, these children are real talented, they put on a Hawaiian show with dancing and singing, was really outstanding four of Bills sisters were there. Ella Moore, Stella an Darwin Neilson. Grace Wardle an Blanch Halloway with all of their children an grand kids. Beatrice flew down from Worland that made four of Bill and Ivy’s kids there, with, all the grand kids that lived close, many friends and relatives from both sides of the family attended. There was a total of nearly two hundred in attendance.

We are expecting Barry and Elva in the next day or two, as this August 17 will be our Golden Wedding Day. We expect all the kids, most of the grand kids, our brothers and sisters on both sides of the family. My sister Vera called from Iowa, and said they would be here with some of their kids. Some of the Sheffer boys and their families will also be here.

This will be fifty years of married life. We have had a full and happy life. We have always taken time out to do some of the things we want to do, and see some of the country while we were young enough to enjoy it. We have also taken time for our church work. I think to make a marriage work one must learn to GIVE AND TAKE. Also, everyone needs a balanced life with some of all three of these; WORK, PLAY, AND CHURCH.

As our fifty years come to a close. I want to add here that I don’t want to leave the impression that we never had any disagreements or trouble. We did, as I think everyone does. I think that most marriage problems can be talked over or settled if both parties try, but it can’t be one sided, both have to learn to give as well as take. The main thing is to bring out into the open and talk it over. Most misunderstandings can be cleared up if talked about. If both wait for the other to make the first move it can get bigger and bigger. I think that everyone should learn these three words “I AM SORRY”. Learn to use them, But it takes both of you not just one.

Over the years we have had as many problems in our marriage as most anyone, and we have had financial troubles too. Bill worked as a pumper for Dekalb for five years or more. I took over the irrigating and what ever I could do, he did the rest on days off or after work. If things got to bad I would work a few months for Hormstrom’s motel or cafe in the kitchen. I always found I had to much to do at home to work to many months at a time. I never had to look for work after I once worked for Hormstrom’s. Bill and I had both done anything we could to make ends meet, but it seems like we always managed somehow.

I say hard work never hurt anyone, of course there are exceptions to this rule, like one’s health or back trouble or heart trouble. One can still work hard at something different.

I think in this day and age people can live were ever they want, and still find work they like if they aren’t afraid to get out and look. Now days the young married people expect to have as much as their parents have. They forgot that their parents have worked for years to get what they have. I think that everyone should try to get out of debt. I am afraid that hard times are coming. I don’t know what this generation that has always had everything they wanted will do when we have another depression. It will mean from riches to rags from plenty to nothing.

Golden Wedding Anniversary¹⁹

Our Golden Wedding Anniversary turned out pretty good. Elva came up about the 5 of August to help me clean the house and yard. Bea came over about the 10 of August. Between the three of us we really shined the shack and yard.

We were having an Open House on Friday August 17, and a family reunion on Saturday August 18. The reunion was a huge success both days. We didn’t have to many that was not relatives on either day. Tom brought his big grill and we served sourdough hotcakes both Friday and Saturday to over eighty seven people day. For dinner we served grilled burgers, corn on the cob, tomatoes, cukes, cabbage slaw, and a few salads thrown together.

We had Bill’s seven sisters and one brother, and some of their kids and grand kids. My brother Earnie and my sister Vera and their families and family members from California, Iowa, Idaho, Nevada, and as far away as the Caribbean Islands came to the reunion. There was about ninety five relatives here for Friday, we have a real good time. ten or twelve went home Friday night. On Sunday and Monday my family cleaned up the mess, then went fishing. We fished up Uintah canyon for two days, then we went to Towovie on Hill Creek and caught sixteen big ones, one and a half to two pounds, then filled up with ten inch ones. We then went to Jones Hole and took Vera and Ken before they left. They have a ball there.

On Friday August 17 and Saturday August 18 in the evening Marvin Wardle entertained everyone with his singing and guitar playing. We roasted winnie’s. There was a total of a hundred and thirty eight on Friday for the Anniversary. We were quite happy with the reunion. Elva and Joe came from the Caribbean Islands she was the farthest away. My brother Earnie Turner and his daughter Sybil and her husband Cleo and there family came from Idaho. This takes care of all the brothers and sisters. All of our six kids and all of the twenty one grand kids but three, and all eight great grand kids. There were nieces and nephews and cousins to make up the eighty seven we fed two meals to.

We were a little worried about how it would go over. But was real pleased with the results. We saw some folks we hadn’t seen for years. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and we had a really lovely time. All the kids helped to make it a success. And a good place to end my story.

Additional Notes added By Herself

Written After the main book was completed and inserted in as loose sheets

My Old Home Place on Deep Creek

When Morton was up in the spring of 79 we went up on Deep Creek to see the place where the Johnson’s hayfield sunk. It was half mile long and five or six hundred feet wide in places and twelve to fifty feet deep. It’s quite a site, the sides are straight up and down it looks like it had been sliced. There are Islands in the middle sliced around to. On the way back we took over to my old home place, I hadn’t been back for fifty years. I had been back to Deep Creek but not my old home place. Well, the old house is still there, at least part of it. Two rooms were sawed logs, they are still there. The frame part is gone. The thing that shocked me was the creek. The creek bed was from fifty to a hundred fifty feet across, full of willows, birch, hops, currents, choke cherry bushes and gooseberry bushes. After a rain mom would send us out with a three gallon bucket to gather mushrooms to can. The mushrooms grew along the creek where the cows would shade up under the willows. Now, as far as I could see anyway not a green thing, only sagebrush. The farm land was green looks like picture grass but I could not believe the shrubs had died. I had thought that wild roses and willows never died out. the hills don’t look as big to me as they did then, but if I had tried to climb them they would have been twice as high I’m sure.

Morton and Virginia

Morton and Virginiaⁱⁱ have been up several times the past year. We love to have them come anytime they can. We expect them any day now. Virginia is a really nice and sociable person, she seems to fit in pretty good. She likes to go fishing and hunting and camping. Morton still likes the farm. When he was here at Easter time he did leveling with the tractor. And he always rides the horses. I think as long as he lives he’ll love the horses, I guess he and Jim inherited that love of horses from me. I still love to ride. I have loved horses all my life and spent lots of time on them. Forty-five years ago I used to go Relief Society teach and take Tom behind me and Elva in front and make the rounds to see four or five families. That’s quite a ride in this country. I also used to ride my horse to Relief Society every Tuesday. Most of the other ladies either walked or came in a wagon. I would put Tom up behind the saddle, put Elva on the wagon, climb on and ride by and pick up Elva. Sometimes I had two behind the saddle, but I never had any trouble.

When one lives in the country you learn to do what is necessary to get by. I have never been afraid of horses or afraid for my kids to ride them. But the ground must be getting harder or bones softer as now a days some one is always getting bones broken, if I had a nickel for all the time I have been thrown off a horse. I would have enough to go on another long trip, never hurt anything but my feelings.

Craig M^CKee / Kevin Wickham

Craig is Elva’s oldest boy and we are quite proud of him he is a Volkswagen mechanic and Volkswagen has what they call a Bug‑in, the year Craig entered, it was the eighteenth year that they had the contest, as it was called a Bug‑in 18, its a one man engine pulling contest, sponsored by Yuko International. Each man entering is given a new VW sedan, he must remove the engine drag it ten foot and over a line an back to the car reinstalling it, then start the VW backing it across the same line. Norm Batchelder won Bug‑in 17 by doing this in a mere eleven minutes and four seconds, at Bug‑in 18 there were several ready to challenge Norm. The results was that Craig M^CKee a new comer to the event, had a unbelievable clocking of seven minutes seven seconds Craig M^CKee efforts was truly phenomenal, this is a world record for this event. Craig we are proud of you.

We have another champion in the family my brother Harlan’s grandson Kevin Wickham hold the state record for weight lifting in the 155 lbs class, dead lift 505 squat 374 an press 266, total of 1145 lbs also first place in the total of three lifts, we are proud of you Kevin. Kevin is the son of Bryan an Annie Wickham or Randlett Annie will be remembered as Annie Turner.

Elk Trip 1979

We are all ready planning and looking forward to going elk hunting this fall, with Tom and any of the other boys who can make it. Probably Chris, and maybe Dick Williams. Dad bought a three wheel bike this past spring, he is planning on taking it hunting this fall, he thinks it will save us some steps. He has worked on it all summer putting it together. He has only got to get the license now. Never can tell about fishing or hunting. Don’t know if we will get anything or not, but it is always fun to try. Then we love to camp out, and being in the mountains they are very lovely this time of year.

I haven’t put in anything about Barry Dean. The first time Elva brought him up here we really gave him a workout. We took Bills truck and a camp outfit and started for Jolly’s corner to fish and spend the night. Elva and Barry, Cort and me. We got to Fort Duchesne and Barry says it would be awful to be this close to flaming gorge dam and not see it so we decided to go there. We went down that old dirt road above the bridge on cart creek. Barry didn’t think we would ever get out, and we nearly didn’t. Then we came back on top of the mountain and camped on the head of cart creek. We pitched our tent, Cort and Barry are not used to the mountains and didn’t know if they liked our camp spot or not.

The next morning, early, I get up and go down to a beaver pond, an catch four nice fish about a foot long then after breakfast we all head down. Never get another fish we pack up come back to Vernal, we stop at a grocery store get some ice an a few things, when we left home no one took a purse as we didn’t intend going to town. Then Cort starts to complaining he didn’t get to Jolly’s corner an didn’t catch any fish. So we decide to go from Vernal to LaPoint an on to Jolly’s corner. We get about a half mile from Jolly’s corner and Barry says we are out of gas. It was full when we left an no one had thought to put any more in. I said just as well be out of gas at the corner as here so we went fishing.

It rained, Cort and I fished in the rain Elva and Barry set in the car, It finally let up and we start home, still registering out of gas. So we pull over to hilltop, gas is about twenty nine cents then. We had all looked through our pockets and the jockey box and came up with fifty seven cents, Barry says put in a gallon of gas. I say make it fifty seven cents worth I about embarrassed Barry to death. Never again would he go anywhere without his wallet. He’d rather have it wet than go through that, but I thought it was quite a fun trip.

Family Breakups

After twenty years our family circle began to break up, three of the kids got divorces [Elva, Morton, Earnie, and Jim], and we have a new set of in‑laws. During this period Elva worked real long and hard hours to make a living for her family. Mort moved to California and Jim went on a work strike for a while. Several years before Roy and Elva separated Bill and I started to go to California during the real cold weather here. At this time Bill had two sisters and one brother in L.A., and I had my sister Wanda, they all lived in the same area.

We have always spent most of our time with Elva or my sister, but now my sister has passed away and Elva and Barry have moved to San Pedro, it makes it a little more difficult to stay with Elva and visit with the rest of the family, especially since Bill is older and he doesn’t like to drive in the traffic in L.A.. Ever since we got hit a few years ago he doesn’t like to drive down there.

Additional Editors Notes

In 1981/2/3?? Ivy was admitted to Holy Cross hospital in Salt Lake for an operation to remove a brain tumor. Her only complaint was she got dizzy standing up. The Doctors believed they could take part of the tumor and come back later for the remainder. When the operation was preformed the tumor, although it was not malignant, it was so soft it fell apart necessitating a complete removal. The resulting shock to the nervous system was similar to a stroke. She lost the ability to speak and walk. Though many long months of effort, she again regained the ability to speak and then to walk. During this trying time her husband Bill continued to be not only a great support but much of her motivation and inspiration until his death in March of 1991.

Obituary and Funeral Services

Obituary from Vernal Express June 5, 1996

Ivy Turner Chandler, age 85, of Avalon, died June 1, 1996 in the Uintah Care Center. She was born Aug. 13, 1910 in Deep Creek, Uintah Co., to Ivan Vane and Henrietta [Harriot] Elva Potter Turner. She married William T. Chandler August 17, 1929. Their marriage was later solemnized in the Salt Lake LDS Temple in 1946. He died March 4, 1991.

Ivy loved to fly fish, hunt and ride horses. She was an especially good camp cook and enjoyed outings into the mountains with her family as often as possible. She was active in the LDS church and served in many teaching and leadership positions.

She is survived by sons and daughters, Thomas Chandler of Sandy, Elva MCKee of Randlett, Beatrice Davis of Worland, Wyoming, and Earnie Chandler of Ibapah; 20 grandchildren, many great grandchildren, and 5 great-great-grandchildren; sisters, Vera Weidner of Vernal, and Earnest Turner of Idaho.

She was preceded in death by sons, Jim [James] and Martin [Morton].

Funeral services will be held Wednesday June 5, 1996 at 11:00 a.m. at the Randlett LDS church where friends may call one hour prior to the services. Burial will be at Avalon Cemetery under the direction of Hullinger-Oplin Mortuary, in Roosevelt.

Funeral Service; Family Prayer- Reed Bailey; Musical Selection- Reed and Carolyn Bailey; Opening Prayer- Willard Wall; Obituary- President Jarman; Speaker- Leo Jorgensen; Speaker- Rod Chandler; Musical Selection- Marvin Wardle; Closing Prayer- LaRue Pickup; Pallbearers- Lynn Chandler, Todd Chandler, Craig M^CKee, Court M^CKee, Chris Chandler, Eric Vanamen; Honorary Pallbearers- Bob Taylor, Darrell Jenkins; Dedication of Grave- Keith Chandler; Burial Avalon Cemetery^jj

Notes for Ivy Turner Chandler

The Life Sketch of

George “Tex” Ross

Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

George “Tex” Ross A True Character of the Uintah Basin

By Sam Taylor, Contributing Writer for ubmedia.biz

Most places have a certain character, shaped by the land and embodied in its people. Some of those people end up almost defining those qualities.

In the coastal towns of the Oregon coast it is in the weathered faces of the fishermen, swaggering down the docks in brown neoprene boots. The people of the Florida Keys who call themselves Conchs are practically a race of Ernest Hemingways; silver-haired, roaring with laughter and cooked red by the sun.

The Uintah Basin is full of stories and legends, tales of an older West that still exists under the asphalt and behind the electric lines. That spirit is within the people here, and the Basin is lucky enough to have many great characters who embody that spirit and help make it such a unique place. Quite often you hear, “Oh, everyone knows so-and-so,” when one of these personalities is brought up.On Sept. 19, the Uintah Basin lost one of its most august personalities when George “Tex” Ross passed away at the age of 94, surrounded by family and friends.

Born in Vernal in 1916, Tex was a beloved man who was best known for his musical career. He wrote songs and played with many bands and musicians, including the Country Gentlemen and the Rhythm Wranglers. He was also a painter who created many of the old signs around the Basin. With friends, he built the Red Barn near Roosevelt. He was also known for simply being a wonderful, interesting person.

“Everyone knows Tex Ross,” is still not an uncommon statement around Uintah County.

“He was an amazing human being,” said Ura Louise “Gidget” Gardner-Brown, his sister-in-law who sang for Tex’s band for many years.

“I used to be the cute girl singer,” said Gidget. “Tex was a caring, loving, giving kind of man,” she said. “He brought so much joy to the Basin, and people here danced many, many miles to his music. There were many marriages that happened because of the joy his music brought to people.”

Everyone has stories about true characters like Tex Ross. It is one of the many gifts they give that help make this area interesting and unique. Their stories enrich the whole culture of the Uintah Basin.

Text Box: Tex Ross and the Rhythm Wranglers Band had a weekly show on the radio station KJAM. They were also a local favorite for dances and weddings. The band members are, from left to right, Ted McKowen, Tex Ross, Kurly Stanley, Lee Walker,(KJAM announcer/manager), Marr “Slim” Ross and Melvin “Cy” Ross. Gidget knows her favorite story about Tex at the drop of a hat.

A true character of the Uintah Basin “He had broken his arm hang gliding in his 60s,” she said. “He had always wanted to play at Music Row in Nashville and finally got his chance, but he couldn’t really play well because of the cast. So right then and there he took a knife and cut the fingers off of his cast so he could play his guitar.”

Even as his earthly tale came to a close earlier this year, Tex left yet another story that Gidget could not help but relate.

Text Box: Tex Ross, Elaine (Ross) Stanley, Earl “Kurly” Stanley,
Lee Walker (KJAM Radio), Marr “Slim” Ross and Melvin “Cy” Ross.
Elaine Stanley married to Kurly and was sister to Tex, Slim and Cy. “When Tex was in his last moments, everybody thought he was gone,” she said. “A nurse came in and woke him up because he was in a coma, you know. He talked and laughed for a while, and then he began to sing a song. We didn’t know what it was at first, but we kept hearing the word ‘gray.’ We talked amongst ourselves and tried to figure out what it was and then we realized, it was ‘The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be.’ It was a song he sang often.”

“It was an amazing, poignant moment,” said Gidget. “Even then he had that sense of humor, and let us know that he was all right.”

Tex will be remembered as a true legend in his own time, a man who enriched the lives of the entire area. Not every place is as lucky as the Uintah Basin to have so many real characters who live, tell and leave behind the stories that give this land so much personality. Everyone here is part of the continuing tale, and there is no shortage of charismatic people to keep it colorful.

Outdoorsmen and ranchers, roughnecks and musicians, decorated veterans and even the taxi drivers have their own unmistakable style. Some folks fit into several of those categories. Every man and woman here is a character of the Uintah Basin, and each writes their own stories into the book.

Tex’s chapter is a fine example of how even one person can dramatically make the adventure more wonderful for all.

He is survived by his wife, Mary; a sister, Elaine (Glenn) Stanley of West Valley City; children, Gib (Lisa) Ross of Winnemucca, Nev., Randy Ross of Los Animas, Colo., Rhonda (Bob) Soper of Clyde, Ohio, Tracie (Greg) Buxton of Henderson, Nev., and Colleen (Don) Heatherly, Lucky, Kent (Lori), Charles (Skeet) Richardson and Stacie (Kevin) Garcia, all of Vernal.

Tex is is also survived by 44 grandchildren, 69 great-grandchildren, and 30 great-great-grandchildren.

Text Box: This was a postcard and advertisement for Tex Ross and the Rythm Wranglers. Pictured from left are, Ted mcKowen, George (Tex) Ross, Kurley Stanley, Lee Walker (KJAM announcer and manager), Marr (Slim) Ross and Melvin (Cy) Ross.

Obituary

George “Tex” Ross, 94, left his earthly home in the loving arms of his wife, Mary, on Sun., Sept. 19, 2010.

Ross was born on Feb. 13, 1916, in Vernal, to Isaac James Ross and Fannie Jane Young Ross. He was the 10th of 11 children.

He married Nora Louise Taylor on April 15, 1936, and together they had seven children. Later, they divorced. He married Mary Gardner on Feb. 1, 1972 and they shared 38 glorious years together, taking care of each other.

Tex spent his early years in the Uintah Basin, moving with his family to Park City when he was 11. It was there he began his musical career at the age of 13, playing the Hawaiian guitar. His musical ability was a gift and a passion that would last his entire life.

Up until just a couple of weeks ago, if you approached Tex’s home you would likely hear the the sweet cry of his steel guitar. He played in bands all over Utah and Colorado, but the most well-known groups were the Country Gentlemen and the Rhythm Wranglers.

Text Box: Keith Chandler, Tex Ross, Carolyn Bailey, Mary Ross
Hyrum Chandler, Verlene Chandler, Jessica Chandler With the Wranglers, Tex played live on Vernal’s first radio station, KJAM. The members of the band, including his brother Floyd, built the Red Barn in Roosevelt and played many dances there over the years.

Tex was a composer, writing many beautiful ballads, and an artist. He painted beautifully and for many years built and painted business signs found throughout the Basin. In his younger years, Tex enjoyed flying the small plane that he and his brother Mar built. Tex took up flying in his fifties and quit at the age of 74 only after he broke his arm in a landing.

Tex was a gifted and kind heart, who left an impression on all who knew him. His memory and his music will live on and on.

Tex is survived by his wife, Mary; a sister, Elaine (Glenn) Stanley of West Valley City; children, Gib (Lisa) Ross of Winnemucca, Nev., Randy Ross of Los Animas, Colo., Rhonda (Bob) Soper of Clyde, Ohio, Tracie (Greg) Buxton of Henderson, Nev., and Colleen (Don) Heatherly, Lucky, Kent (Lori), Charles Simmons, Cindy (Skeet) Richardson and Stacie (Kevin) Garcia, all of Vernal.

Tex is is also survived by 44 grandchildren, 69 great-grandchildren, and 30 great great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents; daughters Carolyn Rae Bailey and Louann Allen; son-in-law Kevin Garcia; a great grandson; brothers, James, Melvin, Floyd and Mar; and sisters, Myrtle, Ann, Ada, Rose and Alice.

A memorial service will be held at the Red Barn on Fri., Sept. 24, at 1 p.m. with an after-service memorial to follow.

YouTube of “The Utah Waltz”, by Tex Ross, Performed by Tex Ross and His Park City Rhythm Wranglers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEa1hif_4Lo

Most of the following are excerpts from a small book published by Uintah County Library, in 2002. The book was taken from an interview of George “Tex” Ross, 18 Jan 2002 at his home at 142 South 200 East, Vernal, Utah. The interviewer was Kathleen Murphy Irving. Except where noted, the following are excerpts of his answers to her questions.

As given by George “Tex” Ross

James Jackson Ross

I thought it might be good to give you a little background, my folks, when they came into Vernal and so on. It’s kind of interesting. My grandfather was James Jackson Ross. He was Brigham Young’s bodyguard at one time, way back. My father was born in 1876. When he was seven years old, him and his dad brought the first horse-powered threshing machine to Vernal. They hired seven men to help them. The old highway came in on this side of Fruitland a ways and it went down over the Golden Stairs.

Yeah, what they called the Golden Stairs. The highway went down to Tabiona and it jumped from one ledge down to another and come back and forth to the bottom, down on the Duchesne River. Then it went down the Duchesne River to the Bench and on over to Duchesne. That’s the way they had to go. I don’t remember, but Dad told me how long they were getting it to Vernal. When they got here they threshed wheat and got a share of the wheat; they lived three weeks on straight boiled wheat. It sounds bad, but it’s a wonderful cereal, boiled wheat. Mary and I use it every once in a while because we like it.

But anyway, they came here and our place was 160 acres in Glines Ward. That’s where they settled. Gee, when I was a kid, they had a nice orchard, my gosh, they had everything. They had bees; the place was covered with cattle. They had a regular cattle ranch at that time.

You know where the Fletcher Corner is? You know where the new chapel is, up there? Well, all the south side, clear from that corner, above the chapel, clear down to Bob Jones’ corner; that was our place, it was a mile long. The bottom of it would be on 5th West and go a mile west to the Fletcher Corner.

[My mother] came out when my father was around twenty years old.

They come out here [Vernal] when my father was seven years old. It was Granddad that was bringing the threshing machine, of course. Dad was just a little guy. But my mother came later, I don’t know what year. She was a Young.

Fannie Jane Young

[My mother’s name was] Fannie Jane Young. Her mother was Mary McDonald and she married a Young. I never did know my mother’s father. They split up and he moved away somewhere. I never did know him.

But anyway, they had no place to live; they was just out here struggling to find place to get along. My granddad told them if they wanted to clean up the blacksmith shop, they could move in there ‘til they could find something. That’s how my dad and mom got to meet each other. She was only fourteen years old then. When they were married, she was just two months away from fifteen years old and Dad was twenty.

They was together all their lives and she had twelve children, all born in the same room. This surprises people: in the same house and in same room, all twelve of us.

The Ranch

By the time I came along, they had 160 acres up on Diamond Mountain and 160 acres in Mountain Home. They had [a] ranch. My oldest brother, Jim Ross, was the cowboy for the cattle and they run the cattle up in Mountain Home in the summertime, then in the wintertime they would bring them back here to Vernal.

Everything was going beautiful good. My dad told me that one time he was out there where the chickens had been scratching, and they scratched up a big coffee can; he picked it up and it was full of gold pieces, twenty-dollar gold pieces. His dad wouldn’t put any money in the bank ‘cause he was afraid of banks. So he said he just gave it to his dad and he just grinned, and took it, and buried it somewhere else. My grandfather died in his sleep and he had four, twenty-dollar gold pieces in his purse, and that was it. What happened to the [rest of the] gold, nobody knows.

One time I had a friend, he had a metal [detector] about ten years ago. I was telling him about it. He said, “Let’s go up there.” So, we went up there and we was messing around and a lady come out, Mrs. Fletcher, that lived there close, first house. She wanted to know what we were doing. I said, “I’m trying to find where our house used to sit here.” There’s some big trees that I recognized, one or two still growing, terrific big, I used to play on them when I was a child. She said, “You must a Ross then.” I said, “I am.” She said, “You go ahead and do anything you want to.”

My father had to borrow $3,000 to pay off [his] three half-sisters he had back in New York, he had never seen these girls, to pay for the ranch. See, when his dad [left him the ranch, he figured] it would be fair to give them each $1,000. [Dad] never could pay that $3,000 back, [so] he borrowed it from Lee Fletcher and that’s why that’s [now] ‘Fletcher’s Corner’.

[Dad] lost the ranch. He tried cattle and had hard luck with them. He went into sheep and didn’t do too good with that either. We lost the place in 1925.

Mom said they always thought that if they had to let the place go, Lee would give them an acre or something they could live on, but he didn’t. He built a big mansion of a home right there on the corner. His wife died in that home, and it burned right after that. So, it did them very little good. That whole place now, all those homes: new housing is worth a fortune.

We came down here just west of Vernal and rented a place from Johnsons for one year. Then they moved up, against the hill there, [there] were some old cabins, dirt-roofed cabins, they called the Wall cabins, and we moved into those for the next winter.

Then we moved to American Fork. My gosh, it was quite a move—the “Grapes of Wrath”— they had a cow and two pigs.

Siblings

My oldest brother was James and he died when he was eighteen. He got sick in Mountain Home. They brought him home to Vernal. I was nine months old when he died. Melvin was second, then Myrtle, then Floyd, then Ann, Ada, Rose, Alice, and Mar Ross, my older brother, just two years older then me.

[Mar was first named] Meagher, M-E-A-G-H-E-R. But he got so tired of the kids in school making fun of him, calling him ‘Meager’; so he had it changed, legally, to Mar.

M-A-R. We’ve always called him Slim, he’s slim. Anyway, Mar, then I, and Elaine. I was the baby boy and Elaine was six years younger than I, and she’s the baby girl.

There’s just four of us [alive now]. Elaine and Alice, Alice is ninety-three and lives in Washington and is still doing good, Elaine is about seventy-nine, and Slim and I. He is eighty-nine and I’m eighty-six. We’re are all up there. Just the four of us left.

Moved to Park City

My sister, Myrtle, lived [with us] when we moved to American Fork. We was only there for one summer. My dad went to work up in Bingham Canyon in the mine, then he moved to Park City and went to work in the mine and moved us to Park City. We moved there in 1927. I think I was about eleven years old and I lived there all through school. That’s where I was married and so on. I was actually married in Heber City. But we were living in Park City at the time.

I’ll tell you [Park City didn’t look then] like it does now. Up the canyon, up the Judge Canyon, we lived up on Ontario Ridge. We was right in the south end of Park City. Down below us was Empire Canyon that went up to most of the mines. There was houses on both sides of that canyon, just shells, you might say. In the wintertime, they would push the snow, all you could see was the roofs. You would see the roofs and the smoke coming out of the smoke stacks and it would look almost like a tunnel where they had dug out, dug in to each house.

They cleared the snow out of the roads; they were hauling ore with sleds in them days. My first memory was the bobsled going up and bringing the ore down to the mill with horses. But then they had some old, white Mack trucks came out, chain-driven, the rear wheels were driven with a chain, and they came out and started hauling the ore. That kind of done away with the teams and the bobsleds. That’s how they were in them days. Dad worked in the mine for years. Actually, he was still working there long after the mines were closed.

Strike at the mine

What happened was, they had a strike. The miners struck for better wages. The mines were already struggling because the water was coming up in the mine. They had to keep pumps a-goin’ all the time. As soon as the miners struck and quit, the mines just flooded out. So they just gave up.

There were no jobs. I can’t remember what year that was. Some of the mine people went to Heber and Midway and some of those towns and hired a bunch of guys that was to come and take the miners’ place. I was there at the foot of Main Street when they came and the population of Park City was right there waiting for them, they knew they were coming. I’ve seen something that very few people [have] see.

I’ve seen what mob rule does. I stood there ready to cry. They took them guys and beat them and pounded them over the head. Threw rocks and knocked them cold. This happened to those guys that they hired to come in to go to work. I’ve seen a bunch of women dragging a guy up the street and kicking him from all sides. This type of thing. It was sad. To me it was out of this world. He was unconscious already. I couldn’t believe it, how crazy people could go.

When we left there I had a five-room home I bought in Park City. I sold it for $150. All they wanted was the bathroom fixtures, they didn’t want the house itself. In fact, Mary and I went back, I wanted to show her that house. We met a young man that had bought it. I forget what he paid, but it was a terrible price. But he had it fixed up and it was as cute as it could be.

Between my wife and I—they had two other homes there, her folks had—they sold one of them for $400 and they had bought a place that used to be a dentist’s home, a big home, and they sold that for $1500. That went to the kids. The old folks had died. We had two kids that remained with us, my wife’s brother and sister. They were half-brother and half-sister, rather, and they lived with us when we moved even out here to Ballard. Lived with us ‘til they were married many years later.

School

[I met my wife] in Park City. Her name was Nora Louise Taylor. We went to school together. There were quite a lot [of kids in our school. We had a hundred-some odd in the high school band. So, at that time it was quite a lot. The elementary schools went up to the eighth grade, then they went right into high school. They built a new big school over on the east side of town before we ever left there.

I started playing music when I was thirteen years old. My mom bought a little guitar from a guy that come selling them. It was a wood guitar, there were no electrics or anything in them days, just a little wood guitar. You played it with a steel; it was a Hawaiian guitar. That’s what they called it then, they call them steel guitars now days, ‘cause they use a steel. But it was Hawaiian guitar and Mom couldn’t learn to play it. My dad and her, when we lived at Vernal, had an organ and they used to sing beautiful together. My dad played the organ, not my mother. But she couldn’t learn that Hawaiian guitar and she said, “Any of you kids, whoever learns it, can have the guitar.” I used to run home—my school was just two miles from home. I’d run home at noon as fast as I could so I could practice on that guitar. I learned to play guitar and mandolin from thirteen on. I met a bunch of guys at a program we played to. They played mandolins and guitars and stuff and they told me they wanted to start a band, so I teamed in with them guys and we started the Park City Wranglers. We got to be quite a famous little band. We played dances from then on, until I was out of high school.

Early music

A lady come there one time and Mom said, “Get that guitar, George, and play this lady a tune.” So, I took the guitar and I played a couple of old time tunes and I looked up and tears were coming down her eyes. She told my mom, “Get this boy ready, I’m going to take him somewhere with me.” She took me down and introduced me to the band leader. He was a school teacher, also, but he was the band leader, and he needed trombone players. He talked to my dad and Dad bought me a trombone. I played trombone all through my school days. I played in the symphony orchestra, in the band; I went with the All-State Band up to the A.C. in Logan. I was a member of the All-State Band. We had two hundred and something members in that and they was from three or four different mountain states.

The band leader had this band, he had a dance band also. I played trombone in his dance band. I was playing trombone with the Park City Wranglers and ever once in a while they had a dance, too, the same night and I had to pick out which one to play with. That made it kind of bad.

I got good on the trombone and loved the trombone, but I still couldn’t get away from the strings. I was playing strings at home all the time. My brother, Slim, he got interested and learned to play the Spanish guitar. So, we got so we could play together.

Married

Nora Louise Taylor and I got married in 1936 and I went to work there for a while in Star Meat and Grocery. Used to be right there across from the old post office. I think the post office is still in the same place. Anyway, I worked there for a while as a delivery man. I delivered ice because everybody had iceboxes. I delivered ice and made ice and what have you. Worked other jobs in between. Then I went to Echo Canyon and went to work for the railroad. I was playing every week and we ended up in Echo. Well, I went to work first at Castle Rock, that’s up the canyon between Evanston and Echo.

Then we got laid off, so I moved to Echo and we lived there for a couple of years. My oldest daughter was born in Park City in 1937. My oldest boy was born in Echo. I told him we had a little house. I said, “Nothing but a coal shed when you were born.” So, as a kid, he would tell all the kids that he was born in a coal shed in Echo, Utah. When I finally heard what he was telling them, I told him that wasn’t exactly right. It was a tar-paper shack, but it wasn’t a coal shed.

They had a spur track that went to Park City to haul the ore. Of course, Echo was a railroad town, so I used to hop on that on Saturday and go up. My folks still lived up on the Ridge in the same place. I’d go up to their place and I’d play a dance on Saturday night. We got $3 apiece for the dance. Most times it was the only money we had. On the railroad, they gave us a five-cent raise which brought us up to $3 a day. Three dollars a day, that’s what I made from the Union Pacific [so] to get three dollars for an evening of playing, that was pretty good. That was a day’s wages and it really helped, especially through the times I was laid off.

I used to work for a dairy in Echo just for milk and cream. They give me all the milk and cream I wanted; we made butter and got by just fine. We gathered watercress and mushrooms. A neighbor showed me how to pick mushrooms. We was below the dam and they grew in there beautiful. When I went back to work on the railroad, the guys was all laughing, they was on the man car that we road out to work. I said, “What’s the matter?” They said, “You look like you’ve got the toothache on both sides.” That had just done me a lot of good through the summertime.

California – First airplane

In 1939 we moved to California, both him and I. He had designed and built a little airplane. He built it right in his house. You’ve heard of the guy that had to tear the house down to get the plane out? Well, that was him. The only reason we had to move anything, they had quite a big window there, but the landing gear wouldn’t come out, the fuselage and the landing gear, and we had to tear a little bit out of there to get it out plus the window. Everybody got a big kick out of that.

We was working on the plane in about 1932. I was working on the railroad, but I’d come home on weekends and help him. We took it down to Snyderville and used to take off in a little cow pasture in Snyderville. We had a lot of engine trouble. It had a two-cylinder engine that Slim had just about built himself, out of a motorcycle engine. It had thirty-five horsepower. But, we flew it, got by fine. He had something like seven hours of duel instruction in Salt Lake and I had two hours and forty minutes when I flew it first. I never did have any trouble as far as flying. We had a lot of engine trouble, though.

Anyway, we moved our families to California and came back and got the plane later. He just had two kids and I had two kids. We moved down there in a Model A Ford. One interesting thing: before we left Park City, we were afraid we would get into high gas prices, so we bought four, ten-gallon milk cans and filled them full of gas. When we got down around St. George the milk cans were empty. They had rattled on the rear bumpers where we had them tied until it had made a hole in the cans. We never had no gas. Anyway, the further we went the cheaper the gas was and when we got into California it was eleven cents a gallon. We got into L.A.

We went up to Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica when we got settled and rustled for a job. ‘Course they put him right on because he had built this airplane. It took me a week to get through there. They had three interviewers that you had to talk to to get a job. One of the three had turned me down each time, but I had a picture of me launching a big gas model that we had built in Park City. He said, “Oh, you’re a model builder?” I said, “Yeah, we built a lot of models.” He said, “Go on,” and he sent me right on in. I went in and went to work in the experimental division, both of us did. He went to work on aircraft instruments and I went in as a general mechanic. We were there about three years.

When we were in California, Slim had rebuilt the craft; we’d both worked on it, of course. We started flying out of a little field there, we were living at Playa del Rey by then, it was south of Santa Monica about ten miles. There was oil wells over in there with wood structures. There was a little strip the side of Bologna Creek, they called it, that’s where we landed. It wasn’t a landing strip, of course, it was just an open field. We flew it out of there a few times until the caretaker of them oil wells caught up with us. He said, “Take off, but don’t land here no more.” So, we found an airport over in Downey, California. They was starting to build houses in there and taking up ground. As an airport but it was kaput, you know, they’d quit using it. But it still had a pretty good runway and what have you.

I’ll have to tell you this story. We decided to go over there. We had been having engine trouble. My gosh, trying to keep the little engine a-goin’ was something else. Slim had his hands full working on it. He was adjusting the darn carburetor all the time. But anyway, we decided, my nephew was there, he lived with us at that time or right there close. Slim took off an hour and a half ahead to go to Downey, so he’d be there when I got there. I was to fly the airplane. So, my nephew came over to crank it, to get it started for me. Just before he left, Slim wasn’t satisfied with the way it was running, so he tinkered with that carburetor for quite a while. He had it running, sounded pretty good and pretty smooth. Downey is right across L.A. from where we lived, right straight across. I’d learned a little bit about navigation while we was a-tinkering down there and got me some books on it and I savvied how to set the compass and so on and we could get along. Anyway, Farrell cranked the engine and I took off and I just got up a few hundred feet and one cylinder quit, but I couldn’t go back and I decided, well, if it kept running I would keep flying, I’d just hope for the best. I kept creeping that up. You know, we were at sea level and an airplane flies wonderful good down there. Better than to the side of Park City, at such a high elevation.

Anyway, one cylinder quit. Now, a lot of people think I’m telling a tall story, but this is the truth, it happened. I kept easing up and got up just as high as I could, my gosh, there was white houses as far as I could see in all directions when I got out there a ways over L.A. I thought, well, if the little old engine actually quits, I’ll just head south and try to get into a field somewhere, just glide. But it kept on a-popping and I came right over the field at Downey. One reason that we wanted to go to Downey: one of the guys we were working for in the plant was a good pilot and he said, “If you guys would bring that over to Downey,” he said, “I’ll fly it, I’ll spin it, whatever.” It had never been tested for tailspins and one thing or another to see how it would act. He said, “If you will buy me a parachute, I’ll put it through the paces.” So, that was the deal.

Well, he was there with my brother, and I came over quite high. He said, “My gosh, what’s that powered with, a Maytag engine?” A little old Maytag [was a] one cylinder deal. He said, “No, I don’t know what’s happened,” ‘cause the one cylinder wasn’t working. Anyway, I landed. They tinkered with the carburetor and got it running pretty good and he took it up and got way up high, right over the field and the engine quit entirely. The pilot had the chute and everything, but he went ahead and put it in tailspins and all kinds of gyrations before he got down. He said it was solid as could be. Never had a bit of trouble, even landing.

Moving back to Utah

It was before the war, but [when] the war came along while we were there. On our vacation, we’d gone up to Hill Field and put in an application there, ‘cause we wanted to come back home. They had just built them four big hangars at Hill Field. My gosh, there was nothing in them, they were just empty. They had already hired us because we was working at the aircraft plant, all we had to do was make out an application and they hired us.

Anyway, when we moved to Hill Field, we took the airplane with us. He had the wings on his car and I had the fuselage on my car, or vice versa, I can’t remember just which. We sneaked out of L.A. in the night. We thought they’d stop us somewhere and wouldn’t let us go with it. We went up through Victorville and clear to Hill Field. Of course, we was the next day getting up here and nobody bothered.

Once, I seen a bunch of lights a-flashin’ and siren a-goin’ and I thought, oh boy, they’ve picked old Slim up. He had the fuselage up over his car, he’d built a rack. I had the wings, that’s how it was. I thought they’d caught him and arrested him.

I don’t know [if we were illegal] but probably. We was worried because, well, we’d tried to get a license to take it. We had a little trailer, and something about the trailer, they wouldn’t give us a permit. So, we just took off in the night and came home. Anyway that’s the way we did things in them days.

Like I said, he finally sold the plane. We took it up to Afton and flew and that guy, I think we got $350 for it. It was just a tiny, single-place plane. It only weighed 400 pounds but it worked fine, except all the engine troubles. What it needed was a good engine. That ended our flying experience there for a while, until we got out here in Roosevelt, living over in Ballard. I’ll have to go into that a little deeper.

Hill Field

We was to report there for work on the19th of December and on the 7th was Pearl Harbor. And my gosh, we were afraid, because they were tying the guys down on the job and wouldn’t let them quit. We was afraid we wouldn’t be able to go to Hill Field. But, it didn’t turn out that way. Heck, we didn’t really have any trouble when we got ready to leave. We went to work at Hill Field.

I went through a lot of jobs at Hill Field, and we were also playing all the time. My brother-in-law, Elaine’s husband, we’d talked him into buying a bass fiddle, a big slap bass, and then we really got into music. While I was in California I’d bought an electric steel guitar, one of the finest I ever had in my life, the finest sound. We were playing, the three of us. We didn’t play anywhere big, but we played a round of house parties and what have you. People just loved it’cause it was something kind of new. They were hearing this kind of music coming out of Hawaii and what have you. Anyway, we was still playing music when I was at Hill Field.

At Hill Field they put me as group leader because I’d had aircraft experience. They were hiring guys by then, by the thousands, and none of them had any experience working aircraft and we’d worked at Douglas. So, I went up the line, just about every job. The guy that was over me, George Bishop was his name, each time they would put him on a higher job he’d bring me into his position. At one time I was hangar foreman for all four of those hangars and there was sixty men in there working and I had sixty guys under me. Then from that I went to coordinator and would spend four hours with one shift and four hours with the next shift and try to bring the information on what they was working on to coordinate it. It was a tough job, and I had to go to work at two o’clock in the morning. I’ll tell you what, I couldn’t sleep, it was harder on my health than anything. When I left Hill Field I was aircraft inspector.

We moved to Layton when I went to work at Hill Field. We had the little airplane there, we’d rebuilt it while we were in California, completely. It didn’t look like the same craft at all, it looked neat. I lived down in a little farm field, it was kind of down under, off the highway, down in a little canyon. The only building down there was that little farm home. We found that to rent. They had a nice little hay field there and we started flying the airplane out of that.

But Hill Field soon caught on to us. This was during the war. They stopped us right quick. One of the guys working at Hill Field bought the plane. His home was in Afton, Wyoming. He said he would buy it, if we would bring it up there and fly it. So we did. We took it to Afton and flew it for him. That was the last time we ever seen that airplane. But we had had a lot of problems with it, my gosh.

[Why I quit Hill Field is] a long story. I was supervisor before I went any higher. When I was supervisor of the four hangars, I told you, they appointed another guy to take my place on my day off. He was riding in with the superintendent of Hill Field; see it was all civilian at that time. What happened, I don’t know. He was a guy that knew nothing about airplanes; he’d go around and ask questions and write down what rudder pedals were, he didn’t know nothing. It didn’t take long before I was the alternate and he was the supervisor.

I got disenchanted. It got worse and worse, there’s no use to go into it. But, they finally put me from supervisor into aircraft inspector. It was a good job. Some of the guys, my mechanics working under me, come out of an aircraft school in Cheyenne, there were eleven of them. They all worked under me and one come to see me in Roosevelt, years later. He was an inspector. His whole job was to go to an aircraft plant and inspect the planes for the government. He said, “My gosh, Tex, if you had stayed there, you’d have been superintendent of the whole place.”

Radio

After I quit Hill Field, I moved back to Park City and went to work in the mines for a year. That year we went to Salt Lake and played KDYL. That was the first time we ever played radio. We played there through the wintertime.

We was still playing, but wasn’t playing radio any more. We’d done that through that one winter and we’d auditioned for some stations, even KSL. We wanted to get a “Sons of the Pioneers” type deal. They turned us down. But we’d auditioned several of them.

Army Depot and Grand Junction

After I left Park City, I went back to Ogden, went to work at the Army Depot on 12th Street. Slim and I were both inspectors there. He got on as an inspector and got me on as an inspector, too. There’s no use to go into what we had to do, but we had good jobs. They didn’t pay a whole lot, but they were good jobs. I think I was making $35 a week there. Anyway, a guy came in to Salt Lake looking for a western band, he had a traveling show. They had ten shows that they could put on, mostly comedy stuff, but he needed a western band for radio advertising and what have you. Wherever he went, they told him about me ‘cause we were the only thing there was in that line. So, we were hired un-sight and unseen. He hired us and we moved to Grand Junction. That was in 1946, right after the war. We moved to Grand Junction and went to work playing KFXJ. We’d play five programs a week. They had fifteen-minute programs every morning advertising the show, plus other commercials.

We played a lot of them live, but we recorded [most of the] shows. Sometimes we’d play the first one and we’d have the rest of them recorded. What they had at that time, they had big sixteen-inch acetone disks. They was soft and the recorder actually cut the grooves; that was the recording. We’d make five shows and we had thirty seconds between shows. If you had a string out, you just had time to reach up there and tune it just a little bit then we’d go right into our theme song again for the next day. We’d play our theme song at the end of that, then in thirty seconds we’d have to go into the theme for the next one.

Funny thing, too, that happened. Our boss, Harry Evans, was the boss of the show and he was the MC for the radio show. Now see, we was making these ahead of time, almost a week. He’d say, “Boy, we sure had a beautiful crowd out at Cow Creek,” or wherever we were supposed to play a certain day, and invariably we would have a terrific crowd. I never seen anything like it. It would work out every time. It was four or five days later, see, and it would work out every time. It was a funny thing. It’s just something that’s in my head.

What they had, the first fifteen minutes of show we went out there and played on the stage, just like we were playing radio. Melvin, my [second] oldest brother, he was born in 1900, played violin with us. He had played all his life.

Yeah, there was three of us brothers. Cy and Slim and myself. Cy was Mel, Slim was Mar. Kurly was my brother-in-law. He and Elaine [my little sister] did most of the singing.

We’d moved, all of us moved to Grand Junction. We played with that Harry Evans show that I was telling you about. I should have told you a little more about that show. They had a forty-five minute comedy that they would put on each night. We’d be in a different town each night. Then the last hour we would play as a dance band. Harry Evans played drums and his wife played piano. Two of the guys that were comedy actors were also musicians, so we had a seven-piece band. So the last hour or so, up ‘til midnight, we just played dance music. But, we opened the show, then they had forty-five minutes of what they called “black outs,” we’d just do special stuff, like Kurly and I used to play, both of us, would play the same guitar, this type of thing, novelty stuff. Or we’d put on what we’d called “pass the bull.” We could all play the bass fiddle, so we’d play up to the break on the tune, and then pass the instrument. We was all standing around. We’d pass our instrument and take the next guy’s instrument and go right on with the tune. We called it “passing the bull.” Everybody loved that kind of stuff, you know, better than they did the music, actually.

But we played a lot of good stuff. We had good instruments, the very best. I had a pre-war Martin guitar. We run over going to a dance, backing the car out, one night. That guitar now, would be worth, I don’t know how much. A Herringbone pre-war would go for $35,000. It had a beautiful tone, beautiful. I had a Gibson mandolin, beautiful. Kurly had a bass made in Germany, that was a good one. I had a Gibson steel guitar. Cy, ‘course , had his old violin that he’d had all his life. So, we had good instrumentation. We done a lot of singing together, good stuff. I’m sorry I don’t have a whole lot to let people listen to. I’ve got some things, but the way they was recorded back in them early days was not the very best.

Our stuff was old, we was playing stuff like “San Antonio Rose.” Oh my gosh, I’ve got a thousand names in my mind, but my mind ain’t too good anymore.

I worked there until they had a layoff. They had the first layoff they’d had in eleven years and I was one of the first to go because I was one of the last to be hired. But it was a good company and I enjoyed working with them. What I did then, they had one guy that did all the outside-of-town work, out of Grand Junction. He’d go around to all the towns, wherever they had a job and I was his helper. So, we went everywhere. My gosh, we went up to Eagle, Colorado, and all these little towns, Delta, and these little towns we’d played when we were playing with the show. Colberg and up to Monticello. My gosh, Montrose and all those little places, Delta and Fruita and all those places we’d played with that show. I’d been around there quite a lot, even up to Afton. So, I kind of knew my way around a little bit.

Anyway, I worked for them until they had the layoff. Then I went in to Salt Lake and went to work for General Motors. I was working on train engines. They had big diesel engines. The engines was sixteen feet long. And [my] job was spray painting those [locomotive] motors. I worked there for a few years until we decided to come back to Vernal.

The Barn

Slim had an airplane, and we was still flying airplanes when we were playing in the Barn. We landed just up there behind it. Slim and Kurly bought that ground there; 160 acres in Ballard. We was playing the Oasis dance hall when we first came here. Oh, we got crowds, no matter where we went. Because the people in Myton had been listening to us over KFXJ. They were picking it up here, so we were pretty well advertised. When we got here we had no trouble.

In the early days we didn’t have other jobs. After about six or eight years, yes, we all had to go to work somewhere, because things were getting rough in the dance. It was going down little by little. We had some tough guys that were running our good customers away. It finally went out and we had to go to work.

I went to work in the sign business. In fact, I should still be in it, but I’m not doing much now. I worked here for many years in signs. I worked for Ashtons for six years when I first came here. Ashton Construction. They had a construction crew and I worked for them for six years and I got back into the sign work. I had worked before with Joe Norton, Norton Signs in Roosevelt.

While we were playing dances at Myton and some of these other dance halls, we started timbering on the mountain. A lot of the dance halls, or one or two or them, wouldn’t hire us in the wintertime because they could get any kind of music in the world. They got a good crowd no matter what they did. So I was bluffin’ and I told two different ones, I said, “If you guys don’t start lettin’ us have...” We wouldn’t play these dance halls unless we could do it on our own. We had our own ticket taker and we would just hire the hall outright. So that’s the only way we’d go. That’s the only way we could really make it, you know. So, I was tellin’ these guys, I said, “If you don’t let us have the hall in the wintertime, we’re going to have to build one.” I was bluffing. I never no more thought we would build a dance hall than anything in the world. But it got serious there for a while and we decided, we was already timbering, bringing timber off to build our houses, we’d each build a home right there by the Barn, just one right after another going west from the Barn.

So we was already up there in the timber and pretty well knew what we were doing. Of course, it was all hand stuff. There was no chainsaws in them days. You worked. It was work. We’d go to work and had a little wagon made out of a Model T Ford and we had a Model A Ford to pull it. We could bring down three logs at a time. So, we’d bring them down. Floyd Warburton had a sawmill up above Lapoint, up in there. I don’t know what you call that place up there, but it’s just before you go up on the mountain. It’s on the road. Anyway, we’d bring them down to the sawmill there and he’d saw them up for us and bring them down.

So, we got serious and decided, by gosh, we’d better go ahead and build. We just kept working, bringing timber down. Some of the timbers we had to buy because they wouldn’t be big enough, maybe, for the ceiling or a floor joist and stuff. But when we got ready, we flew into that building and we build it up and had it going in four months. Just the band and my brother, Floyd, helped us. He wasn’t a musician, but he helped us build, because Cy lived here in Vernal and he couldn’t be there very much. So, we built the Barn.

We opened it in 1947 on the 20th of December. On Christmas night, a few days later, we sold a thousand tickets. They couldn’t get in. They was most out in the yard, but, boy, they was crowded in there, crowded as much as they could get in there.

[When we built The Barn there were already other dance halls. They had the Oasis. It was one of the main ones and that’s where we done most of our playin’ before. That was in Myton. And Victory Park, just this side of the Barn, that sets up in that little draw. That was Victory Park Dance Hall. There was an open-air dance hall, Ravola. We played there in the summertime, of course, a few times. Then there was a place, I forget what they called it, it was a place up there just the other side of Altamont, as you go toward Mountain Home. It was a big dance hall in there. We played there. It burned down later.

When we first came here we played Imperial every Saturday night. Then we played wherever during the week, whatever we could get. Then we finally quit the Imperial because our crowds got so bad. It really slowed down. But the out-countries, we did ones for them.

When we opened the Barn, it was actually called, RW Ranch, Rythm Wrangler Ranch. If you look at the old picture in there, the old barn with the sign on the front, it says RW Ranch, Tex Ross and the Rythm Wranglers.

Everybody called it the Red Barn, so we called it the Red Barn, but it was blue.

We played [at the Barn] eight years. Now, the last part of it we was working other jobs, but we still played there. Even after that, once in a while we’d have a dance, but we wouldn’t have them regular. You know, a dance hall is only good for so long and the thing that keeps them going is having different music continually. But we was the same old story all the way through, but we was there eight years. We had wonderful crowds even when the snow was that deep.

I was out there one day and I said, “I don’t know what to do about all this snow.” And a guy said, “You just keep having them dances. The crowds will worry about the snow.” Which they did. We pushed it off a time or two, but after that we just let it go. They’d just tromp it down. So, we got by.

We sold [the Barn] [in the 70’s] for $2500. It set there, us payin’ taxes on it for years, so we finally decided to let it go. My gosh! He’s paid $97,000 for it! And he had to change everything: the floor joists, the roofing, the ceiling, everything. It was pretty well replaced.

See, it was in [Slim’s] name. It was on his ground and in his name and he was responsible for the taxes on it. They just kept comin’ and he was having a hard time gettin’ the other guys, includin’ me, to share up on the taxes, one thing and another. He got discouraged and he finally wanted to sell. I said, “You go ahead. My gosh, we aren’t doin’ nothin’ with it.”

Albuquerque

Anyway, I moved to Albuquerque one year. Well, first there was a survey crew come in to Roosevelt. We was still playing the Barn at that time. A lot of those guys was comin’ to the dances. I got talkin’ with one guy and he said, “Why don’t you go to work with us?” He said, “I’m the foreman of this survey crew.” We got to be real good friends.

So, Slim and I both went to work for United Geo-Physical Company, surveying. They was in here for several years. Anyway, we worked for them until they moved out of here. Smitty, my boss, we called him Smitty, he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, so he called me and asked me if I’d come down there and go to work for him. We was still playin’ in the Barn, but I went down there anyway to go to work for him because I couldn’t make enough in the Barn to do us all that much good. So, I got there when I could, but I moved to Albuquerque, moved my family down there, though I didn’t move my family to Albuquerque. I worked at Albuquerque for Lastever Neon Company. Then I went to work up at Taos, New Mexico, for a guy up there. He’d advertised for somebody that knew how to do everything in the neon line, except make the glass, he was a glassblower. I went to work for him because I’d done a lot of metal work, making the cans and all electric work and so on. Anyway, I worked for him one summer.

What happened with Smitty and his survey crew: I guess things got going pretty slow for his business and he went and made application for a civil service survey job and, gosh, he got right on. I went with him and put in application, too, but I just never had enough experience. They required a lot of background experience that I didn’t have, so they turned me down. So, I came home. On the way home from down there, I went in to Western Neon in Grand Junction, and they gave me a job right quick. So, I came home and moved my family to Grand Junction.

Back to Vernal

We moved back here in 1958 and I rented a little house out in Ashley Ward. Then I bought three acres out in Ashley Ward and built me a house there. Actually, the first part of the house was a house that was up in where the dam is. They was building that dam [Steinaker Reservoir] and they wanted all them houses and stuff out of there. So, I bought one of them quite cheap and moved it down onto three acres.

I just did whatever I could. I was working signs. [Louise] didn’t want me to work signs because it was a hardship. While I was in Roosevelt after the Barn got down where we needed to go to work, that’s what I did. I went to work for Norton Sign Company. Almost all sign work was neon in them days. So, Joe was a glassblower and I was the installation man and I worked a lot of signs.

From then on, that’s about all I knew how to do. I did work here for six years for Ashtons, but I was doing a few little sign jobs, too. Then when Joe left, he quit his business in Roosevelt and moved down to Monticello and put in a sporting goods store. When I left, he give me three jobs that he’d taken money down on and he hadn’t finished them. So, I did those three jobs. At that time I was out at Ashtons and they’d quit with their crews, so I just went on my own. I built up a little truck, put a boom up on it for installation work and went to work for them.

We had a hard time with money, trying to keep up, and that was our biggest problems. We couldn’t get along. We couldn’t see eye to eye. I wanted to keep working on the home. That’s where I lived until my wife and I split up. We split up in, let’s see, 1971, I think. We didn’t get along. We hadn’t gotten along for a lot of years. It wasn’t her fault, it was my fault. I was a musician, you know, and kicking around with my music and I give her a hard time. But I still had three kids at home and going to school, so I just give her the house when we split up.

Our Family

We had four boys and three girls.

Carolyn was my oldest, she lives in Ephraim now.

Gilbert is a guitar picker, and he lives here. Gib’s my take-off guitar player.

Lucky’s back in Michigan, he just called, I talked to him last night. He said he’s coming back, he’ll be here in about a week. He was my number two boy.

LuAnn, I’ve got a big picture of her in there, she was my red-haired daughter. She died with cancer about three years ago.

Randy

Rhonda

Kent, he’s the baby. He’s a teacher down in Naples now. He teaches, I think, fourth grade, third or fourth grade, at Naples. He’s my bass player now.

Mary Gardner

Then I run into this gal [Mary]. Do you want to come tell them our story? Her and I was married in 1972, and, my gosh, we still fight! [Laughter to show he isn’t serious.] We’ve been married thirty years, the first of February.

Tex: I’m like the old guy, Sandy, said, “We’ve been married thirty years,” and he says, “Me and my wife, we still hold hands.” He says, “If I ever let loose, she’d kill me!” [Laughter] No, we’ve got along just beautiful good. You know, my first wife hated music. I couldn’t practice at home. It was out of the question. And I couldn’t practice out in the garage if she could hear it in the slightest. She had a mental block against it. She had reasons. I’d give her a hard life. So, we split up and we’d been together for thirty-six years and had seven children before Mary and I was married.

Mary has a beautiful voice and sings with us sometimes. She says she’s “not as into the music as he is, but it’s okay. My sister’s a singer.”

I started with Park City Wranglers and then with the Rythm Wranglers. I played with several bands in Park City. There were other bands playing and I’d play with them periodically, just me. I don’t even remember what the names of them was. It was usually the name of the leader. But after I came here, do you know Ned Miller? He was a recording artist. “From a Jack to a King,” have you heard that tune? He wrote that and made it famous. He used to be a taxi driver here in Vernal and when we was playing in the Barn, he asked me if I would get on the GI Bill to teach guitar because he wanted to learn how to play guitar. I tried. I put an application in, but I didn’t have the sheepskin, I didn’t have the backing, or schooling, so I couldn’t do it.

He finally left here and went to California, and him and his wife wrote three hundred songs. A lot of them are good ones: “Dark Moon,” and some of them. All the big artists, even Jim Reeves, made one his, “Snowflake.” Anyway, he said he had a brother in the Navy and he said, “When he comes home, we’re going to start a band.” And we were still playing in the Barn at that time.

Well, that’s all I heard and Ned left here and went to California. I started hearing his recordings, they went world-wide. His brother moved here, the one he was telling me about, Max Miller. He was a wonderful musician, one of the best musicians I ever played with in my life. He just played rhythm guitar, but he had five hundred songs and he could play any kind of rhythm, any kind.

We played a lot of Latin rhythms and different things that I could play on the steel and he did the singing. He had a wonderful voice. Him and I and Deloy Shiner was a band for years. Two guys built this little, what used to be, the Westerner Club out here north of town.

We were just the Tex Ross band, and never really played with a band that had a name [again] until I started playing with the Country Gentlemen. [I think] we was together fifteen years or so.

We played straight dances and we did wonderful with it. But dance work got to be like everything else; it went down the drain unless it was something really special. So, the only place you could make anything was a beer joint. While I was playing there at the last, we got $50 a night. But most of the fifteen years we played, we played three nights a week and that $150 sure helped me along. But I didn’t get rich, you know.

[I play] the steel guitar, the rhythm guitar, the pedal guitar, a Dobro, it’s a resonator guitar. They’re mechanically amplified. It’s not electric. It was designed and built and put out by the Dopler Brothers and they ended up with the name Dobro.

I’ve got a whole museum of guitars. My gosh! I’ve got all the steel guitars. Well, not all. I’ve got a Martin and a Fender Spanish guitar, good guitars. I’ve got some antiques, steel guitars. I have five lap steels and three pedal steel guitars.

Flying Experiences

My early flying experiences would fill two or three books?

Lee Walker used to be the manager of the [radio] station over here, he started the first station that they set up here, and we got to be really good friends. At first, by gosh, he wouldn’t let us in there. I wanted to establish a program there because we’d just been playing KFXJ, and they was having a hard struggle to get this station started. They didn’t have the good equipment or nothing. It was Mickey Mouse. Old Lee was really getting popular, though. They were only going out seventy-five miles or so.

Lee didn’t seem to want to talk to me and I thought, “Well, he just don’t like western music.” So, I went and sold a program if they would let us play it. I come back and, of course, that was what they were there for. They said, “No trouble.” Well, we became really good friends and I find out, we’re still good friends. He’d make me a tape and send it up instead of writing a letter from Scottsdale, where he lives. He’s about three years younger than I. But anyway, we’re good friends. We got to be really close friends when we were playing. Him and I, once a year we’d crawl in the old airplane and take a trip somewhere. Two days, three days, or so. He’d get off from the station and, my gosh! I don’t know whether to tell you about it or not!

They had a brand new station in Grand Junction they’d just come up with and Lee wanted to go meet those guys. So we decided we’d go down to Moab, in southern Utah, and they were making movies, so Lee wanted to go to Moab. We left here in the morning, actually. We left here and flew to Grand Junction and went in and met these guys that Lee wanted to meet and, of course, they rolled out the red carpet for Lee. He’s the manager of this station. They took us to a beer joint, we had a few beers and showed him all over through the station and everything. Old Lee was interested, he didn’t like to leave there and I kept telling him, “My gosh, it’s six miles from town back to the field.”

I kept telling old Lee, “My gosh, if we’re going to Moab, we’d better get on the ball. It’s coming late.” And he said, “Oh, heck, we’ll make it all right.” We messed around and I’d never flown at night, I never had in all my flying experiences. In fact, I never took any night flying lessons, you know. We never had instruments in the plane to fly at night anyway, no radio or nothing like that. So, finally, old Lee talked to them guys and they said, “We’ll run you back to the airport.” So, they run us back there.

We’d just got back there and a guy landed that had come from Moab. So, we asked him a question or two about the field at Moab and he says, “There’s a little field right south of town at Moab. That’s where we fly, just flying farmers, and private guys and so on, private pilots.” And he says, “But you can’t go around.” He says, “When you come into that field, that’s it, because you’ve got an 800-foot cliff right out there and you can’t go around so you can get down.” I said, “My gosh! What time does it get dark?” He said, “You’ve got to be down at 8 o’clock.” So, I told Lee, I said, “My gosh, we can’t fly to Moab and be there by 8 o’clock.” And Lee said, “Well, let’s give it a try.”

So, we got in and we took off and flew off a ways and I said, “Well, we’ll fly out a ways and we’ll look it over.” We flew out, I don’t know, we was out about ten miles or so and I made a turn to look back and the lights were on the field at Grand Junction, where we’d just left, and we had fifty miles to fly. And I said, “Lee, we’d better go back.” And he said, “Oh gosh, there’s fifty percent one way and fifty percent the other way, we can go on as good as we can go back.” Well, the moon had come up and the moon was shining nice on the Colorado River and I thought I could always follow the river back if I have to.

We flew down. It was the roughest country in the world. We kept flying. Lee didn’t smoke, but I did at that time. He said, “Tex, you got any smokes?” And I said, “Yeah.” “Give me a smoke.” So, I gave him a smoke and he smoked it. Then I seen him, lighting another one off of that one. He was nervous. Finally, he took his watch out and hung it up on the instrument panel so we could watch the time. He had a pocket watch. It was coming up towards 8 o’clock, just a few minutes off, and I said, “My gosh, Lee, I guess we’re going to have to go out and follow that river back.” He said, “Awww, we’ll make it all right.”

Well, it was pitch dark by then. Not pitch dark, you could see a little bit because the moon was out good and there was still a little bit of light in the west. But I couldn’t see a light nowhere. It come 8 o’clock: no lights, nothing. I was getting pretty desperate. I was just about getting ready to go back. We had to fly a little bit north to get onto the river. All of a sudden the town popped out, just like that, right under us.

It was all just right there, down in a hole. You know how it is. I’d been through Moab before. We’d played Moab when I was with that show. We played there several times, but I couldn’t remember a whole lot about it, and, my gosh, it showed up. So, I just made a round. I said, “We can’t go around because the guy says when you’re coming in to land, you land.” So, it was getting quite dark, getting worse and worse by the second and so I went down in there and I come in a little bit high and built up quite a little bit of extra speed that I didn’t want. Because I didn’t want to run into a cliff circling around that town. I just made one little circle. We could see airplanes down there and could see where the field was. So, my gosh, we was coming up the runway, just a little short runway, and I told Lee, I said, “Boy, I hope that fence is gone at the end of that field ‘cause we’re going to go through it.”

Sure enough, when we got to it, we was on the ground, though, we was still moving fast. They’d pulled the wires off and had ‘em setting out. We went right out into the sagebrush. Oh my gosh! We was both shook up so bad, it was terrible. We set there for a few minutes and I said, “Lee, why don’t you get out and give it a twist and we’ll go down and tie the airplane down there where those other planes are down at the other end.”

So, he got out there and he said, “Okay.” I never thought about it, but he’d never cranked an airplane in his life. I set there with my feet into the heel brakes, you know, and everything on. And old Lee, he started cranking the prop backwards. It was still hot, see, and if you do that and it kicks back, it’ll just take an arm off of you or something. It scared me. So, I said, “Hey, wait a minute.” I said, “You get in and get on the brakes,” and I said, “I’ll start it.” So, he got in. The throttle on that little airplane we had, full on, was right in. It was on a little, just a knob on the end of a rod. I said, “Just as soon as it starts, why push that in just a little ways and just as soon as it starts, then pull it clear off.” So I cranked it and it started right off. And, boy, Lee pushed it right into the wall. And the airplane. I grabbed a strut and the airplane was jumping around in the sagebrush, going around and I was hanging on and trying to holler, “Get the throttle off!” Oh, boy!

That wasn’t our first trip, but it was our last.

That was the plane that the band actually owned that, Kurly and Slim and Cy and I owned. A little Luscome. Just two place. Just a little light craft. It was a good one, a good little airplane.

Then I went to work after that. Some guys come and asked us if we would fly a scintillator down in the Hanksville country for uranium, prospecting for uranium. So Slim and I decided to give it a try. We went down. I had one bad trip with him on one trip down there, too. I won’t tell you about it, but we was going to fly this scintillator. Well, we got in trouble the second day that we flew. We flew out over the Dirty Devil Canyon. Well, there’s two rivers that comes together at Hanksville and from there on they call it Dirty Devil and it drops into a gorge, a real deep gorge.

Two little local rivers, the Muddy River and the Fremont River come together right there. Then they drop into that canyon and they call that the Dirty Devil Canyon from there down. It’s just sheer walls and they’re not too far apart. Well, we went over there and dropped down into that canyon looking around, Slim and I, he was doing the flying. My gosh, we got down there and the air was always going down into the canyon and we couldn’t get back up over the rim. We had a hard time. So Slim, he finally fought it back over the rim, and he said, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had all this I want.” So he quit, but I prospected there for two years.

They furnished me a jeep and I’d fly down to Hanksville, then take the jeep and go prospecting. I done that for two years. I finally ended up with four claims. I sold four claims for $22,000. I actually got $9000. The company bought the claims, but the money was coming from a lawyer from back in Chicago and they just quit payin’. I took them to court, by gosh, won the case. They give me a three-month note, see, to pay the rest of it, but they never did pay it no how. Still, they never did pay. I never did get anything more, so I quit uranium prospecting right there. That was quite the experience. I’d fly down there and work a week and then come home and play a dance and then stay a week, and then fly down there and work a week again.

Vernal then and now

Well, you know, the Doughboy was in the middle of Main Street then, up on a big pylon. They had it up quite high. They had old hitchracks. In front of all the stores they had hitchracks. There was very few cars. There was cars, but not very many and people all came into town horseback or buggies. The old single horse and buggy was the main thing. If people had a little money, why, they always had a buggy.

Slim and I used to hunt rabbits and stuff on our own place up there. If a buggy come by, we’d slip out and stay hid and then we’d run out in back of them. There was a little box on the back they always had to put groceries and stuff in. But they couldn’t see back there, you know. The buggy was kind of like the back of a car. There was a little window, about so big. We’d hop on the back of there and hitch a ride just for the fun of it. We’d go down and hop off where we wanted to. My gosh, we had a lot of experiences.

School in Glines

I went to school in Glines. The Glines Ward School that I went to was settin’ right where the screen for the outdoor theater is [1620 West Highway 40], right there was the school. A little brick building, four rooms, heated with a wood-burning stove.

They had first and second, third and fourth, fifth and sixth, seventh and eighth, upstairs. That’s where we went. I went to the fourth grade there.

My teachers I remember were Miss McKee and Miss Pickup. Hmmm. The superintendent of school, the principal of the school... Johnny [McNaughton]. He was the guy that owned the ground there where they built the Safeway store, here in Vernal. They bought the ground from him.

I got burned pretty bad right at school. I had a pocket full of gunpowder in one pocket and pocket full of carbide. I had a pocket full of carbide and a pocket full of blasting powder, black powder.

Well, Cy, my brother, the fiddle player, he was working in a mine and he had them things stored in his house and I filled my pockets full of that stuff. At noon I went out and built me a little fire in the coal shed. They had a coal shed ‘cause they had wood stoves, them big, old pot-bellied ones. I got me a little bark and I’ll show it on the kids. I’d take that black powder, some of them kernels was as big as your finger. I’d drop them in there and poof! they’d go. I got a droppin’ them in there a little faster and all of a suddenly it just went up and went off in my hand, burned my hand black.

What had happened, I guess I’d had it on my clothes, you know, that powder. I couldn’t remember, but I probably jerked my hand in when it went off and just went off in my pocket and it set my clothes afire. I got down and rolled around on the ground. My dad always said that if you ever get in a fire, why just roll on the ground all around, so I had that in my mind somehow. So I got down and was rolling around, but my shirt was all burning, burning under my arm and down my side.

Ray Richins, at that time, was the principal. That was after John McNaughton, something happened to him. He was keeping Slim in for some reason, he was in the fourth grade or fifth grade. And he was lookin’ out the window up there, Slim said. And he said, “Your brother is out there burnin’ up.”

The kids got me and stripped my clothes off and my old skin, down my side here and on under my arm, was just kind of hanging like rags, you know. Oh, my. So Miss Pickup and Ella McKee, that used to live out here in Ashley Ward, took me down to Ella’s place, I think. Well, I don’t know for sure which one. They both lived close here to the school. They took me in there and doctored me. It took four hours to get a doctor to come up with a buggy. They got up there four hours later, but I’d been through a lot of misery by then. When we moved to American Fork, I had my arm in a sling. It never healed for ‘most all the summer.

The old courthouse.

The old courthouse. That was where ‘most anything that had to do with this city or the county, or whatever, was in that building. I remember that very well. It set back in and all the front was lawn. The Chautauquas, as they called them, used to come in with their little shows and stuff and it was always set up there. The Indians would all come to see that. When anything was goin’ on, the Indians’d start by our place up there and here would come the wagonloads of Indians, four or five days ahead of time. If it was the county fair or whatever, they were great for that. Always right there, Johnny-on-the-ball.

Well, I don’t remember them so much here in Vernal. What they would do is go out on Ashley Creek or somewhere, you know, and camp along. At UBIC, at Fort Duchesne, the Indians would all camp outside the grounds and the whites would all camp inside the grounds. Every year we went. That’s something everybody went to was UBIC. There’d be people that had lived in Vernal for years before would all come back here for that every year. That was the biggest thing that happened in this country. Us kids would go over there. We’d gather soda pop bottles and get a drink of soda pop for two bottles. That was our big deal!

Anyway, the latter years that they had it, they hired a sound truck that come out of Salt Lake, Paul Sound, I can remember that, Paul Sound. And they’d have their speakers set up all over in the trees and cover the whole grounds. It was good. I even got up there and sang in the early morning, you know, before anything was going on. They said, “If you’ll come over here in the morning early, why we’ll have you sing.”

I remember the Co-op?

Well, the bank was on the corner, right where it is. N.J. Meagher run the bank, owned the bank, the Bank of Vernal. The way I remember it, next to them, west, was a drugstore. Can’t remember the name of it. And I think Ashtons. I can’t remember whether Ashtons was in there yet or not. Seems like they was on the other side, west of the drugstore.

I remember the Vernal Confectionery. You bet. In back of where Ashtons was at the last, that ground in there, they had the hitchracks and places to tie up horses and so on. We was always horseback because my folks never did have a buggy. In fact, my dad had a Model T Ford. I just remember one thing about that and I don’t know how old I was. I remember my mom. He wanted her to learn to drive and they were comin’ home from town and she hit the gatepost on the side.

Nora Louise Taylor (Ross)

Grandmother to Keith M. Chandler

Partial Life History in Her Own Words

My parents, William Bailey Taylor and Nora Matilda Allred were married (a civil marriage) in Arizona on February 20, 1917. On June 27, 1917 their marriage was solemnized in the Logan Temple. The following February 19, 1918 my brother, Howard, was born. The following year on May 16, 1919 I was born in York, Arizona.

Of course, I don’t remember, but Dad told us when we were about two and three we were playing over in the school grounds swinging with children older than we were, when one of the older boys pushed Howard from the top of a slide. He hit on his head. I came leading him home. His face and head looked like it was beaten to a pulp! They rushed him to the nearest town to the doctor there.

Another story Dad told me was he had just bought me some new black shoes. He put them on me and I went out to play with the other kids. I came home without them—bare-footed. When they asked me where my shoes were I couldn’t tell them. After looking all over with no results, they bought me some more shoes. The following year someone found them neatly wrapped up in newspaper in an outside toilet. By that time I had outgrown them.

We both had Whooping Cough, turning black from coughing and choking.

When I was two, the influenza and pneumonia epidemic hit the country. My Dad came home with it and had to go to bed. Then us kids came down with it and when Mom got it, Dad had to get out of bed, half sick, and take over. He said Mom died of influenza, pneumonia – and meningitis in March 1922. I about died too.

I never did know my mother. Howard was four and he could remember her well.

We left Arizona soon after that. I don’t remember getting on the train in Arizona but remember getting off it in Colorado. Dad’s oldest sister, Nancy White, lived there (Sanford Colorado), San Louis Valley. We lived there until the following March. All their children were grown except two, Dola and Almie. They were in the elementary school—don’t remember what grades they were in. While there I remember my cousin Ella was so good to us. When she made cookies, she would gather us around her, give each some dough to play with. Then as the pans of cookies came out of the oven, she’d put us out a glass of milk and let us eat all we could. Then she’d proceed to fill the cookie jars. They were really good to us!

I remember once when we were playing in the yard next to us, no one lived there but there were large white boxes. I was curious and thought they were bird boxes. The kids didn’t tell me any different, but I soon found out! The bees came out and being the youngest, I was too slow getting away and I got stung all over, even in my mouth. They said I looked like a bulldog! They owned a ranch with chickens, turkeys, cows, dogs, cats, etc.

We left Colorado in the early spring and came to Logan, Utah to Grandma Taylor’s. It was on the island, on Crocket Avenue on the east side of the street. This was the Eighth Ward, I believe. We were there two months or more, then we moved up to Lewiston where Aunt Dean and Aunt Cora lived. We lived in a little white house close to the chapel.

After a short time we moved back to Logan on the same avenue only across the street from where we had been. There were fruit trees around a little white house sitting back off the street. The house is still there (1977) the sheds are still there too. The bishop was across the street and his name was Bishop Peterson.

My best girlfriend was Leora Naylor. She lived next door.

Grandma used to send us up the trail to the college (Utah State University was a college then) with a little tin bucket after buttermilk. They had just a small college in those days—just a building or two and the barns where the cows were—there was also a small museum which was a delightful place to visit.

The Church we went to is [now] a wedding chapel (Colonial Mansion) remodeled with the most beautiful natural landscaping—river running through the grounds. I don’t believe I have ever seen any place more beautiful! (1977)

At this time Dad was working in the mines in Park City.

My grandmother was an angel. I’ll never be the grandmother to my grandchildren that she was to me! So loving and kind and patient! We three would go to Salt Lake, then when we got home, she always had a glass of orange punch and a dish of custard.

I remember when my Dad had his teeth pulled. He had teeth that stuck out so far he couldn’t get his mouth shut. Anyhow, I looked at him and said, “You don’t even look like my Daddy.” He and Uncle Rone (his brother) were sitting out under the trees—whittling on sticks, making whistles for us.

One day when Aunt Dora was there with her three youngest kids my cousin Don was sitting on the cellar door (underground cellar). Don was a year younger than me. I was 5 by then. He was singing to the top of his voice—all cuss words.

Dad took Dean and Don, Howard and I to the circus—where the Central Park is now--that’s where the tents were all set up. They used to have a big parade down Main Street. Elephants, would lead. They were huge—Jumbo was the name of the largest—then would come the cages with tigers, lions, etc., little horses too. Man that would eat fire… one that would eat glass too. Midgets and the tallest man in the world (so they advertised). Oh what a thrill!

My Grandmother passed away February 6, 1926.

From there I went to Salt Lake to live with Aunt Louise and Uncle Steve. She was a Temple worker. So when she’d go to the temple, I would go with her and stay in the nursery and help with the babies and little ones—until they had to get ready to go be sealed to their parents. I would help get them ready.

Uncle Steve was a night watchman for the street cars (at the Barn). Aunt Louise would sometimes take me on the street cars clear to the end of the line and we would wait for Uncle Steve to get off work. Then go home with him. That’s where “Trolley Square” is now.

I remember we used to walk under the Eagle Gate to get to town and back.

[On] April 1 Aunt Louise made me a small “apple pie” and it wasn’t apple. It had cotton in it. Howard was with Aunt Dora then. When spring came he came to live with us. I had my 7th birthday there. Then we all moved up to Park Valley for three months. I really enjoyed it up there. I remember Aunt Louise fixing a lunch for Uncle Steve and getting the buggy ready, we’d go there. Uncle was working. He farmed and ran a cattle ranch. He was always fixing fences and we had a dog that would bring the cows home. I still have fond memories while there.

In the fall Dad came to get us. We rode the train back to Mapleton to Aunt Maud’s for school. Howard was in the 3rd grade by then and I was in the 2nd.

Sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas we both got the measles.

Howard never did go back to school. Dad took him home to Park City. There he couldn’t seen to get well enough to go back to school.

The next summer Dad and Uncle Rone got us and we moved back to Logan. We lived on 4th North, between 2nd and 3rd East.

I was baptized in the Logan Temple.

I remember one of the neighbors had raspberries that had to be picked, so he hired several older kids to pick and I went along with them. I ate more than I could pick, so after the first day they fired me and also two of the other kids that were my age.

I just loved to go to Sunday School and Primary every place I lived, so I had a good bringing up.

That fall I went to live with Dad’s Aunt Dean Ross. She was raising her granddaughter, Zelma Ross—She had been a twin, and her twin and mother had died at her birth.

We had such good times together. I was a year older than her. She was in the 2nd grade and I was in the 3rd. (Dad had Howard with him in Park City.)

I remember seeing my Dad walking down the street. He was so handsome and he walked so straight, broad shoulders—looked like a military man. After he had his teeth out, so he could shut his moth, he was the “man of my dreams!”

My Uncle George Ross had a big apple orchard in North Logan. When it came time to pick the apples, he and his son, Marcel, would hitch the horses to a wagon early in the morning. Aunt Dean would fry chicken, etc. and we’d have a picnic while we played and ate apples, [while] the rest picked. I don’t remember how many bushel apples they picked, but it must have been a huge amount.

We would play house—always sewing for tiny celluloid dolls, piecing on apples and tomatoes or green peas, carrots and turnips, etc. That’s where I got sickened on green peas. They must have been too old, and I ate too many.

We used to be on our bellies across the bridge on the ditch across the road and watch the water skeeters swim around on the water.

I remember there were neighbor kids we played with sometimes. This time we were playing Hide and Seek. As I ran around the house, I grabbed a weed that had a bee on it and I got stung! Aunt Dean got some mud from the ditch bank and made a p____ out of it—my hand healed right up.

I know it was while I lived there, we took Easter eggs up to the University and rolled them down the hill.

That fall around Thanksgiving the schools all closed down – Smallpox epidemic hit. We all had to go to town for inoculation shots. I had been exposed in school so the shot didn’t do me a bit of good. I came down with them – but wasn’t sick at all. When I would itch, Zelma would play on the mouth organ to keep me from scratching. I’d dance around.

Zelma didn’t come down with them until I was nearly over them. Then she took sick and nearly died before she broke out.

To keep me from missing too much school, Aunt Dean fumigated all my clothes and scrubbed me with a disinfectant soap. She sent me to live with her son, Rulon Rose’s wife’s mother, Mrs. Green in the 11th Ward. She was a widow with five children, Chloe who was married to Rulon, Nathan, Rulon Green, Lula and Zenda. Zenda was the youngest and she was in junior high. Mrs. Green took in little ones in the daytime, ran a nursery with about four or five.

I remember tending Chloe’s children one night. She had gone over to her mother’s (right next door). I didn’t know what was the matter. She was crying. Rulon was out to teacher’s institute. The next morning I went back over to Greens. There was a funny smell in the house and the Doctor had brought Chloe a new baby in his little black bag. I was nine then!

Rulon was one of the lucky ones. He had a new ’28 Ford. When we’d go fishing, I knew it was because they needed someone to keep the children out of the river [why they took me with them]. We always went up Logan Canyon clear to the top somewhere.

I remember the third grade at the Woodruff School. That year there was lots of sickness, when the teacher tried to put on “Old Mother Goose” the cast that was picked – one by one—had to drop out. I was “Mary, Mary Quite Contrary.” I had quite a part to learn. I didn’t get sick. We had the cutest costumes. [We} had a lot of fun that year.

In the fourth grade my best friend was Ethel Hodges. She was a grade ahead of me. They were well-to-do—her parents had a beautiful brick home—they had a car. They even had a radio! I loved to go over to her place and play! Her big sister’s name was Fannie Kay. She also had a brother, Dale Mayne.

That year I took piano lessons from Lucy Shaw. That’s how my Dad met my step-mother, Martha Lily Shaw—Lucy’s sister. Dad was 39 or 40 and she was 34 and never been married before. They were married in the Logan Temple in April, 1929.

That year the 4th grade got to visit the fire department. They let us slide down the pole, the one the firemen slid down when there was a fire. The firemen slept upstairs, when the alarm went off, announcing the fire, the men would jump into their clothes and slide down the pole. The fire house was on Logan Main Street until 1973 and then there was one built on 2nd North (between Main Street and 1st East).

We also got to visit the flour mill, which is still there.

In the 11th Ward [we] went to our meetings in the bottom part of the Tabernacle.

We also learned to dance the “Minuet” a dance that the society danced back in Washington’s days. We had beautiful costumes and the boys had powdered wigs.

That spring we had the braiding of the Maypole and had the most beautiful paper dresses. Part of us looked like daffodils and part like tulips. I was a tulip.

I came home from school one day. No one was home. There sat a dish with beautiful red berries in it. I took a big mouthful and thought I was poisoned. It was cranberries with no sugar on them!

Mrs. Green made the best ice cream I have ever tasted! She had a cow and used real cream. Every Sunday after going to Sunday School she would have it all fixed so we could each take a turn at freezing it—hand turned—with ice and salt packed in real tight. Boy, it was well worth the work of turning the freezer!

After school was out we moved into Mom’s Sister, Mary’s house in the 7th Ward. I had a darling little cat and for three months had lots of fun keeping contact with my friends I had gone to school with. Dad did Temple work all this time.

When fall came, we moved to park City. There being a few days late in getting into school, I started the 5th grade at the Washington School. There were too many students for me to go to the Jefferson, which was just two blocks away. The Washington was 7 short blocks away.

Nothing special happened for the next 2 years that was worth remembering. I guess.

When I was in the 7th grade, one of my best friends was Dora Fraughton. She had broken appendix later on and died. We girls who had been her friends were pallbearers. I really did miss her, she had had about the same kind of life I had. Mother had died when she was a baby. She had three older brothers and her Dad and Uncle all lived together. She was a year older than me. She played the steel guitar and sang, [she] composed some songs too.

My Uncle, Dad, and Mom, Howard and I all lived together. Mom and I got along fine, but she and Howard had personality conflicts. Dad worked as long as he could crawl up the steps (they both were miners). Dad got arthritis and was in the chair for years and years. Twenty years before he died on September 14, 1950.

I really thought at last we were a family—though Mom was real good to me, she really didn’t know how to be a mother. There was never any affection shown between Dad and her. She didn’t actually know how to show love to anyone. Not that I blame her—Dad was the same. We weren’t shown any more love than if we’d just been staying there. No putting their arms around us and letting anyone know we were special. So, I lived with no more security then I’d had living with the other people I’d lived with. How I longed for someone to tell me I was someone special in their lives! I know she thought she was being good to me by letting me run and play when I should have been in helping her—learning how to do things.

The kids in the neighborhood used to play “Kick the Can” and “Pick up Sticks,” etc. All ages played together. We climbed choke cherry trees and ate the choke cherries. The happiest time was when Mom would go with me to pick Columbines, way up high in the late spring. Her birthday was June 20 when they were blossoming the best. When she wasn’t able to go with us anymore, we’d go bring her some. She would be so pleased. I did want so much to please her the first two years. After that when I knew she really needed my love and companionship (by then Dad was in the chair, crippled up with arthritis) From then on, she really didn’t have any close friends. She was always very hard to get acquainted with. Everyone in the neighborhood was so nice but she wouldn’t go to church anymore, not even with me begging her. She felt her place was home with Dad.

When I was in anything, I never was like other kids, proud to perform for my parents. I really missed that until I finally didn’t think too much about it as I got older.

I never had a home where I could bring my friends. I can see now that it was the best my folks could do, but I began to resent it and I no longer cared. I realize now that after she had Darlene (Dolly) and Earl, that she wasn’t any different with them than she’d been with me! She really didn’t know how!

The summer I was 15 I went over to Kamas to Aunt Dora’s for a month. Dolly was born in April that year and instead of staying home and helping, Dad let me go. I never had so much fun in my life! Dean and I went to the dances up at KillCare[?] I got a look at how much I had been cheated out of… Dad sat all day long and could imagine all kinds of things gong on (overly protective – I had to lie to get out). I knew what I was doing and couldn’t see why he didn’t trust me. So, I’d lie and say I was going some place else… then not go there at all. So I really enjoyed it in Kamas. Dean was three years older than me and I know at 15 I was seeing the other side of living too young for my own good, but there was no stopping me after that.

The next summer I was 16 and couldn’t wait ‘til I got over there! I was just out of my sophomore year and had really began to show resentment at home. The only way I ever got out was to lie and this began to get easier all the time. Over at Aunt Dora’s I didn’t have to lie. She trusted me!

The ________ dance I went with Florence Martin – she and I had been friends since the 7th grade. I’d heard a lot about George Ross (even then the name sounded so familiar to me), so when he asked for a dance, I was thrilled to death! I’d been dancing with some of the boys my age…he was three years older than me, so I felt like I’d hit the “jackpot.” My Dad didn’t take to him at all, so I had to lie to go out with him. We had a fight, so when summer came and I went to Kamas. While there, I went out with several boys that I liked but I really fell for Bus Pitt! He wasn’t too good looking and he had a short leg—limped when he walked—but he was a real gentleman and was always so courteous, so respectful, etc. We would go horseback riding, I’d go with him to milk—then go to the show or to the dance, etc.

I loved Aunt Dora’s house. They didn’t have electricity—fuel gas or coal oil lamps, coal cook stove—so old-fashioned and homey. That was during the 30’s (depression). No electricity went that far out of town.

I hated that summer to end.

I started the junior grade that fall and Bus went out to the BYU. I really looked forward to his letters and would answer right back. The letters became fewer and fewer, though I knew he had to get an education to prepare him for some kind of work he could do in the future. He’d had polio, I believe, when he was younger—which left him with a limp.

I was just like the girls today. I thought I new everything—couldn’t be told anything at all. I went to the football games and basketball games and school dances, Church dances, with different boys, then finally I began going with Goerge Ross (when I could get out). My junior prom I went with George. He was so handsome and the girls were all crazy about him. I must have been in “love with love.”

Anyhow, we ran away and got married April 14, 1936, just before my junior year was over. We were married in Heber City, Wasatch County. “Marry in haste and regret in leisure!” The heartache I put my folks through—‘til my dying day I’ll never forget the way my Dad looked!

I told my kids that if I ever caught any of them lying to me, that would be the end of my trust in them. If I hadn’t more or less been forced to lie in order to get out, I hurt so many people by lying. I can look back and shudder when I think how I had to lie instead of trying to talk things over so we’d be able to understand each other!

The only thing I got out of this union was seven wonderful children and 35 years of unhappiness for both George and myself.

Carolyn was born January 26, 1937. Such a darling baby. Neither one of us were old enough to really know the seriousness of having a family! I had been looking for love and security. I never was made to feel like I was special in any way. I don’t believe George knew how to give me what I longed for most!

We were living in Park City when Carolyn was born. We had lived in four different places by that time. Dr. Goodwin was the doctor and Hattie Barns was the woman who took care of me. We were living in an upstairs apartment above them. George had worked as a delivery man. He played once a week at the dances too—both the guitar and trombone.

That spring we moved up on the railroad in Echo Canyon—up to Castle Rock—in the fall we moved back down the canyon to Echo, the homes we lived in were wood floors and rafters for the ceilings. We had to carry water from a nearby pump. We had a little coal stove (our rent was free and our coal was free). George was a section head worker laying ties – 6 days a week – getting a paycheck of $42.50 a month (that was when a dollar was a dollar).

I didn’t know how we ever kept warm or even existed!

Gib was born on July 8, 1938. His doctor was Dr. Oldham. I expected him the last of May, but he didn’t get here until the 8th of July. I had quite a time having him! The doctor said if he hadn’t come when he did, I’d have had to go to Ogden, to the nearest hospital. There wasn’t any closer at that time.

We had our first car while we lived there, ’29 Ford Coupe. George’s mother came and stayed four weeks before Gib was born. I didn’t want her to, we had already hired a woman close by, but Mr. Ross was in Wendover working and Elaine, George’s younger sister, was in American Fork picking fruit so she didn’t want to stay alone, so George brought her home to take care of me. I had been raised to always be respectful to older people—so no matter what she said, I didn’t dare talk back!

There was washing on the board to do nearly every day—bread to mix and bake. I know I was just as relieved as she was when she left. I was told to stay in bed for two weeks, but after a week she was more than ready to leave. We paid her what we would have paid the other lady.

I went to Church with Carolyn and Gib and George would take us and come and get us. I was very surprised with the people—mostly converts.

That fall George got bumped out of his job. We moved back to Park City, up Empire Canyon. We had lived a short time in Castle Rock and Emery, then Echo and Hennifer before moving back to Park City. We lived there a few months, then Mar and George and Keith Kummer decided to go to California and apply for work at Douglas Aircraft… then send for their wives. That was a year before Pearl Harbor—December 7. We had lived in three places, Venice, Playa Del Ray, and _________ .

I wanted so bad to stay in California and buy a home! At that time a new home with three bedrooms upstairs and a finished basement cost $2,500.00, but we were only making less than $25.00 a week and we didn’t dare gamble on a home. After that, the wages went up and up. So did everything else. We had come back to Utah to Hill Field—[George] was one of first 25 hired.

We lived in Layton then, 2 places. Carolyn was 5 by then and Gib was 4. World War II was on and they were drafting the young men all the time that weren’t in defense jobs.

From there we moved to Wanship and George rode back and forth to work.

Lucky was born August 1, 1944, in the Coalville Hospital. I have loved every one of my babies! They have all been real special. As he grew older, he was such a happy go-lucky child. His name, which his Dad insisted on giving him, really fit him!

Carolyn started the 1st Grade in Wanship. Finished the first and second grades there—Gib went to six weeks of kindergarten during the summer months, then finished the first grade.

When Lucky was four months old we moved back to Park City and bought a home on Woodside Avenue. George had quit Hill Field and decided to work in the mines in Park City.

After a few weeks, his stomach got to bothering him, so he quit and went to work on “Snow’s Ranch” at the bottom of town. That’s when he really got to playing dances! They played on the radio too. That’s when he changed his name to “Tex.” Mar was “Slim.” Melvin was “Cy” and Glen Stanley was “Kurly” (George’s brother-in-law.) That is when Archie joined the bunch.

[At this point, Mom said it was too painful to continue. I wish that we

would have encouraged her to finish!]

1^st Great-Grandparents

Elbert Morton Chandler and “Mamie” Murphy

Compiled by Rod Chandler from the writings of their Children

Elbert Morton Chandler^b, was born 28 Feb 1879 at Burden Kansas. He was often known and referred to as E.M.. He died 7 October 1951 at Monticello, Utah. He was tall and thin. He had black hair and blue eyes. He wore a long, droopy moustache. He was a farmer and a blacksmith by trade.

As did all farmers, he worked very hard. His pastime was playing the banjo and fiddle. He rigged up a contraption so he could play the harmonica while playing the banjo. He and Mamie played for all the dances in our area, most of the time for nothing or a very few dollars.

Mamie May Murphy Chandler^c, was born 8 August 1881 in Winfield, Kansas. She died 7 November 1957, six years after Elbert died. She died in Salt Lake city after a month of intensive suffering. She had a mild and kind disposition. She could be very firm however.

Her role as a Mother was very trying. She had twelve children¹. Her life was very hard, cooking, sewing, and washing for her family. She also took her place at the haying and planting, plowing and other farm chores. Her relaxation in the evening was playing the piano with E.M..

In their early married life they moved real often as they never owned any place, just rented. So it was, they lived, all over Oklahoma, (living in Pawnee in 1906), Arkansas, Nebraska, and Kansas.

My folks moved from Oklahoma to Keno, Oregon. We moved onto a 480‑acre farm, and grew mostly grain and hay. Back of the house was a forest of pine and out in front was a large meadow. All the work was done with horses. We had lots of horses. We could hitch up an eight horse team all at once besides a saddle horse and one team for the buggy. That was all they were ever used for as that was the only way we traveled in those days.

Here Hazel Muriel Ella and Bill all went to school about three miles, in Keno. In fall and spring we walked. On this place there was a big lovely house with a picket fence and back yard full of pine trees, and a mountain quite close behind the house. All inside the picket fence was grass. This was the prettiest place that we ever lived and Pa wanted to buy it. But before he could raise the down payment it was sold. It was hard for to leave such a lovely place to go to a homestead of cobble rocks and mire.

We had a herd of dairy cows to take care of, and it took everybody to help. It seemed the biggest job was the plowing of the ground and planting the seed, then in the fall, to bind the grain for thrashing. The last year we thrashed on this plot, we had twenty-two men for eleven days. The first year we used horsepower on the thrasher. The last year we used a steam engine. We thrashed about a hundred thousand bushels of grain the last year.

They always had big dinners for the threshers. They liked to come to the Chandler’s place because Ma fed them so good. This one day she told Pa and the boys to be sure and get some stove wood. Well they didn’t so then they came to eat, Mom said “Well I’ll check to see if it is done.” She had put everything on the stove to cook and told them, “It just didn’t cook without wood.” So they had to wait while it cooked.

Mom used to tell us of some of the things that happened. Like when they lived in Keno near Klamath Falls, Oregon. One time they made quite a bit of money and Pa had it put in a bank. At this time she said she heard this knocking, just three knocks, and in a little while the same thing. It kept up for a couple of days, happening both day and night, it had her so nervous. They looked everywhere to see what it could be, but didn’t find anything. Pa had gone to town on a hunch, took his money out of the bank. The next day the bank closed it’s doors and the knocking stopped.

Mom told of Bums coming by for something to eat. She always fed them, but they had to do some chore for it. One time this one seemed really hard up and when she went to get him something to eat, he had chopped this big pile of wood. She was so thankful, she gave him clothes and shoes. Later she found out he had put a big log underneath the pile and stacked wood around it to make it look like a lot of work.

This place in Keno was sold, and we had to move. We sold all our cows but three and part of the horses, but seven. We kept the best to move with.

Papa went first by train taking with him wagons, horses, and heavy equipment. Mom came along later by train with eight children.

Father put all our things in one freight car. The rest of the family went by Pullman. Father had went to look for a place before we left Oregon, so he knew where he was going. We landed in Price² in the spring. I’m not sure, but I think it was April of 1917.

They arrived one evening, with no one to meet them and no place to sleep. No one would take them in.

Mom scouted the town for a place to stay until Papa came after her. Finally, a lady who had a boarding house and rented to school youngsters said she could stay there if she would promise the children would be quiet. She always said they were quieter than the school kids.

When Father came to pick us up, we had to travel a hundred twenty miles by team and wagon on very rough roads and over a huge mountain pass in rain and cold. I doubt We could make more than fifteen or twenty miles a day, so it was a long and tiresome journey.

We reloaded all our things on three wagons. One was what they call a double hitch. That is two wagons, one behind the other, Pa drove this with four horses. The other was a single wagon with three horses. Mom drove this it had kids bedding food and water. There was a skiff of snow on the ground and with rain and snow it took ten days to make the trip over the mountain to Duchesne and on to Randlett.

We landed at Randlett³, North of the Uintah river where the old bridge used to be. We had bought a place south of Randlett.

My father had taken the land sight unseen and sorta got took. Imagine the disappointment to find no house on it. The guy had told him there was a little house to live in there. It was just boards and 2x4 no insulation and cold, but it did have a proper roof.

We come to a farm covered with stones and the growing field about half a mile from the house across a black, muddy slough. I thought it was a rock farm. I think there was more rock per acre than any other place in the world. It was the kid’s job to haul the rock all the time. We would get them all off a piece of ground, then plow it and all you had was rocks. We had the best rock farm in the country.

However, we were of pioneer stock, I guess, because we built a house and barns and started a garden and eventually prospered fairly well.

The first thing we did was to build a house on the property. Our home was a log house and Papa always built them up in a hurry, so they weren’t too well made, and we were a large family in close quarters, but the old piano, banjos and fiddle were a source of entertainment. Then there was always a big dish pan of popcorn in the evening.

We lived here for ten years in spite of the rock farm and did prosper some. The farm now had 15 cows 15 or 20 good horses 35 geese pigs chickens a few sheep and goats, so we had meat milk and eggs.

We got a herd of milk cows. They had to be milked and fed twice a day. Everybody had their part of the chores.

School had one teacher for all eight grades. Later, there were more teachers as there were more kids.

About this time, our family moved to Ouray⁴ valley as the rock farm would not pay it’s way and we lost it.

Father filed on a homestead and built a log house on it. We lived there for a few years. It was south of Pelican Lake. We had three big rooms. There was a bedroom fifteen by twenty, a living room twenty by thirty, and the kitchen twenty by thirty on one end with a coal cook stove in it. A big pot bellied wood stove in the bedroom. Pa and Ma had their bed in the living room. They put a partition in the west end of the kitchen to make a bedroom for Bill and Ivy when they got married.

Ivy said; I really learned a lot of things from Bill’s mom and dad. How to make all kinds of quilts and rugs. We washed the wool, pulled it, then corded it to make bats for our quilts. We never threw any scraps away. We made crazy patch quilts. Sewed the small pieces on squares of paper to keep them from scratching. We always saved the good parts of all clothing for patching of quilts or rugs. Then they taught me how to store and can all kinds of things. We made sourkraut [Sp? sauerkraut], by the barrel, dill pickles by the barrel, too, and also corned beef. We also learned how to cure the pork to keep it. After the pork was cured, it was always stored in the wheat bin to keep from molding. We also made cottage cheese, yellow cheese and yogurt. So people can live off the land if they have to. And live good. But it takes cooperation form the whole family. Everyone has so much to do.

All we ever grew on this place was a garden. We had watermelons a person could hardly lift. We would take a wagon and haul them down to feed them to the pigs.

Our financial conditions were very poor. We raised everything we ate, made our own soap and clothes. Farmers in that day were lucky if the had any money at all. The only time we children had any money to spend was a few cents on the fourth of July.

This place [our farm] sat up on a hill, down below were the barns and corrals, for the cattle, horses, and chickens. Then our fields were across this swamp area. The only bridge to walk across were some stones and side poles. As a child Blanche was terrified of this. There were so many snakes you would never believe how many and still to this day she can not stand the sight of a snake.

While living in the house on the hill a circus came to Roosevelt, which was about twenty miles away. Mom and Pa were taking us in an old flat bed truck that they used as a hearse. Well we got about half way there and had to go up this little hill and that thing would not go up such a small hill. So after, so long, Pa turned the truck around and it went home just fine. We were so disappointed.

Dad was a real entertainer. He played all kinds of instruments, but his favorite was the banjo. He could really make it talk. We were a happy family. Nearly every night he would play and get one of the kids to chord for him on the piano. He would sing and play. Mamie played the piano real good too, and Bill and Robert Moore, Ella’s husband, played the saxophone. The girls all would sing.

The Chandler’s were all the entertainment the valley had for years. played the piano, Pa played the banjo, Bill and Robert played the saxophone. Mostly Floyd or Ted Bryant played the guitar. Then for a variety, Pa played the violin, the juice harp, mandolin, or harmonica. He could play anything that made music.. They played for all entertainment in the ward, both Randlett and Leota⁵ as well as the new Avalon⁶ ward.

They were the main music for all the dances, as they were the only ones that would play for nothing, or a few dollars, when they passed the hat around. But with the others, Reese Timothy and the Smith’s, they knew they had to pay a set amount. When they played for dances in those days, they would pass the hat around. Everyone would divide it. About midnight, they would pass the hat again to get them to play another hour or two. Usually got as much money the second time around as they did the first time. One or two dollars a night a piece. Always had pot‑luck lunch. Everyone always went.

So Chandler’s played most times. Other music in the Leota ward was Leona Jorgenson’s sister. They lived about one and a half miles south of where the little store is now. Her name was Connie Smith. She played the accordion with other help when the Chandler’s couldn’t be there. But as they had a camp up in the cedars above Duchesne⁷, once or twice a month the guys would come home over the weekend to play for dances at the town of Leota. There were thirty or more families in the ward then. Mom and Dad Chandler were responsible for most of the entertainment for both Randlett and Leota.

With all this big family, they always set a good table. Most people think Jack Rabbits aren’t good eating, but Mom Chandler could make the best hot Tamale out of ground Jack Rabbit that you could ever eat. Also real good in chili. We made mince meat out of them too. They aren’t bad baked with dressing. Usually fried the cotton tails. Then too, Pa Chandler always had a heavy fish line with five or six hooks on it thrown out into the middle of the Duchesne River. That someone checked everyday. We ate lots of fish—any kind we caught. Carp and hump‑backs are really good baked in catsup or tomato sauce.

Another thing that happened that I thought was interesting was Grandpa E.M. caught a twenty seven lb. white fish on one of this throw lines, he had caught an eleven inch bony tail. The white fish swallowed the bony tail. Then they had the big one tied up. They had just got it pulled out on the bank, and the bony tail pulled out of him and turned it loose. Orval was with his dad that day and fell on the fish and held it until Grandpa could get a good hold on his gills. There used to be lots of white fish in the rivers then, but they have all died off. They were real good eating.

At this time too we had a couple of cows and fifteen or twenty milk goats. They would live and give a gallon of milk where a cow would starve to death. I couldn’t understand why our family had goats, they smelled awful and were really quite mischievous. One time we had all gone fishing on a Sunday (our main recreation) and when we arrived home just before dark, we found the goats had bunted the door open and had broken sacks of flour and anything else they could reach was all over the house. Also they chewed Moms piano music and last but not least they enjoyed jumping on the beds and using it as a bathroom, can you imagine the smell? Also they chewed up clothes on the line until we learned to guard them. Orval said he believed the darn things would eat tin cans.

We always had milk and butter, cottage cheese. The goats provided the source of the cheese. Then too, we made our own yellow cheese. Dad made a press for it. We made all kinds of cheese. Would save the milk, put it in the ice house for a couple of days, until we would get enough to make yellow cheese. This we made and pressed. Got so we could make pretty good cheese. Used cheese coloring and rennet tablets.

Another thing we always had plenty of was honey. Would go to the river and find a big dead cottonwood tree. The bees would clean out the rotten wood, fill the space with honeycomb. Would cut the tree down, take the honey. Get anywhere from a tub full to three or four tub fulls out of one tree, depending on the size of the tree. We always saved the bees, put the queen in a bee box with some of the brood and honeycomb and she will call the workers in. This way we finally got bees of our own.

Another thing we did about this time. E. M. Chandler, Bill, and Robert and Ella Moore took Robert’s old truck, went to Grand Junction, Colorado after peaches. Got to a place, they had ten acres. No sale for them, they told them they could have all they wanted of them, so they bought five gallon honey cans and canned them in the field as they were too ripe to haul home. They sorted and brought a truckload home, both canned and fresh, so we had peaches for several years. Things like this and the Chandler’s great love for hunting is why the Chandler’s always had plenty to eat.

Dad Chandler’s homestead house was built next to a ridge, so the back was about four feet in the ground. This made it quite warm. But in those days the winters were real cold—anywhere from 30 to ‑50. Anyone really had to dress to keep warm. Orval,, was about fifteen and I [Ivy & Bill] remember the first Christmas. Ella and family were there. And I believe Muriel and Willie Stevens and family were there. They had cooked a big dinner and it was so cold that day. Mom said come and eat. It’s so cold probably need coats. So Orval gets up, puts on a sheep skin coat and a pair of sheep skin mittens on, his stocking cap, come to the table. Everyone laughed until we could hardly eat. Dad finally said either leave the table or quiet down. Was half hour before anyone could get back to the table to eat.

Pa would go to town about the time for school to start and buy a bolt of fabric. Mom made all the girls dresses and the boys shirts and herself an apron. How we would have given anything for each to have a different dress.

One of our pastimes was climbing the old red hill. There was a large hill out of Randlett. We used to take outings and go climb that hill. It was quite high, and had lots of rocks and caves, and we spent many days exploring. Lots of times we would carry our lunch. Sometimes we would build a fire and cook potatoes and eggs. I always thought it was the biggest hill in the world until I left there. Parts of the hill had cliffs that went straight up and they had Indian writings and painted pictures. I often wondered how they got there. We had some good times there on that hill.

Another favorite was riding horseback. That was fun.

The Leota ward then was thirty or forty families. A church house, a post office, run by Frank Roberts, and a store owned by E.D. Lewis. We had a half holiday every Saturday afternoon. Everyone turned out to play ball, The men had one of the best teams in the basin. Bill played short stop and backed up third base. Very seldom did they play a game that he didn’t make at least one home run. Mom never missed a ball game, very few practices. Her and Ella was the main cheering section. Mom just loved a ball game and was a very enthusiastic rooter. Since we had lived in Randlett and also in Avalon, the ladies from each town would pick her up and carry her to their side of the field. The others would go get her back. She was quite popular at the games. Two years in a row our team won the championship at the U.B.I.C.. The same ones that were at the half holidays, attended church on Sunday.

Another sport that people turned out for was ice skating in the winter.

Since everyone doesn’t understand what U.B.I.C. was, I’ll explain, it was Uintah Basin Industrial Conference. It was a three day event, held at during the early part of August. The event was held at Fort Duchesne⁸ and was within the old fort. Each year we looked forward to it all summer. We would take tents and camp out. It had activities for everyone, both Indian and white.

We were awakened by a bugle playing reveille. About one hour after arising, the Fort Douglas army band had an hour concert. There was races for children, horse pulling contests, and many other things like sewing instruction There were classes pertaining to farming, and homemaking. Always dancing, also dancing lessons, and fashion shows. Of course all the fair attenders entered the competition. After lunch they played the ball games and other activities. At night there would be dancing, silent movies, and on the third night they would have a musical production. They were some of the most beautiful programs I can remember. There were baseball games, horse shoe pitching, pulling horses, tug‑of‑wars between wards, and band music to eat by.

We had so much fun cooking over a camp fire and Mom worked so hard preparing food. We always had fried chicken, cakes, cooked sting beans and so many more things I won’t list them all. People drove their team and wagon and pitched their tents all around the army parade grounds. The Indians camped on the river.

As I look back now, I remember pa always stayed home from U.B.I.C. and did the chores. Mom and all the rest of us went. We camped in tents the full three days. We all went in the wagon with bedding garb and kids. The road come down the east side of the river, then dirt, and poor. One time it rained the morning we left to come home and we got the wagon stuck in those blue clay hills. Unloaded all the people and we all pushed. I never forgot how muddy we got, but we really enjoyed those times visiting with old friends. When we would see childhood friends that you hadn’t seen since last U.B.I.C. as these were team and wagon days. We always hated for the conference to end because we had made new friends, boyfriends and memories. Other than the 4^th and 24^th of July, which was held in our home town, these were outstanding summer activities.

They also learned to dance real young as everyone took their kids with them to dances. If they got sleepy, put them on a quilt in the corner or on a bench.

We used to sell cream to a creamery in Roosevelt⁹, so twice a week they would come to pick up the cream. Also at this place we had a large strawberry patch, and Mom used to put a huge white bowl filled with berries covered with sugar and a big pitcher of real cream and we could eat all we wanted.

A family named Carlson sent their daughter Lavina for a bucket of berries. I guess they were quite heavy, I can see it so plain, her carrying the bucket using her knees to kick it forward, and I guess by the time she got it home they were almost like jam.

We had a never ending job of doing dishes. Just as soon as we finished our meal, Papa would say, “You girls get after these dishes.” It never failed. How we hated that phrase. And the only time I ever got out of them was to play the piano while my Dad played. The only problem with that was as soon as my sisters finished the dishes, they went out to play and I had to stay at the piano.

Most of our life our mode of transportation was a horse and wagon. I could ride a horse from an early age, with a saddle and bridle, or without, Indian style.

I also remember we had a lot of geese and they were real mean. Every spring they picked the down off of them and Mom made pillows and feather beds. Our beds consisted of a straw filled mattress then a feather bed on top. Four of us girls slept in one bed, Stella, Roxie, Grace and Myself. Stella used to walk in her sleep. One night she got up and poured kerosene in a water glass that Mom kept for us. She set the lamp back down just teetering over the edge. When we took a drink of water it really surprised us.

We lived in a very small town of not more than 200 people. It was necessary to ride several miles to the post office, church, and schools. Winters are a horrible memory. It was so cold in that part of the country, we had to wear long underwear. They felt fine when you were out of doors, but when we got in the schoolhouse and got it warmed up, you would feel like there was mice running over your whole body.

Vacations were an unheard of thing. We were lucky to get part of Sunday off. And there were always endless chores. Once in a while at Easter time, Mom would load us in a wagon and take us out for a picnic. It was usually so cold we could hardly stand it, but we wanted to go to get away from the humdrum of life.

One summer Iva was there and we had a cloud burst and she had brought a beautiful white coat with her. The roof of our house had a red type dirt and it was leaking so bad she went out and stood in the rain to keep her coat from being soaked with red water. What a mess that was.

But for all of these hardships and miseries, we were a healthy lot. Winter colds and childhood disease were the only outstanding illness.

Now the Chandler’s are all living at Randlett. We moved to a big red building near the school house. It was here I remember Mom and Pa crying because our grandmother had passed away, [this from Blanche must have been Grandfather Bailey in 1919 however because the other grandparents had died before she was born,] however we never knew our grandparents, at least the young children in the family never met them.

Our school was two stories with stairs going up inside the building and we had assembly programs. I can still remember Stella and I [Blanche] singing at one. While we were living in this house there was a flu epidemic, and we were all sick. Mom had her hands full. A lady that lived across the square from us, Mrs. Harris came one day and she was eating a pickle and we all started crying for one. Mom was very firm (unusual for her) and told her to go home and get some for these kids and she brought several back. They were a life saver to us. Sometimes these were considered unnecessary and Pa did not allow any of them in the house, only the necessary items were what we had.

Clifford was born at this house. I can remember once with him as a baby. Stella was holding him and dropped him, we were all so upset, especially Stella, as he was her pride and joy. It was at this time Willie Stevens, Muriel’s husband, came to our house one morning. He was quite a large and husky man, he put both arms out on the door frame and said “we have a great big baby boy at our house.” That was Moms first grandchild, however, time wise he was born before Clifford. Moms children were mostly delivered by midwives. I remember Mrs. Burgie and Mrs. Werrin but I don’t know who did what.

We didn’t have many clothes, but someone sent some old dresses and Mom made them over. She sewed each by hand. I was so proud of that dress and I don’t think the most expensive dress that could have been bought would ever measure up to that dress and my memories of it.

E.M. makes a little playing for dances. Then too about this time, they got started doing building for the Indians, little log shacks. They put up ice, built a little fence. The Chandler’s still do a lot of hunting rabbits, pheasants, anything else they could find. They always had plenty to eat.

They had dances for families at the church house in Leota. Pa played the banjo, Mom the piano, and Robert (Ella’s husband) played the saxophone. My parents would load our piano on a wagon and take it to the dance hall about eight miles away. Then the men would load it back on the wagon and sometimes someone would ride horseback to help unload it.

Randlett used to be and Indian Reservation school for the Ute Indians. There were two large red two story buildings across from each other and there was a large square about the size of a square block. At the end was this large two story school house. One of the red buildings was a girls dorm and the other the boys dorm. Also a post office and a store, this was a kind of a hill. We used to go hunting Indian arrows and Indian beads on the hillside. We found a lot of different things which I wish now we had kept.

When a Ute Indian died they would bury all of his belongings with them. They would kill horses and bury them, also food for their journey to the other side. The first funeral I experienced was pretty scary, such yelling, crying, and beating of drums.

Indian Women would just keep putting on one dress on top of another [to keep warm], and did some of them smell. But they had the most beautiful shawls and beaded moccasins and purses.

Pa quite liked the Indians. They called him Pa Goom a Chich, meaning cat whiskers as Pa always had a large mustache. Girls or women are called Natachs and the boys or men were called Atachs. For years when we would return to visit, the squaws would say Ah Pa Goom a Chich, Natachs and we knew they recognized us. I like Indian history and treasure my knowing them and some of their culture.

Every spring the Indians had the Bear‑Dance in Ouray. I was always told it was where the men choose their mate. We used to go in this big corral and dance. The men were in one line and ladies in another. One old Indian had a long switch and if you got out of step he would switch your legs. One try was enough for me. They also had the Sun‑Dance at Whiterocks. This was the town that had the New Indian school.

In Randlett, on the Ute Indian reservation, there were several Indians that were really mean looking. One was Old Ben Wores, he was huge but blind. His little squaw had to lead him everywhere, but we were so afraid of him. Also an old squaw called Sarawap, she was so ugly it was unbelievable. Se used to come to our house and just walk in and just sit. She would stink so bad it made you sick and she always carried a piece of sagebrush which made it worse.

The Indians used to gather play money, then on pay days some would get drunk and really cause a commotion. You could hear them late at night down on the river bottom singing and beating their drums.

Sundays we always had dinner at about two o’clock then us kids would usually play Annie over the house. Our ball was old socks rolled around to make a ball. In the winter when it snowed we played fox and geese and went sleighing a lot.

Father belonged to the Odd Fellow Lodge. Mother, as far as I know, had never been baptized, although she played the organ in the Presbyterian Church before she married. But we had no religious teachings in our home. We were raised in a Mormon town and were allowed to go to Primary and Sunday School with our friends once in a while. Some belonged to the Episcopal Church.

Hazel played the organ for the Episcopal church. Mr. Hower was the Reverend. Every Sunday she dressed up and marched us down the road to church with a penny tied in our handkerchief for the collection box. Boy how I [Blanche] hated to drop that in there when it would buy several pieces of licorice, however, it probably helped pay for the wonderful and only Christmas we had. There was always a big program, a very colorful big Christmas tree and lots of presents for all on Christmas Eve. Even after we moved away into Leota, Mr. Hower sent us boxes of Christmas toys and gifts. The first doll I can remember had a pacifier and a little tiny hot water bottle. I was so proud of it. We always got beautiful beads and handkerchiefs. I was always very possessive of my things, too much I guess.

However, on Christmas they always had a huge Christmas tree and presents for all the children and adults. I usually got a big doll, which I loved. This was the one time the church was full. Many of the Indians in that area belong to the Episcopal Church and each got a present. We, of course, looked forward to that as our Christmas’ were very sparse.

I can remember one Christmas when I was about five years old. Hazel, Ella, and Iva were coming home from school for Christmas. I had the measles and the chicken pox both at the same time. Boy was I sick. I remember we had a big front window and in order to keep me occupied Mom wrapped me up in a blanket and set me in the rocking chair in front of that window to watch for the girls coming on the mail truck. That year they made chocolate and if I took my medicine I got to have some.

My fondest memories were of our Christmas programs and Christmas dinners. Mom would start days ahead of time baking mince meat and pumpkin pies and carrot pudding. If we did not have a turkey we would have a great big chicken. Some times we were unable to find a Christmas tree so we would take a tree and warp it with green paper, and it was really pretty with pop corn, and cranberries. We would make chains for it. It was just as good as any other tree.

Stella and I had dolls with china heads and kid bodies. One day we were playing and accidentally hit their heads and broke both of them. We tried to glue them but it didn’t work. This was when we lived on what we called the homestead. Here our log house was built into a hill. We had a pond up in a little ravine and Pa piped water into the house, boy we thought this was super.

Mom Chandler loved to play cards, any kind. We got together now and played cards lots of evenings. Played any kind, just cards. She was lots of fun to be around. She would help the kids finish their work so they could play cards with her. Any kind, rummy, pinochle, canasta, or sluff or high five. That’s some of the games she taught the kids. They sometimes played poker. And Pa still played the banjo most every evening. We were a musical family.

Now there is only E.M., and Mammie, and Roxie and Clifford at home. Elbert, Stella, Bill, Blanche and Grace had all got married.

Mom Chandler always loved pheasant. And one time just a few months before Ruth, Elbert’s wife, died with cancer Mom was staying with them. She saw Mort one day and said “You know Mort, I still love pheasant.” Well, Elbert was game warden then. Sunday morning they had all gone to church. Mort takes his four/ten and kills three big roosters. Slips them into Elbert’s kitchen, lays them on his table feathers and all. When Elbert got home he was quite upset. “Who would do this to me?” Mom said she never said a word, just cleaned them and cooked them. The grand kids all loved her.

Well, the next few years just coasted along. Mammie and Clifford moved to Randlett and Roxie got married. E.M. went to Southern Utah, prospecting for Uranium. So Mamie is now spending her winters with the ones in California and her summers with in Utah.

I will say that we were a large family, not handicapped in any way. All were in good health and we had no serious crises. We always had enough food, sufficient clothing (not always what we wanted), but we always had a roof over our head. Most of all we had a wonderful Mother. To me there can never be a better person than Mom. If she had a fault it could only be being a patient, and giving to much at her own expense. We all loved her dearly.

Pa died in 1951 and Mom died in 1956, they are both buried in the valley they helped to settle^d.

This was a report written in 1965 by Jim Chandler of Ouray Valley. This is where Elbert and Mammie spent much of their married life in and around Leota and Ouray Valley.

History of Ouray Valley

After the depression years all the people were in the north end of the valley and the Avalon ward was organized. During this time, the people had dug wells for use in their homes, and for stock. This helped living conditions. Also, the Rural Electric put the power to our valley. This was one of the greatest improvements.

I think our roads were next in importance as it was nearly impossible to get to Roosevelt or Vernal in spring of the year.

One time the school bus was stuck in a mud hole for nearly a week, and it was nothing to get a car stuck for a week or more at a time.

My grandparents met the hardships, and made a living for twelve children, and lived to see most of these improvements accomplished.

Family Notes from the Children

William Thomas Chandler Sr.

About this time they had a track meet for all the schools in the district. Ours was the smallest in number, but we took every event they had. We sure enjoyed sports.

The school had a basketball team. One game I remember in particular, we played Whiterocks. We beat them 22 to 18. Of the 22 points, I made 20 of them.

Iva Chandler Newman

I left the clan fairly early in my life as Hazel and I both received scholarships to Rowland Hall, a protestant school for girls in Salt Lake City. We received these scholarships through our activities at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church at Randlett, Utah.

Elbert Martin Chandler Family

Elbert moved from Oklahoma to Oregon at the age of two. He moved from Oregon to the Uintah Basin at the age of six. When they moved to the Basin, his family settled in Leota. At that time the children rode horses to school. He was baptized a member of the LDS Church in 1933.

Elbert and Ruth farmed a small farm in Avalon using horses and wagons. Later they purchased a tractor with Harold Dudley, a brother‑in‑law. When hay season came, all the men would pool together to get one field done, then they would move to the next. They worked the same with the thrashing of the grains. Since there was little machinery around, they would share the use of what there was.

We had to haul ice [for summer] and firewood for the winter. It was much easier when electricity came to Avalon. With it, of course, came electric lights and refrigerators.

Stella Chandler Nielsen

My earliest childhood recollection is very dim. I have wondered if I could actually remember it or if I had been told it. The story was that I came up missing, and as we lived close to a slough and near a river, their first concern was is I had fallen in, so I guess there was a lot of scurrying around to find me. My brother found me asleep on an old ewe sheep which I later claimed as mine.

At the age of six years I started to the first grade in Randlett, Utah. My teachers name was Miss Harris. I must have been small and immature because I didn’t pass the first year and had to take the first grade over. But after that, I seemed to catch the picture and I did fairly well. We had a school principal who was Mr. Panter, and he was very handy with the belt and many boys felt the sting of it.

The schools I attended were Randlett, from the age of 6 to 10;, from the age of 10 to 16. I did not graduate from high school, but went to work doing housekeeping for a family of seven for $3 a week.

The schools in my Younger time always put on a big Christmas program as a part of the school program. They were really some great productions. Many of them were musicals, and I was able to have some very special parts in some of them. I remember one; I did the butterfly dance.

The only relative I ever met was Uncle Tom [Murphy] from Oklahoma, and we dearly loved him. It was such a thrill one year when he came out to see us.

My Father was very strict as far as boyfriends were concerned. If I had a date, it would be a stolen one and hope my Father would not find out.

Blanche Chandler Rasmussen

When Clifford was a baby the main game we played was steal the bottle. Roxie would steal the bottle from baby Clifford then Grace would steal it from Roxie.

It was while we were living here that Bill and Ivy were married. I will never forget the excitement of waiting for them. She was living in Salt Lake at the time and it was like waiting for royalty, a girl from the city. There’s no telling how many hours Ivy entertained us. Telling us of the movies she had seen and in such a way, and with such enthusiasm, that I felt like I was right there. The one I remember most was Al Jolson’s “Sonny Boy,” we all laughed and cried. It will always be in my memories.

There was a family named Jenkins that used to homestead near us. Their Father died so they moved into Leota. One night I was spending the night with Mary, my friend, she kept saying “we are having bread and duck for dinner.” Boy was I disappointed when I found out that you ducked your bread in the milk.

Stella and I went to Alterra High school. (Here goes the act of poor us.) We had to walk two and a half miles to catch the bus to ride about thirty miles to school. It wasn’t bad in good weather, but thru snow and mud it was miserable. We had finally gotten high heel shoes, about two and a half inches, and we were having a dance at school, so we wore our shoes. That two and a half miles was misery with two and a half inch heels, especially since we had never owned a pair we learned in a hurry “These weren’t the shoes for walking.” When there was night entertainment at school the bus stayed over. We would sometimes cook for our evening meal and had lots of fun.

Notes for Elbert and Mamie Chandler

Ivan Vane Turner and Harriot Elva Potter

Compiled from the writings of

Ivy Beatrice Turner Chandler one of their Children

the Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother of Keith M. Chandler

Before I start my story (Ivy Beatrice Turner Chandler), I must give a little family history. Ivan Vane Turner, my dad, was born in Onsborrow Kentucky in 1882 to George Washington Turner and Georgeann Yates Turner¹. He was the oldest of six kids². His folks were converts to the Mormon Church. Before that, they were Masons. Grandma belonged to the Eastern Star ladies organization of the Masons. When dad was fourteen years old, they left their home in Kentucky and came to Utah were they went to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity, on 15 Sep 1898.

My mother Harriot Elva Potter Turner, was born in Dover³, Utah. She was the seventh child⁴ in a family of thirteen born to Wallace Edwin and Harriot Susan Kempton Potter⁵.

My father and mother were married on 6 Jan 1904 in Salt Lake City. They were early pioneers to the Uintah Basin about 1906 or 1907. I can see why they wanted to move here as it is a Beautiful place, with the mountains and streams, many places to fish and hunt. In all our traveling around, I have never found a place I liked better for a year around climate and things to do. None of dad’s folks [George and Georgeann] could never understand why he wanted to come here, but at this time most of mother’s folks [Wallace and Harriot] moved here. My Dad and George Potter [Harriot’s older brother] came together the first time by team and wagon and brought their first load of belongs. The trip one way took about ten days. The next trip they brought their families.

Dad’s first homestead was about where the Ballard⁶ Church house stands now^a then North to the hill, but he was getting out wood and posts north of LaPoint in the Deep Creek⁷ area. And, he found a place he liked better. So he gave up the place he had and re‑filed on Deep Creek. Dad moved his family to Deep Creek when I was very small. Here we lived for about twelve years in a three room log house with a dirt roof. They now had three kids, having buried a boy just older than me^b, just before I was born, in this humble home^c, five more children were born, making a total of nine—five girls and four boys in this order: Bernice [Pronounced Burnis], Harlan, [Jessie] Arnold [(died)], Ivy, Wanothel, Hurley, Wilbur, Earnest, Vera⁸. We had a happy home but a busy one. One of my earliest memories is of threading green beans on a string to hang up and dry.

We had many hardships in those days, but learned to cope with them. I often wonder what courage it took for Mother to let us leave for school in snow, but guess she thought there was safety in numbers, and that we would look after each other. One of the first things we were taught was how to find things to burn, to build a fire in all kinds of weather. Many the times we stopped and built a fire and we very seldom left without a pocket full of matches. With all the work we had to do, we found lots of time to play.

A scary time, bad experience—about this time, Mother and I and all the younger kids went to Vernal to spend a week with Grandma Potter. I did the driving—took a full day to get there. Well, we picked apples and apricots and plums, were bringing them home to can and we had got nearly home when one of our old slow work horses went loco and ran away. Just after we passed Johnson’s, they left the road and ran into a big gulch. The horse that was running away jumped, the other slid down the bank, the wagon tongue stuck in the ground, the back wheels stayed on top of the bank. I jumped out; Mother went out to the bottom of the gulch with the horses. I managed to drag her free before I went for help. Also, got the rest of the kids out of the wagon. Mom was knocked out; was still out when I got back with help. She was months getting over it, if she ever did. The horse that went crazy had to be killed as he would take spells after that and just run for half a day at a time. Seems like we had more time to visit then than we do now. After we started to milk more cows we could never all leave at once for overnight as Dad never was a good milker. His hands had to many calluses. Would pinch the cows tits and they would kick him. About this time, my sister Bernice met Vern Sheffer who was working in the mine for Dad. They met at a dance. Well, they started going together. At this time, there were dances at the school house once or twice a month. Also parties around the community. At this time, Vern would come to see Bernice on a big Chestnut Sorrel passing [sp?] horse. All that first summer, Mom would send me and Harlan along with them to the dances on our pony as a chaperon; but by fall they were so serious and Bernice was only Sixteen, so the folks sent Bernice to Salt Lake to go to school. But she went to work at the Murray Laundry instead. After two years, she come home and married Vern anyway. They moved into a two room log house on Vern’s homestead on Mosby Creek. Vern still worked for Dad at the mine. Here they lived until Mother died in 1928. Then they lived on our place on the creek for a year or two; then we lost the place and they moved back onto their homestead.

I will never forget the first time Grandma [Georgeann] and Grandpa [George] Turner came from Murray to see us. They come in Uncle Earnest new Model A Ford. There was Earn, Odie, Grandma and Grandpa Turner, and Florn Brown, my cousin. Well, they stayed two weeks and we fished and hunted sage hens most every day. We had borrowed all the saddles we could form the neighbors, also a few horses to have enough to go around. Grandpa never went unless we took the wagon, as by then he was getting quite crippled up.

We never saw to much of Dad’s folks for it was so far away and the roads were so bad, but after this whenever they could all get vacation at once, they would come out.

One time when all of Dad’s folks were there from Salt Lake, we took everyone on horses and in the wagon up to Dry Fork River fishing. Grandma was afraid of bad places. This was the only time her and her two girls, Ivy and Polly, ever went. We went up past Mosby Creek, up the face of the mountain past Lighting Springs to the end of the road and made camp. Had a couple of tents that they had brought. We spent three or four days up there. Some of us had to go down each night to do chores, but fun times for me. The ladies and Grandpa stayed in camp as it was a mile down steep hills to the river. Well, in them days, we salted our fish to cure them in a box. Needless to say, we had lots of boxes of cured fish when we come home. The ones we brought home fresh, Dad would put a layer of fish and a layer of leaves. These would keep several days; kept as cool as possible, wrapped in a wet blanket. As I say, this was the only trip Polly, Ivy, and Grandma ever went on with us. They enjoyed the scenery, but to much hassle for them.

Grandma Potter was getting ready to move to Park City with Millie and Cliff. Mom’s one sister Aunt Chrystol and Charley Lewis have lived in Vernal all their lives, both of them are school teachers.

Well, a friend of Dad’s bought the rest of them in Bennett¹⁰, so me and my pony take five cows and a bull to Bennett. I spent several days with Amasa and Aunt Maggie. While there, I went to my first big dance. I went with a crowd of six. My date was Wayne Snow. This was a really a thrill for a girl like me and my first real date. I wasn’t quite sixteen then. We went to Victory Park Dance Hall. Wanda and I become much closer now that we were at the mine and doing the same kind of work. We were happy there and Mom and Dad seemed real happy too. Dad had talked her into moving, but she said it wasn’t to be permanent. She still wanted the dream house by the spring. The work wasn’t too hard compared with what I had been doing. Usually from six to nine men besides the family, Wanda and I had lots more time to read or do what she wanted to. I still had two horses at the time, so I rode a lot just for fun. We brought hay from ranches for them. Well, before we realized it, three years had gone by. I am now seventeen, Wanda fifteen. Well about this time, Jim Rasmussen asked Dad if I could go to Randlett and stay with his wife Bessie and help his boys do the chores—mostly the milking. My folks talked it over and decided I could go, but before I left, Mother had another real long talk with me about the facts of life and boys I might meet, and what to expect from them. Mother was a good teacher. All our life we lived by the ten commandments: Thou shalt not steal, shall not lie, shall not commit adultery, love one another, keep the Sabbath day holy, all these and many more were taught to us regular. Now she tells me I am leaving home so young, and that I must never drink or men will take advantage of you. I was young for those days, mainly in experience as I had been sheltered so close. But she ended her lecture by saying always act like a lady and you will be treated like one. Never be ashamed of the standard you have set to live by. I can testify this is true. For the next two years, I went out with dozens of boys, but was always treated like a lady. My mother had never drank any liquor in her life and never been around drinking. Right after they were married, Dad come home drunk. He was so sick she thought he had been poisoned. She was holding his head with a wet towel, but he got no better. So she ran down the block get Grandma [Georgeann?]. The minute she opened the door, Gram said the darn fool is drunk—end of sympathy. Grandma said that when Dad [Ivan] first started thinking he should be big enough to get drunk, it was Christmas time. He was going with Mom [Harriot]. He had a date. Well Gram told him to bring his bottles home, not to make a fool of himself in town. As he come through Murray that night, he stopped two or three places to have a beer. Each place gave him a fifth of whiskey. He brought it home, told Gram to fix him a drink while he got ready to go. Well he had two or three stout drinks and passed out. Grandma put him to bed. He slept in his new suit until the next evening, gets up and says, “What did you give me? My head feels awful.” “I only mixed what you told me to,” Gram says. He started to get ready for the dance. Gram says, the dance was last night. She says it was a good lesson for him. It must of been as I never saw my Dad drunk in my life. He did drink a little after Mom died in later years, but not while he was raising his family. It’s a wonder we didn’t drive him to drinking.

Well, in them days, you made your own casket. The neighbors came in and made her clothes. Also, the casket. They lined it with cotton bats, white satin and lace. When it was finished it was real beautiful. We buried her in Tridell ¹³. We were never left alone for the next two or three weeks, but nothing seemed to help much. Things didn’t go to well. Dad had promised Mother he would go to the temple years before. Now he blamed his self. Said she didn’t put up enough fight. Well, he threw his Bull Durum away. In less than a month he was sick and looked like an old man.

Dad had an old Model T truck with a low speed rear end. Fifteen to twenty five miles was the best it would do. This we started to get ready to go.

Well, Dad leased the place to Bernice and Vern Sheffer and he had borrowed $500, on it to make the trip—they were going to pay it back, and turned his half of the coal mine to his partner, Clarence Jensen. Visit all the folks in the Basin. George Justice was working for Dad at the time and he asked him to go along so in June, we packed up what food and clothing we had, bedding and camping equipment. Dad and George and seven kids. Well, the next twenty-five days were quite an experience. We made it to the other side of Heber the first day and camped on a stream. Had fish for supper and went on into Murray the next day. We spent a couple of weeks in Murray with his folks.

This was an exciting time for us. Since Mother passed away, Wanda and I had been closer together and I knew that I needed to be a buffer between her and Dad as they both had fire hot tempers.

From this time on, Odie held a special place in my heart.

California

Dad went with us lots of times to the fairs; both county and state. He finally learned to like my boyfriend. Anyway, he quit fussing about him, but we never quite got in on time and Dad always waited up for us. The later we were, the madder he got. I tried to be a bumper between Dad and Wanda, she always yelled back at him and got in trouble.

In the spring, Grandfather Turner died in Murray^e so within two days we were ready to come home on the train. Uncle George took Dad and the kids.

We buried Grandpa the first of January and we all stayed there with Grandma Turner. Here is where our city relations got even with us for the tricks we played on them. Like telling them the sage chickens in the field were our turkeys until they told Dad he sure had a big flock of turkeys. Dad said there was not a turkey on the place. Then we told them we had a pony that had been bucked in the rodeos and never learned to let a man ride her. We were always putting one of them on her and then laughing when they got dumped off. Now Odie got even by telling his friends, “Well, we have had the girls tied down by the track to get used to the trains and traffic.” Then he would say, the girls were, “here for a month before a man got shoes on them.” Or he would say, “You don’t need a phone. Just put your head out of the windows, they can hear you.” Then he would tell my date, “A good thing you didn’t get here early. Man just got her shoes on her.” But Uncle Odie always took us with his crowd to Salt Air, or Lagoon. He always saw that we had money for rides, also partners for dancing. We used to go to the old Blue Bird dancing in Salt Lake. Odie was always the center of the crowd and he always showed us a good time. But he never got over joking with us and telling his crowd that we were his nieces from the sticks. But Uncle Odie was always my favorite Uncle. He always had a spot in my heart.

Well when I got back to Salt Lake, Wanda and I stayed with Grandma, we followed two continued shows each week. For four or five months and only missed three issues. We saw every show that came to Murray. If we didn’t have a date, we went by ourselves.

All this time my Dad and the kids are living in Tridell. I made it up to see them three or four times a year. But was team and wagon time. Took most of the day to get there, so [I] would stay three or four days when I went. During these years my little brother, twelve years old had died with a mastoid ear.¹⁴ He was in the hospital at Vernal for six weeks before he died, but in those days they didn’t know how to treat it. Then they didn’t have the medicine that they have now.

Then Dad had blood poison in his foot and I went up and stayed a couple of weeks until he was on the improvement list.

The next two years were really fun times for us. We would make good gypsy’s. The depression here was in full swing. Everything burned up or blew away. No snow in winter, just cold. No rain in summer, just hot breeze. Bill wanted to go some place else. I said OK with me if we go to the coast where Mother’s folks live. So we sold everything we owned, horses, harnesses, saddles, bridles, what furniture we had, everything but our clothes and kids and a camp outfit. With the old car we had, we made a down payment on a new Chevy. A new one then cost $800. We put our camp equipment, bedding and clothes in the truck. Took the kids, headed for Redding, California. Took the same route I had been over in 1928 with Dad, but the trip was somewhat different. Little better road, new car. We didn’t have any trouble. Landed at Uncle George Potter’s the next day. Not much money left. They really made us feel welcome. They were all glad to see us. Uncle George and Abby’s kids were all married but two, and they all lived close, within twenty or thirty miles of each other. Had quite a reunion. All kids come home the next day to see us. Then too, they were having a Fireman’s Ball the night after we got there. Blocked off a bridge and danced on it. Took a good part of what little bit of money we had left for a ticket. But everyone insisted we go, so we did. Had lots of fun; danced all night. Good thing we both liked to dance. These were dancing Potter’s. The Potter’s were all musical. Different ones spelled off the music. They knew every one, as they had been there for years.

About the middle of December Bill asks his boss if he could come home to Utah for Christmas. Well, we come home in our home made camper. Got here and things were worse in the basin, if that is possible. Folks all still living at Randlett. All doing anything they can to make ends meet. While we were home Robert Moore and Orval, Bill’s brother, made a trip to Oregon to look for work, but they wasn’t as good as Bill had been, couldn’t make anybody believe that they had worked in the Timber. By now, my Dad [Ivan] and Vera are alone. Earnie, my youngest brother, had joined the C.E.E. camp, a government created job for teenage boys. Some jobs were digging canals by hand, making roads with pick and shovel, cleaning up the forests, anything to keep them busy. They were fed and clothed, paid a small wage for spending money.

Now Dad and Vera are with us and we rent a house on the hill above North Bend. Well, I used to go with Gennie Coats and stand in line for my government allotment and give it to her. Well, both sacks wouldn’t last the week. If I had been using them, they would have. But she was from a rich family in the east. Her folks disowned her when she married George Coats, because he drank and she didn’t know how to manage. This was the first time George had been out of work very long in the twelve years they had been married. Well, we had known them ever since we went to the coast. He worked in the timber too. We were over there playing cards one night and their baby, LeRoy, eighteen months old, crying in the bedroom. Finally Dad says, “What’s the matter with Gerry, is he sick?” Gennie says, “No, Ivan he is hungry. Had to put them to bed tonight without any supper”. Well Dad gets up, walks the block and a half home and brings her a box full of our groceries. When we leave Dad says, “Well Ivy, when ours are gone, maybe we will get some more.” Well, Gennie and George’s boy eleven years old was in juvenile court three times in the six weeks they were without work or pay, for stealing pop bottles and beer bottles out of people’s garages. Judge ask him “What did you do with the money?” “Bought a loaf of bread to take home to my little brothers and sisters.” Gennie called her folks for help, hoping they had forgiven her, but they hadn’t. They told her they would send her and the kids tickets to come on home, but otherwise no help. She said, “No thanks, we will starve first”. When one like her has always had everything she needed, it’s hard to try and manage. Now us, we had always been short on worldly goods, but lots of happiness in our family.

One trip I will never forget was a trip up the Coos River fishing. Took our camp outfit, but money was scarce and Dad wouldn’t buy a license. Said he didn’t feel too good and wasn’t going to fish. We should have known better. We get up there and Dad starts out following Bill, but every time Bill missed a big one, Day would say, “Give me that pole Bill for a minute”. He would catch that one, then go on fishing. Pretty soon he would remember it was Bill’s pole, he would give it back and say, “I am give right out”. Needless to say, by the time we started to go home we had several limits cashed away. Are going home around a dugway, Dad look down, a huge redwood had fallen across the river. Dad says, “Bill let’s fish that one more hole. Only fifty yards.” Bill says, “You go fish it, I’ll wait for you”. Dad gets down there, takes him quite a while to climb upon that huge tree, just gets started to fishing, hears a car coming. He runs to the end of the tree, jumps off, lays the pole down and sets down. Sure enough, it’s a warden. He checks Bill’s license and fish, then he spies Dad down by the river. Down we all go. He says to Dad, “Let’s see your license.” “I am not fishing today.” “How come you’re all wet? Your son‑in‑law is dry.” “He has boots in the car.” “How come he is up on the road, you down here?” “He went up to check the kids.” “Them your tracks that jumped off that log?” Dad says, “Yes. Any law against me jumping off that log?” He gets out his book, but don’t write anything in it yet. He says, “I still say if you weren’t fishing, you wouldn’t be wet to the waist.” So up the hill we all go to check the boots. He finally puts his book away. Says,”I know you were fishing, but I didn’t see you.” Dad just out talked him. As he drives away, Dad says, “That’s a relief. I was expecting Elva May to say any minute, ‘Grandpa’s fish are in the grub box.” Needless to say, next time we went, Dad had a license. We were luckier that a lot of our friends, as we could always drop over to Uncle Arnold’s for any kind of off shore salt water fish, such as crabs. Also oysters and clams there for digging. Then, we knew how to make a meal out of what we had. Never in my life did I live where I could run to the store or send a kid.

Well, we stopped early that night and canned them, as we carried cooker and canner also cans along with us.

Home

Well, we decided it’s time to get started for home, did stop at Grandma Turner’s for a few days. She now has her son Earnest’s four kids, as his wife Dorothy had run away with Earn’s boss. They are managing pretty good and Earn and Odie are both working at Kennecott Copper, part‑time anyway. Grandma has a wonderful garden spot and several different kinds of fruit trees. She does her own canning of vegetables and fruit.

When we get back to the valley, things are a little better, but not much. Vera, my sister, stayed with us. Dad went to LaPoint for a while, around Willie and Ardell Hackford. Roxie and Vera were going to Alterra High School. Clifford going to Fort Duchesne school.

Dad never gave up trying to get us to move to L.A., but my experience in Oregon with the strike in the logging camp was all the working for wages I wanted.

Then in the fall, before he died, we went down and stayed all winter. Elbert did our chores. Dad was so sure if he could get us down there we would stay, but the kids didn’t like it and we let Tom come home on the bus to help Elbert with the chores. Tom as about fourteen then. Bill went to work for Consolidated Rock Crusher. I worked in the fall, packing dates. Then I got a job in an aircraft factory using a rivet gun. We moved in with Vera and Dad. They had a real big two story house in Corona and Vera’s husband, Kenny, was in the service and Vera had two little girls. She worked nights in a cafe. Earnie was about nine months old. Vera tended them days, I took care of them nights. Dad was real bad all winter. He was to be operated on and we were hurrying to get there in time for it. Just barely made it. Went in the next day, and they said they would operate the next morning at eight a.m. to remove one lung, as he had cancer of the lung. They shaved him, got him all ready. I was the only one allowed in with him that morning. I thought it was probably something they had given him, but when the specialist got there, he said “How do you feel, Ivan?” When Dad spoke, he said, “Put him back in bed.” Then they called us all in and told us it was too late. The gruff voice meant that it had spread to his voice box and he wouldn’t operate. Said he knew Dad real well and he knew Dad would rather be dead than hang on for another year or so and not be able to talk. Well Dad felt like the doctor, so no operation.

I never had any trouble with my Dad when I was growing up. And I never talked back to him or argued with him. I loved him too much to quarrel with him.

Dad

But I wasn’t there when he passed away.^f But, he had also made us promise to bring him home and put him beside my mother. So, Willis and Ardell Hackford brought him home on the train to Murray. He was in the mortuary there for twenty four hours, as Grandma was in a wheel chair and couldn’t come to the Basin. But the rest all come. We held services in Tridell. Buried him beside his loving wife Elva Potter Turner^g. It was hard to bury my father, but not as sad as seeing my young mother laid to rest at forty one years old. As now, he has all his family grown up. Vera is married to Kenneth Werdner and has two little girls and she was the youngest.

The Old Home Place

Then my brother, Harlan, lived with me for about ten years before he died. Him and Helen^h and Annie lived with us off and on over the years. Annie has always been like my own kid to me. Harlan’s wife, Helen, had diphtheria and it left her real deaf and real bad eyesight too. So it made it real hard for her to take care of Annie, so she never got much care.

Mainly, Harlan took care of her, and I had to run back and forth to take them to the doctor. Mainly, Harlan, as he had high blood pressure most of his life and developed a heart condition in early life too. When Annie was real small we built them a pine log house down by the pond at the old place. Here they lived for about four years. Then Helen’s dad convinced them we should pay Harlan for anything he did around the place. They paid no rent and we kept them in milk, eggs and we had a garden and I could look after them. The garden Harlan helped me with but he, Mr. Woodruff, talked them into moving from here. Annie had a hard life. She learned to do for herself real young. We went and helped her what I could, as she was always asking to come and stay with us as my girls and her got along so good. Well, Helen got the idea that I was trying to take Ann away from them, so she always made a fuss every time she come down. But Harlan still let her come a lot over the years. She stayed and went to school with our kids several winters, but Helen never really liked this. Well, I could see why as Ann was all she had, but I thought that Ann needed our family. We all loved her and she was just one of our girls. She has always been a part of our family.

Right after we got our new house built, Bernice and her family moved into our old house. Some of the boys were married then, they came too. Here Bernice lived until she diedⁱ two or three years later. I was always glad that she was there so I could help her and look after her when she was sick. I think she was happy there with me. I know I loved having her, but it is hard to see your loved ones suffer like she did. Just die by inches over a period of years.

Iowa Back by Oklahoma A Hitch Hike Trip

In 1977 they had the Potter reunion at North Bend, Oregon, and we went over to Bea and Melvin’s and they went with us. We had spent one and a half years there in 1937 and 1938, so we thought we would like to go back for a visit. This was really a fun trip. We were right on the beach there and one of the highlights of the trip was a deep sea fishing trip for salmon. My cousin Laura’s son‑in‑law was a pilot on a fishing boat and they had made reservations for all that wanted to go, had him engaged for two days. Some of them went out twice. The boat was only equipped for eight passengers and all together there were nine salmon caught. I caught two, one twelve and a half pounds and one six.

My Sis Wanda

This same year my sister, Wanda, passed away in October. Joe hadn’t called as he didn’t realize how bad she was. He said that they were both looking forward to us coming down to spend the winter. They had both talked to me a little over a month before, and I told Bill she really sounded good. Her voice seemed stronger and I told them we would probably see them for Thanksgiving that year and all get together. So, it was quite a shock when they call to say that she had passed away. Joe said she had just woke up, and didn’t feel to good. So Joe goes to help her to the bathroom. But they never made it. He felt her go limp, and caught her. She was gone. I am so glad that she went that way, as she had plenty of suffering the last ten years. Well, there were nine of us kids, now there is three of us: Vera, Earnie and me.

One time when Joe and Wanda come up to spend a couple of weeks with us we took them up to Crouse Res, on the mountain, fishing. We took the camper and let them sleep in it. They really had a good time. We caught some big fish, as Ivan Sheffer [Bernice boy] had his boat up there. It was something new for them, as they never went camping. This was their first time. As when they went places, even if it was trips to Mexico. They would go to inland cities, Acapulco, and spend a week or two and go to Arizona for a week for ten days. But they always stayed at a motel or a resort. Sometimes to big Bear Lake. She had lots of expensive Indian jewelry, and things that come from Mexico inland. She liked city sights and museums, but she also loved the beach. We used to spend hours walking the beach. For years they lived one and a half blocks from the beach. Went to it every day.

My Sister Crystal Wanothel (Wanda) ‑ Joe Stienfeldt

We are expecting visitors in the next day or two, as this will be our Golden Wedding Day. We expect all the kids, most of the grand kids, our brothers and sisters on both sides of the family. My sister Vera called from Iowa, and said they would be here with some of their kids. Some of the Sheffer boys and their families will also be here.

Notes for Ivan Vane Turner and Harriot Elva Potter

James Isaac Ross and Fannie Jane Young

Great-Grandparents to Keith M. Chandler

Prepared by Keith M. Chandler

Notes

History of

William Bailey Taylor & Nora Matilda Allred

Great Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

2^nd Great-Grandparents

Bailey Chandler and Roxana Barr

Great-Great Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Mary, Mahalia, Eliza,
Shad, and Bailey
Chandler

Wallace Edwin Potter & Harriet Susan Kempton

Great-Great Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Written by Crystal Potter Lewis

Wallace Edwin Potter¹ was born in Mill Creek² (Now Murray) Utah on April 14, 1850 the son of Arnold Potter and Elizabeth Ann Birch³ [see History for Arnold page 175 and 177]. His Mother with her patents had accepted the Latter Day Saints religion in England and had crossed the ocean. The parents, John and Ann Craven Birch^a, died either on the ocean or shortly after reaching America [This death for John would be incorrect as Ancestral File shows deaths indicated below]. Young Elizabeth had been born in Radnorshire Wales March 22 1821, and was about seventeen years old when her parents died [This would make the death year 1838 not as shown below; how was John found back in England? or is this a mistake]. She met Arnold Potter who had recently lost his wife and had a young family to rear. They were married about 1849 and crossed the plains to Utah.

Soon after Wallace Edwin their first child was born⁴ [14 Apr 1850], [ to Arnold Potter and Elizabeth Birch], they moved to California, where their Second child, Mary was born somewhere near San Bernardino. From California Arnold Potter went on a mission for the L.D.S. Church to Australia. During his absence Elizabeth ran a small tavern to support herself and family. Here she met Frances Brown, a member of the Mormon Battalion, who had an Indian wife and three half breed children.

Not many months after Arnold returned from his mission, Elizabeth insisted she wanted to go back to Utah to visit her brother and other folks. Arnold was doing quite well by this time and he wanted to remain in California, but he fixed up an outfit for his wife to take on the trip, even though she was expecting another baby. He felt that she would be alright as Frances Brown’s family were going back to “Deseret” (as Utah was then called) at the same time.

During the journey, Brown’s Indian wife died and Mrs. [Elizabeth] Potter assisted him with the children for the rest of the trip. Six weeks after reaching Salt Lake City, Mrs. Potters third child Eliza Ann was born.

When Elizabeth Birch married Arnold Potter, she was not really in love with him, but both had suffered great losses and there was a bond of sympathy between them which culminated in marriage. She did fall in love with Frances Brown and married him within a year after leaving Potter.

The Potter children grew up in Murray bearing their stepfather’s name. Brown proved to be a cruel stepfather to the boy (Wallace Edwin, known as “Ed”) beating him unmercifully and taking for himself what belonged to the boy. He was probably not too kind to the girls, Mary and Eliza Ann [this is the first wife of Martin Weight, who latter married Jennie M^CClennon Gee and were the parents of Ada Bell Weight ⁵], for they both married very young, the latter being only thirteen years of age when she married Martin Weight

Ed early [on in his life] became a fiddler and could play any tune on the violin that he ever heard. He was very bright in school and always the head of his class, no on could out spell him and he was a good mathematician. He could do carpenter and blacksmith work and was handy with tools of any kind. He really had only two terms of school in his boyhood days and paid for those by, dragging home, skinning and selling the hides of cattle that had frozen, that had once belonged to Johnston’s army at the time they invaded Utah. At one time when his father sent him some money from California, he bought a violin with part of it. One day he was sitting in front of the fireplace practicing on it when his stepfather walked up to him, snatched the violin and broke it in pieces oven the fireplace and threw the pieces into the fire. In 1870 Ed went to work for Jerome Kempton, who was doing contract building in and around Salt Lake City. He met Hattie Kempton and fell in love with her, which was mutual, they were married in the Endowment house on August 21, 1871.

Harriet Susan Kempton “Hattie” was born in Salt Lake City, March 21, 1856, the first daughter and fourth child of Jerome Bonaparte Kempton and Rosetta Anise Chapman Kempton. Her Father was a fine craftsman—being a gunsmith, blacksmith, stone mason and cooper, and also did carpenter work, and was able to obtain work when his health permitted. However he was ill a great deal of his life. He kept the family either very well when working or in poor circumstances while he was ill.

When Hattie was about two years old, the family moved to Big Cottonwood Canyon, where her father did blacksmithing for workers at the saw mill, the men who hauled logs, timber or firewood from the mountains.

One day Hattie followed her two oldest brothers from the cabin for some distance before they discovered her. They tried to coax her to go back but to no avail until one of them took a treasured spool from his pocket and bribed her with it to return home, she took the spool, turned around and started back in the direction of home, and the two boys went happily on their way thinking their baby sister was safe. The old dog went with the girl, but instead of returning to the cabin, they turned and took a path that led up the canyon.

As the Mother missed Hattie, she put her infant son in his crib and went out to look for her. But though she called loudly, and searched every nook and bush near the house, she could find no trace of the child.

Frantically she ran to the blacksmith shop and notified her husband who dropped his work and began to search for her. As has been stated in Mr. [Jerome] Kempton’s history [see History for Jerome Kempton page 183] he was a skilled woodsman and could track people or animals like an Indian.

He was soon able to pick up Hattie’s trail where her brothers had left her and also discovered the old dog’s tracks near the footprints of the tiny girl’s. This eased his mind a little and especially after he found where the tiny footprints strayed perilously near the raging torrent that was Big Cottonwood Creek, and saw where the faithful dog had pushed himself between her and the danger. On and on the trail led him farther up the canyon until it seemed to the anxious Father that he had walked miles through the thick under brush on the narrow trail, when suddenly he came upon an open space where two woodcutters were resting after felling some large trees.

He called to them, anxiously as soon as he saw them, but their replies were unconvincing and he saw no sings of his little girl. Then all at once a tiny voice called, “Here I is Pa.” and a relieved Father saw the dark head of his little daughter come out from behind one of the men who had been trying to hide her as a joke on Mr. [Jerome] Kempton. The faithful dog was given the credit of saving the little girl’s life, and he later pulled her from a fire by the dress and saved her as well.

The story of life at Fort Bridger where the Kempton’s moved soon after the above incident was told in Mr. [Jerome] Kempton’s history so will not be Repeated here. From Fort Bridger the Kempton’s moved to Manti where Hattie’s early childhood was spent.

Although Hattie had several brothers, she never had a sister until she was nearly twelve years old. She was certainly happy when little Sylvia was born and was glad to care for her any time she was asked to do so. By the time that Sylvia came to their home, Hattie knew how to knit, sew, cook, and keep house. Her and Fidelia had taker her when she was very young and taught her how to knit and sew.

Hattie often took Sylvia for rides in a little home‑made wooden wagon belonging to some playmates. She had been warned by her parents never to cross the swift millstream with the Baby (about one year old) as the foot bridge across it was nothing but a hewn log. She had always wanted to try the stunt of crossing with the wagon so one day decided to try doing so when she thought no one was looking. About half way across the wagon tipped into the stream, carrying Hattie, Baby and all into the raging torrent. Luckily for them an old Danish man heard the splash and Hattie’s accompanying scream, as he worked in a stable nearby and hurried to their aid. He dragged the two children to the bank, gave Hattie a sound slapping and Danish tongue lashing for her carelessness.

She hurried home as fast as the wet buckskin coat (which her little sister had worn) would permit, as soon as she reached home, her Father took the wet coat from her and gave her another whipping with it. However the dunking didn’t seem to hurt either of them. Sylvia was never strong and died fast when she was about two years of age.

The people in those days used to gather an alkaline substance known as saleratus, from swampy land, they used it as a leavening for bread, as we use soda today. The children generally gathered it, while the parents and older ones took care of heavier jobs. Mr. [Jerome] Kempton and the boys made a two wheeled cart with a box on it. Whenever there was an errand far from home to perform, old Jin the donkey was hitched to this cart for the journey.

One day Hattie and her brothers George and Lorin with Jin hitched to the cart, started out for the saleratus beds. A piece of canvas lay in the bottom of the cart in which to bring home the alkali. Old Jin had a bad trait of wanting to race any animal that came up beside her trying to keep it from passing her. That day two men in a wagon drove their teams up alongside the children in the cart and old Jin began to run.

The badly frightened children clung to the side of the box, and tried frantically to stop the racing donkey, but to no avail, for she ran on until every board was out of the bottom of the cart and they were clinging to the sides of the box. The children brought home no saleratus that day.

Many Scandinavian people settled in Manti, and the Kempton children had many Danish friends. One girl, Jennie Lind, later Mrs. Jennie Freestong was a very dear friend to Hattie who taught her to speak the English language. They were life long friends. Other dear Manti friends of Hattie were Elsie Drumgaard and Polly Forbush.

One day a young neighbor boy, Chris Whitehead Massen, stopped Hattie in a lane and tried to make her kiss him. She scratched and bit him until he was glad to let her go. He later said “that Hattie Kempton is sure a wildcat.”

Hattie’s schooling was very meager, some of her teachers were very cruel, whipping the children unmercifully for mere trifles.

Hattie’s grandmother [Susan Risley] Chapman lived next to the Kempton home in Manti, and was always doing nice things for her grandchildren. A narrow footbridge across an irrigation ditch was the only barrier between the two places. Grandpa [Welcome] Chapman [see History for Welcome Chapman page 185] was very stern so it was only when the Kempton children knew he was away that they went across the footbridge to visit Grandma. She would always give them something to eat before they returned home.

The Chapman home was headquarters for the L.D.S. church authorities who visited Manti from Salt Lake. One day Brigham Young, and other brethren were holding a meeting in town and the wonderful carriage which had brought them was standing in front of the Chapman home. Hattie and her younger brother childishly climbed into this wonderful carriage, but were hardly seated before Grandma discovered them and hustled them out. But it was an experience they never forgot. Hattie of course had to boast about it to some of her Danish friends. One of these told her Mother that Hattie had been in Brigham Young’s carriage. The Danish lady, unable to speak a word of English, but who understood, was shocked and astounded at such a small girl who could tell such an untruth. “Ney, Ney, she ejaculated, shaking her head vigorously. She wouldn’t let her daughter play with Hattie for a long time after she told that tale.

One Christmas that seems to stand out in Hattie’s mind, was the one when she was about six years old. The weather was very cold and because Mr. [Jerome] Kempton had been sick a lot that year, the family were quite hard up. A few days before Christmas her father received some cane molasses for blacksmithing work, but that with a few apples and some flour was about all the food there was in the house. The children all hung up their stockings on Christmas eve, with the faith of childhood that they would be filled by morning. They said their prayer and happily jumped into their humble beds.

Their Mother felt so discouraged and heartsick when she looked at the empty stocking, and realized that her little ones would meet nothing but disappointment the next morning. A prayer was in her heart but little faith that it would be answered.

Suddenly an inspiration came to her, she got up and hurriedly went to work with the few ingredients she had on hand. Soon she had a roll of stiff dough sweetened with molasses which she rolled out thin and cut into various shapes, men, women, dogs, mules, cows, etc. She baked these in the iron skillet and bread pan in the big fireplace oven. She was well repaid for her long evenings work when she saw the happy faces of her children the next morning, as they poured the cookies into their laps, exclaiming over each different forms, instead of eating them immediately, as hungry as the children were for sweets, played with the little cakes for a long time. Keeping some of them for several days. They enjoyed that Christmas as much as many children who received expensive toys.

One summer Hattie and her half‑sister were sent into the fields to glean wheat after the reapers were through. Their father had been sick again and the family were in dire circumstances. They had one cow that gave a little milk which was divided among the members of the family twice a day, each receiving a few spoons full, with a small cake baked in an un‑greased skillet. This with a few wild herbs and greens which the children gathered composed their whole diet. The two girls gleaned the grain carefully, as they realized it meant more for them and the whole family to eat. At noon while the harvesters were eating their lunches, the two small girls sat down under a tree to rest. One of the men went over to the sisters and asked them if they had any lunch. They told them that there was no food at home which they could bring for lunch. He gave them each a large slice of bread spread with butter and molasses. My that tasted good. It had been a long time since either of them had tasted butter or molasses or had a noon meal. That night they gave their cakes to younger brothers and sisters, saying that they enjoyed a feast at noon.

The Kempton family left Manti when Hattie was about thirteen years old, and moved to Salt Lake city. Her Father contracted and built the Godbe‑Pitt drug store, the Hyrum Clawson residence and several other buildings. He hired several men to help him and his boys fulfil these contracts. Among the men he hired was Wallace Edwin Potter known as Ed Brown as has been stated before in this history [from being raised by Fances Brown]. Besides working for Mr. [Jerome] Kempton, Ed enjoyed visiting at the Kempton home where he met Hattie and fell in love with her.

Before this time Edwin’s Father, Arnold Potter sent him $70 from California. His stepfather Frances Brown took this money and bought a small home with it, which he told Ed he could have as soon as he got married. As his mother’s family had no other home Ed got out some logs form the canyon, built a small extra room on his mother’s house and took his bride there. Brown promised to secure another home immediately.

That fall Ed and Hattie went with the Kempton’s to Brigham [Bingham?] where Jerome and his boys contracted the job of getting out timber for the mines. The young couple stayed there about six weeks, where Edwin helped the Kempton boys with their logging. Then they returned to Cottonwood expecting to move into their home, but they had no home. Brown had sold the place, bought himself another with the money and never gave Ed one cent from what he had received. He cheated the young man out of his whole inheritance.

Then Edwin and young wife went to Murray where they rented a small house and Ed went to work in the smelter. He did well and they were soon able to start buying a little home. They soon began acquiring livestock. Before long they had three cows, chickens, pigs and a team wagon.

They also bought fifteen acres of pasture across the road from their home, where they planted an orchard and garden and finally moved their house across to the fifteen acres. Here their first child was born⁶, Elizabeth Rosetta, on December 28,1872, and here on their third wedding anniversary, on August 21, 1874 their first son Wallace Edwin Jr. was born.

They continued to prosper and were happy in their work. Two more sons were born in this little home. John William on September 19,1876 and George Jerome on January 18, 1879. Ed played for dances in Murray. When George was about one and a half years old, his father went to Sevier County to take a cousin and her family home. On his way back he saw a place in Dover⁷, Sanpete county for sale cheap, and was so impressed with it that he bargained for it then and there.

When he arrived home he sold his little farm and all his livestock, but the horses and about a hundred head of sheep which he decided to take with him. He thought Dover would be a fine sheep country.

Hattie hated to leave the little home with its fine young orchard growing so well and to sell most of their livestock which they had acquired, but relied on her husband’s judgement. Their house faced State Street and the country round about was becoming settled rapidly.

The place in Dover which had looked so well to Edwin, proved little more than an alkali flat, with poor soil and irrigation facilities.

Dover was a small frontier village on the Sevier river, composed of a few log houses with dirt roofs, when Potters moved there. Edwin set up a blacksmith shop where he did gunsmithing also, for both the Indians and white settlers alike. He also helped build the canal to irrigate the lane, using ox teams and home made wooden scrapers.

This canal washed out several times, flooding away the hard earned crops. At one time about 1884 the earthen diversion of the Sevier river broke, and the Potters with other settlers moved their belongings into the foothills, and were there for a day and a night. At other times there was a shortage of water and the precious crops burned up.

Every man was a hunter and had to know how to handle a gun, but Hattie Potter was the best shot with a rifle in that whole section (men included). She could clip the head from a chicken at a hundred yards almost every shot. When her husband was away and she needed meat she would take her rifle and go about a mile from home and bring in a deer.

Their home was the gathering place for the whole community within a fifteen or twenty mile radius. Target shooting was the chief sport engaged in by nearly everyone. Dancing at the town hall was enjoyed in the evenings. Edwin played the violin or fiddle for most of these dances.

He owned quite a large herd of sheep and some cattle at that time, and a ranch known as the Pope and Searles Ranch, about nine miles from their home, which he used for winter range and lambing. His summer range was on Chris’ Creek.

About 1883 Edwin met Olivia Andelin, a red headed Swedish girl, in whom he became greatly interested. The doctrine of Plural Marriage or Polygamy was taught at that time and everyone who took a plural wife was regarded by the church as obeying church authority.

When Hattie saw that Edwin was greatly interested in Olive she went to Mrs. Andelin and begged her to influence her daughter not to marry Edwin as he had a hard time, to support the family he already had, but the mother refused to interfere, saying “vell, if you dond like Edvin should marry Olivia you can go home to your folks.” [original spelling]

Hattie’s parents were only luke‑warm in the church at that time. They were only able to support themselves, and she [Hattie] had five children, and no special way of making a living for them by herself. Her brother Tan, who was a bachelor, offered to take her and her children, but she felt that she couldn’t tie him down like that and make it impossible for him to marry, if he desired. Besides she loved her husband and didn’t want to give him up.

Edwin married Olive [Andelin]⁸ in 1885 and Hattie took her two smallest children and went to Payson where Newell and Amasa Potter, Edwin’s cousins, lived and had offered to help find her work. She couldn’t stand seeing her husband with another woman. She worked in Newell Potter’s hotel for a while but grew lonesome for her home and older children whom she had left with Edwin. Then too, her baby boy Amasa became ill and cried for his Father so she finally decided to go back to Dover.

The older children told of being mistreated both by their Father and his new wife. Life in Dover was a burden to Hattie and after that fate seemed to turn against her. Some unscrupulous people took Edwin’s sheep and cattle and threatened to give him up to the Federal authorities as a polygamist if he tried to do anything about it. After losing his livestock he took Olive and went to Salt Lake county.

At the time they left Hattie had six children and was expecting another one in a short time. Her baby [Harriot Elva Potter, Mother of Ivy Turner Chandler] not yet a year old didn’t have the right kind of food, as they got only about one quart of skim milk a day from a woman who let Hattie make shirts for her husband and sons. Allowing her twelve and a half cents for each one finished with buttonholes worked. And charged her ten cents per quart of milk. This with a little wheat which they ground in a coffee mill and made into porridge was the only food they had. Even the wheat began to run low and no relief in sight. Poor Hattie was desperate, she didn’t know what to do.

When everything seemed to be for worse and she felt she must either beg, steal or see her children starve, Edwin’s half‑brother, Frank Brown [from Elisabeth’s marriage to Francis Brown] with his wife and baby daughter drove up to the place.

They had started out with a full “Grub‑Box” from home but had eaten all of the food before reaching Dover and thought Hattie would have plenty to eat. They were shocked to find her in such dire need. Uncle Frank offered to take her to collect some old blacksmith debts of father’s (Edwin’s). So all the children were allowed to go and happily climbed into uncle Frank’s wagon. Mother sat on the spring seat beside Aunt Lydia and Uncle Frank, and they started out with hopeful hearts, even trying to imagine how some baked potatoes would taste if they got some or even some bread made from real milled flour. The highway over which they drove was slightly traveled and rather rough, but they enjoyed the bouncing they received anticipating the feast they would have when they returned home.

However their troubles were not at an end as they were soon to find out. The man who owed the debt declared he couldn’t pay them anything, and the hungry little group started back with heavy hearts and empty stomachs over the same route they had traveled a short time before. All at once Mother saw an object ahead of them lying in the middle of the road. “I speak for what ever that is in the road” she exclaimed excitedly and all became interested. When they reached the spot they found the object to be a tightly covered “Grub‑Box” which when opened revealed a supply of food consisting of roast chicken, biscuits, cookies, potatoes boiled in their skins, jam, etc. Only those who have suffered from the pangs of extreme hunger can imagine what that box of food meant to their half‑starved family. They all marveled at the box’s being there, on that little traveled highway, as they passed no travelers going or coming back, to whom it could have belonged. In fact they never did learn where it came from although they made many inquiries. Mother has always declared that she knows it was sent there by heaven to keep her children from death by starvation, in answer to her prayers.

Uncle Frank took mother and the children to Salt Lake valley on his return trip. Here in a few weeks, Arnold the fifth son and seventh child was born. He was almost a skeleton when born but had great endurance, for when he was three weeks old the family joined Uncle Jerome [first child and son of Jerome Bonaparte] Kempton and his wife Julia and [their] family, to travel to Ashley valley over roads little more than trails. They forded creeks and rivers and all who were able walked a great deal of the way to lighten the burden for the horses. Eddie age thirteen, John eleven, and George eight years old helped drive the teams, feed and water them and to do many other chores as father didn’t come with them on this journey. They were three weeks on the way with the tiny baby Arnold, and Elva not yet two years of age, but they were all in good condition when they arrived in Ashley valley in September 1887.

Uncle “Tan” [Trancum Russel Kempton Second child and son of Jerome] Kempton, who was a prosperous cattleman in the valley at that time, took his sisters family into his home, gave the older boys work in his harvest fields and kept them all until spring.

Father remained in Salt Lake valley until the spring of 1888 and brought his second wife Olive and two children to Ashley valley. He bought part of the Lee homestead about three miles south of Vernal⁹, built two log cabins and moved both families there.

They lived on this homestead until 1889 making friends and having some good times. Father played the fiddle for dances and parties and met up with Orson Calder again who had often played the organ as an accompaniment to father’s violin, when they played for dances in Cottonwood many years before.

In 1889 Father sold his homestead and moved both families to Dryfork¹⁰. Here he set up a blacksmith shop, and invested in horses and cattle. But soon after they settled here Federal officers came into the valley looking for “polygamists”. Edwin Potter was warned by friends so he took his wife Olive and went into hiding.

Mother was left with only her boys for help and expecting another baby soon. Zettie who had been working for Mrs. Dillman in Vernal came home and was there with her mother when on March 12, 1890 another boy Welcome Elwyn [Elwin], was born. Father managed to return for a few days after the baby came. Arnold, two and a half, asked where they got the new baby and Father told him that he traded a fiddle bow to Mrs. Wimmer’s (the midwife’s) son for him. Arnold felt that the Wimmer boy had been cheated.

Father bought a pair of “condemned” mules from the army post at Fort Duchesne¹¹. These mules received their title “condemned” from their bad actions, they were either balky or runaways or both. Now this was the only team the boys had to work with, in hauling cedar posts and firewood from the canyons and wooded region around Dryfork.

One day Ed and John uncoupled the running gears of the wagon, hitching the mules to the tongue and front wheels, took a heavy log chain and went for cedar posts. They fastened the chain around the posts they had cut and dragged them behind the team. When they came to the top of steep incline all ready to descend, the chain became entangled around a stump that was close to the road and the boys couldn’t get it loose. George Slaugh, a friend happened along just then, and offered to chop the stump loose while Ed held the mules tightly. Ed feeling that he would be unable to hold the renegade mules, when the chain came loose, ordered John to take a large club, stand in front of the team and wave it until George gave the signal that the stump was nearly loose, to keep the mules from going headlong down the hill and dragging him (Ed) to his death behind them. “Your brother will probably be killed, Ed if he does as you ask him” Mr. Slaugh cautioned. “Well he might as well be killed as me” Ed insisted, adding a few cuss words. So John took the club as ordered and stood a few feet down the hill in front of the mules. In spite of all their precautions it happened about like Ed feared. When George called “run John run,” the boy was able to get out of the way and didn’t stop running for some distance, but the mules Ed and the posts landed at the foot of the hill in a tangled heap. George rushed to try to help Ed out, and was relieved to find that the young teamster had no bones broken, although badly bruised and skinned, was still able to cuss viciously, which he always did when aggravated, to relieve his hot quick temper. John kept running until he met two men who came and helped extricate poor Ed.

The next time the boys went for posts they left the running gear of the wagon home, took only one mule and a log chain to fasten around the posts. When they were returning the mule somehow fell over a ledge and was held only by the tugs fastened to the log chain. John in trying to cut the rope that held the tug, with the axe and chopped off the mule’s tail. They got the mule loose but were afraid to take him home thus disfigured, so they drove him away up the mountain and dragged their post home without the animal. Father sent them back when they told him the mule had ran away from them, to find the animal. They found him but still being afraid about the lost tail, they drove him still farther away and he never was recovered before they left Dryfork, but was found later by a neighbor to whom they had given him, if [he was] found.

The other mule was very balky, and at one time when they were returning with a load of wood fastened by a log chain to this animal it balked at the foot of the hill. Ed coaxed whipped and cussed him, but the stubborn brute refused to move. They tried to pull or push him but couldn’t budge the ornery creature. Finally Ed’s temper got the best of him and he hit the mule in the head with the axe and the animal dropped like a log. Then he proceeded to chop off the unconscious mule’s head. Some of the neighbors who heard of the incident insisted that Ed should be sent to jail for cruelty, but those who really witnessed the act declared the mule got just what it deserved

The road through Dryfork village runs north and south. Jerome Merrill lived on the west of this street, Iowa Hall’s family on the same side but farther south, while across the road on the east side lived my folks, the potters and next door to them lived Charlie Searle’s family. Mrs. Searle had been married before and had children following by Mr. Nielson.

Mrs. Searle’s was one of Mother’s dearest friends and confidantes, and they visited each other frequently, telling their troubles and joys. Nearby was Father’s blacksmith shop which opened onto the road. Mrs. Wimmer ran the post office and was also a midwife. She attended Mother when Elwin was born. Mr Lew Woodward taught the little one room school at that time. Several families of Hall’s besides the one mentioned lived in Dryfork during the Potters sojourn there.

Mrs Searle’s daughter Carnie Nielson (Richardson) recalls her association with our family when they lived in Dryfork and especially the two small boys Arnold and Elwin who were both very dark complexioned dark brown eyes and hair.

The Merrill’s were also good friends of the Potters and Elva, Arnold and Elwin as soon as he could talk, called Mr. Merrill “Uncle Jerone.” the later was especially fond of Arnold. Shortly before our family moved from Dryfork “Uncle Jerone” said to his favorite “what will you do Arnold, when you leave us all?” “I will sing The Old Home is not what it used to be,” the four year old answered, promptly.

Elva who was just nineteen months older than Arnold always, mothered him and kept him from much trouble and punishment. One day they were playing together in the back yard, it was nearly dusk and when they saw strange figures approaching Arnold yelled “Bears,” and they lost no time in reaching the house. The bears proved to be the older boys with sacks of weeds for the pigs on their shoulders.

One evening Uncle Dome, and Julia and family came up from Vernal to visit. In those days people generally took enough bedding with them to make a comfortable bed for themselves where ever they might stop. In large families part of the children slept on the floor. That evening the doors were left open to let the cool summer breeze blow through the house. Uncle Dome and Aunt Julia made their bed in the doorway of the children’s bedroom. In the night Arnold awoke and heard Uncle Dome snoring loudly, he raised up and seeing the figures in the doorway silhouetted against the bright moonlight, he thought a pack of wolves from the mountains had gotten into the house. He screamed, “Git for home wolves.”

George Slaugh, who was a frequent visitor to at the Potter home in Dryfork, was impressed by the atmosphere of study that prevailed there. Every child was either reading, writing or studying something. Most of them were good students in school as long as they attended. All but one of my brothers and sisters played one or more musical instrument (by ear) and some of them were especially gifted that way. George can play any melody familiar to them on the banjo, guitar and mandolin. Amasa can play a harp, zither [?], piano, and organ. All the girls can play chords to accompany the violin and other instruments and also tunes familiar to them. Ed and John could play the violin and other string instruments. Arnold and Royal can chord the organ and piano and play the harmonica, banjo, and ukelele. Jim born several years later than the part of the family history I am relating, was the only one who took no interest in musical instruments and never tried to sing, in the whole of Mother’s children.

During the winter of 1890-91 Father lost most of his cattle and some horses with black leg or “plague” but were able to save a good sized herd which they drove to Snyderville¹² [4 miles North West of Park city] when they moved there in the spring of 1891.

Uncle “Tan” Kempton joined the family as they were leaving Ashley valley and rode with them as far as Fort Duchesne, returning to the valley on horseback. He was very good to them while they lived in Uintah, giving the boys work and helping with food when the family were in need. He was good to all the neighbors too, but after his death the ones he had helped neglected to help his wife and family.

The folks camped near Fort Duchesne the first night out of the valley, some men nearby were playing a banjo. Arnold, always friendly joined them and began dancing for them. They were so pleased they gave him several nickels and dimes and one of them gave him a broken army pistol. This latter gift really meant more to the little boy than the money.

When the family arrived at the fork of Deep Creek and Current Creek they had to camp for several days to wait for high water, to go down. The cattle and horses filled up on grass and got a much needed rest. Several other families were camped there also and some very pleasant friendships were formed.

Mrs. Sylvester Purse was remembered most and longest by the children because of her kind generosity to them. She gave them bread and honey every time they went near her wagon, which was as often as they could conceal their visits there from their parents and the older children. Arnold remembered that campground, afterwards with some regrets for he lost his treasured gun there and never found it.

They also camped several days in the beautiful Strawberry valley, whose emerald green velvety carpet of grass, where the cattle horses and mules again ate their fill as they rested. One evening while they were still at this campsite an Indian appeared at the wagon and asked for something to eat. Father gave him a cake that had been baked in the frying pan. He acted somewhat unfriendly and the folks were worried after he left, but they didn’t see him again or any other Indians the rest of the journey.

Father had been impressed with reports of the Snyderville district, especially as a cattle country. Here he took his family and camped for a while before obtaining a house in which to live. His second wife and her children went to Richfield where her folks lived and established a home there.

At last Father obtained a large log house and Mother’s family moved into it. It proved to be a regular jinx to them all. The family that had occupied it previous had suffered from diphtheria and as fumigation wasn’t used much in those days the germs still remained in the old structure. Father established a blacksmith shop nearby and the family seemed settled.

Two of the hardest trials, the second one a great tragedy, came to Mother during her sojourn in Snyderville. After the family had lived in the old log house a few weeks, every child in the family except George contracted diphtheria in its worst form. For weeks several of them were in very critical condition, in fact their lives were despaired of for a long time. The baby Elwin about two years old lay at the point of death for days. Mother worked and nursed the children night and day and never took her clothes off for several weeks. She and Father didn’t take the dreaded disease but he imagined several times that he was coming down with it. Zettie then about nineteen years of age was very sick, but tried to help with the other children as long as she could stand up. She swabbed her throat with straight carbolic acid and there by cut the thick phlegm that was gradually choking her. She induced Ed who was also very bad to use the same remedy after he saw that it helped her. George, although he slept with the other boys never contracted the terrible disease and was able to help his mother a little with the other patients.

Mother was in a delicate condition at that time and was weak and run down from so many sleepless nights and insufficient food of poor quality. During the whole siege they had no help from a Doctor, and the neighbors who brought groceries and medicine came no closer than the gate. Mother never expected Elwin to recover but it seemed God’s will that he should be saved in answer to her fervent prayers only to be taken a little later in a still more violent manner.

Three weeks after they were out of quarantine, I Crystal Deane was born. Mother was so ill at the time that they went to Park City and got Doctor LeCompte to attend her. It was the first doctor she’d had at childbirth, and I was the ninth child. Zettie chose my name because she had read an interesting story in which the heroine was named Crystal Deane. She was always so good to Mother and had helped at the birth of every child since she was old enough.

I was a weakly sickly baby. All nerves for many months and when I was nearly four months old a terrible tragedy came to our family which didn’t help my health any. We had moved from the tragic “Diphtheria House” but still luck didn’t change for us. I was born June 9^th, 1892 and on September twenty ninth of that year most of the family were out in the yard of the small farm that was then our home.

Mother had sent Elva and Arnold out to the woodpile to fill a large wash boiler with chips to burn, for the breakfast. Elwin started to follow his brother and sister. Someone had left the gate open and just then a drunken man drove his team into the barnyard. He [had] dropped one line and his team out of control, began to run straight toward Elwin. Mother seeing the danger from the doorway where she stood, screamed “Edwin, get the baby.” The baby hearing her voice began to run toward her, in the direct path of the plunging horses. Before Father could reach the baby boy he had been struck by one of the plunging horses and knocked unconscious. He died three and a half hours later without ever regaining consciousness. Mother went all to pieces and came nearly losing her mind. I also became very nervous and ill and they had to bring Doctor LeCompte, again to see us both. He told Mother she would have to control herself or lose her baby. It was very hard for her to do but she arose to the occasion as she always has, all her life, and became clam once more.

Elwin had always been such a bright sweet child and so beloved by all the family. About the time that I was born a traveler on horseback stopped near our home. He had a large black dog that became friendly at once with Arnold and Elwyn [original spelling now different from previous spellings]. The two little boys wanted him so badly that the man told them that they could have him if he would stay. They boys took the dog and tied him to Mother’s bedstead. After the traveler had been gone for some time they let him loose but he never tried to leave. He seemed to adopt Elwyn as his master and followed him constantly. No one seems to remember where the old dog was when his little master was hurt, but soon afterward they noticed old Tip lying where the accident had happened, and there he stayed for hours. Until they moved from the place the next spring the old dog spent much of his time on that tragic spot and at first refused to leave it even for food. We kept that old dog until he died of old age at the age of fourteen years.

An old peddler called “Old Hadden” stayed at our place for a short time, in Snyderville. He sold all sorts of trinkets and cheap jewelry. Elva and Arnold used to beg him for old brass rings, cufflinks brooches etc. Then when he would give them something, they would go out among the neighbors and try to sell them. The older boys liked to tease Old Hadden who was afraid of ghosts and burglars. He slept out in the front yard and had only a straw filled tick and one quilt. The used to go to bed at sundown to get to sleep before dark. He never removed any clothes but his shoes.

One evening Ed, who was at the smarty age then, brought home a cigar and began smoking it, just after the old peddler had gone to bed. The old man, smelling the smoke, raised up and declared he could smell burglars. He covered his head tightly with his one quilt. Ed, still bent on mischief, ran in the house, grabbed a pistol and fired it directly over the old mans head. The old man, now frightened half out of his wits, jumped out of bed, seized the tick by one corner and tried to pull it through the front door.

One day Arnold and Elva followed a fellow who was out walking with his sweetheart until he gave them twenty five cents to get them to leave and return home.

In the spring of 1893 Father moved the family to a ranch on Provo river. The settlement round about was called Riverdell¹³. The house stood not far from where the Heber city power plant now stands. Behind and at either side of the house were hills and hollows. In the largest hollow Father killed a bear. In spite of the bear, Elva and Arnold played all over the rock hills and in the hollows. They named every large rock, hill, hollow and even the trails.

On January 27^th 1894, another baby girl, named Ann Craven (Fathers Grandmothers maiden name) was born in the ranch house. She took my place with most of the family immediately. I was just one year and seven months old and had been petted a great deal up to that time. I was very jealous of the new baby and kept saying, “I don’t like that tiny baby, throw her outdoors.” By calling her “Tiny Baby” I caused her to get the nickname “Tiny or Tine” which has clung to her thru all her life.

Zettie, who had been working in Slat Lake City, came home when Ann was born and visited for at while before returning to work.

The next spring we moved to Midway¹⁴, Wasatch county where Father established another blacksmith shop. My eldest brothers Ed, John, and George were all good helpers for Father. We lived in a large brick house for a short time while Father was building a house on a small piece of land he had bought near a large queer hill called “Jesse’s Mound” or just “the Mound,” the first name in honor of Jesse M^CCarrell who owned the property on which the hill stood. The Wasatch County Soldiers Memorial now stands on top of the Mound and a road winding round and round it leads to the monument. When we moved to Midway, the Mound was covered by sagebrush, scrub oak and a variety of beautiful flowers including Sego Lilies, dogtooth violets, larkspur, Indian paintbrush, bluebells, wild sweet peas, lady slipper and many others that I do not know the name of. On the south west side of the hill was a group of large rocks that we called our playhouse. We had a stove, table, couch, chairs, and other furniture all made of rocks. We spent many happy hours there eating picnic lunches or just playing “house.”

In autumn we gathered crimson oak leaves and acorns from the scrub oak bushes. In winter we had a fine coasting ground right in our own back yard. Our sleds were made by Father and the older boys and were sturdy and strong.

As Tine grew older I lost my jealousy of her and we became the greatest of pals, and as we were near the same age and size after she was two years old, were often taken for twins. She had curly hair and to make up to me for my straight dark locks mother often curled my hair on “rags” for Sunday School or special occasions.

My first recollection of any incident is of standing behind Mother in the old rocking chair with my arms around her neck, as she sang and rocked the baby to sleep. Mother thinks now that it was when Tine was a baby that I did that trick. Mother had many trials during those days, poverty, hard work, poor health and nine children to care for, but she always sang or whistled at her work unless she had one of those “terrible” headaches, which seemed to come quite often.

When Ann (Tiny) was two and a half years old another boy, named James Reese was born, July 20, 1896. I well remember waking one morning early and walking out into the large kitchen and finding “Aunt Delia” (the lady Doctor) bathing a small red baby. She said to me, “now you go right back to bed or I’ll take this little baby brother home with me.” I hurried to obey her. From that time on I always stood in awe of “Aunt Delia” as everyone called her. Jim grew fast and was fat and sturdy. He had curly blonde hair and hazel eyes. He was a very bright child, even as a toddler, and everyone made a fuss over him.

Father made a trip to Salt Lake city while I was very young and brought back a second hand organ. We had the following musical instruments besides the organ; violin, banjo, guitar, mandolin and bass violin. Father and some of my brothers Ed, John, George, and Amasa could play all of the instruments although they had never taken music lessons. Elva soon learned to accompany them with chords on the organ and thus we had a family orchestra. The neighbors came in the evenings to listen to the music and when ever relatives came from distant towns they always insisted that the family orchestra play for them. We sang a great deal too, that is all of us did but Arnold and Jim, who could neither sing or play an instrument at that time, but Arnold learned to play the organ and other instruments later. However, I do not remember that Jim ever touched a musical instrument to try to play it and never could sing a tune. Every other child in our family of twelve could sing or play one of the instruments

On several occasions the table and chairs were moved out of the kitchen and the young folks danced on the bare wood floor to the tune of the family orchestra located in the front room. They celebrated Elva’s thirteenth birthday with one of these dances. Jim who was three and a half years old at the time, thought the dancers were fighting like the older boys had taught him to do with them. He went out into the middle of the floor and began hitting anybody or everybody. The young folks just laughed at him. A few years later Jim said suddenly one day to Mother, “Ma, I can remember when I was born.” “There was a big crowd of people here and they were fighting like the dickins, and I got out in the middle of them and fought too.”

John and George tried to enlist when the call came for volunteers in the Spanish-American war, but both were too short. One of their best pals, Jay Abplanalp was accepted and left for the Philippines. Just before he left he came to bid our family goodbye. Jim who wasn’t much more than two years old recited several nursery rhymes for him.

My brother Ed was married to Emily Noshes of Charleston, about four miles from Midway, in 1897. There was a wedding celebration at her parents home, where we were all allowed to go. I recall a large wedding cake and the crowd of people there.

Rosetta (Zettie) was married in 1896 to Michael Crowley of Ogden where they lived for a few months. Our family went to visit them the next spring (1897). Here Jim was the center of attraction again for he frightened us by trying to get adopted to a Chinese peddler. The old Chinaman drove his horse and light wagon the latter loaded with vegetables, through the streets of Ogden to sell to anyone who would buy. He came to Zettie’s place and Jim became interested in the horse and wagon and insisted on getting up on the seat taking the lines into his little hands and trying to make the horse go. The Chinaman thought that Jimmy was attracted to him and offered to give the whole load of vegetables for the baby. Jim would have gone with him, and had to be taken forcibly from the cart, while he kicked and screamed, and the Chinaman still begged to keep him.

On July 30, 1898, another girl came to our home, named Amelia Ive, but, [like] little Tine. She received the nickname of “Millie”, which had clung to her throughout her life. As I first remember her she was a fat little rollie‑pollie that slept a great deal.

In writing this history my own experiences stand out in my mind stronger than the deeds of the members of the family so I write from my own viewpoint.

We walked about a mile to school and the winters were long, with deep snow sometimes piled as deep as the top of the fences in the fields. Often this snow became crusted so that we could walk on top of it. We always wore dark home made wool stockings, knit by Mother, and heavy coarse shoes during the winter. We all suffered greatly with chilblains and frost bite.

When the weather became too cold or the snow too deep, we younger children stayed at home. I started school in the fall of 1898, but only went about a month or six weeks then stayed home the rest of the year. The next year seemed to be milder as I remember. I went most of the time. The schools were so different from what we have now. However, our first grade teacher had colored pegs, corn and printed words which she used for seat work. The other grades had only the books and materials furnished by the parents. Each child had a reader, a slate and slate pencil, or notebook and lead pencil if they could afford the latter. I remember owning a small single slate and a primer, both of which my brother found between Midway and Heber, in a book sack. I prized them very highly and learned to read the primer through, the year that I only went one month to school.

The well to do children had double slates, always carried a small bottle of soap suds with them to school, with which to clean their slates.

Most of the people of Midway had come from Europe and were called “Dutch” by the Americans who lived there. However at that time they called themselves Germans but changed it to Swiss after the outbreak of World War I. They were fine people, good citizens and neighbors and we children had many “Dutch” companions whom we enjoyed very much.

The school buildings in Midway were crudely furnished with double desks (two sat in each one) that had been hacked and marked shamefully by dozens of children who had sat in them. The walls were whitewashed and the windows had no blinds.

Zettie and Mike (her husband) had moved from Ogden to Butte, Montana where Mike worked in the mines. She returned to Midway late in the fall of 1898, moving into a small house about two blocks from our home. She brought many gifts for all the family and had sent boxes of them home previous to that time. She had sent each of us a toothbrush (our first) and several articles of clothing. The things she had brought home with her she intended giving us for Christmas but when unpacking her trunk Tiny and I came into the house unexpectedly and spied two china headed dolls, with painted hair and features and figured cloth bodies. Since we had discovered the dolls she let us take them for a while then she told us that she was going to send them to Santa Claus to be dressed.

That Christmas morning was one of the happiest of my life. And yet it was tinged with a little jealousy on my part. We found our dolls fully dressed lying in a cute little cradle and nearby a table set with a set of painted dishes. The dishes and doll bedding was for both of us, but the cradle had Tiny’s name on it while mine was on the table. I wanted the cradle and felt that the table wasn’t as nice. However we settled the controversy peaceable, and spent many happy hours playing with our toys, although the furniture had been made by Father and our older brothers.

On New Years Eve 1899, Mother received word form her mother in Idaho, that her youngest sister, Anise had died leaving her husband and six children, and that her Jerome B. Kempton was very ill in a hospital at Blackfoot. As Mother had not seen her folks for many years she decided to visit them and take us children with her. Toward the last of April Father fixed a covered wagon for us. We packed bedding, clothes, grub box, and children into the wagon and started out early one cool April morning. It wasn’t as near to summer as we had imagined for we encountered snowdrifts on the first day out. Father had remained at home to work at his blacksmith trade. Amasa, about seventeen years old was the teamster and head man on the journey. The others who were privileged to go besides Mother were Elva, fourteen years old, Arnold twelve years old, Crystal seven years old, Ann (Tiny) five years old, Jimmy three years old, and Millie ten months old.

We camped the first night at a little town, Rockport, only twenty miles from home. It stormed so badly that we were forced to camp for two days at a small town just beyond Ogden. Arnold recalled how we would get our team fed for the night for ten and fifteen cents and could buy six loaves of bakery bread for ten cents. We bought some eagle brand sweetened canned milk which Mother used in her tea and would sometimes put into hot water and let us children drink it. We sold our old dog to a fellow at Collingston, forty miles north of Ogden, for a dollar and team fed for one night. We felt terrible to see him tie up the dog and we having to leave without him, but we didn’t have to grieve long for the dog got loose and soon joined us.

We arose very early in the morning, had a campfire breakfast and started on our way. Of course we couldn’t travel fast with such a load and at noon we generally stopped about two hours to rest the team. Then we would travel again until almost dark or until we found a satisfactory campsite for the night. The four girls including the baby Millie slept in the wagon with Mother. While Arnold, Amasa, and Jim slept on the ground under the wagon. One day it was raining so hard we found an empty house where we slept that night and the next day till the rain stopped.

We finally reached Malad Idaho, where Mother’s Aunt, Fidelia Babbit lived. There was also Uncle Richard, and four or five sons who made violins and did farming. We stayed a while with them—I don’t know how long. Their oldest son Richard Jr., went with us to Pocatello, where he met his second cousin Etta Kempton, a pretty dark eyed girl and they were soon married.

When we got to Uncle George Kempton’s place in Pocatello we learned that Grandpa Kempton had died the day before. So Mother and the other adults went to the funeral the next day. After the funeral we went to Grandma Kempton’s home near Shoshone Falls, and stayed for some time, Mothers two youngest Brothers James and Osborne were there too, and Uncle Cal Allen lived on the next place adjoining. He was the husband of Aunt Anice, who died about a month before [the reason for the trip]. There were six children as I remember now—Andy, Katie, Jimmie, Hattie, I can’t remember the others names.

Grandma seemed so old and bent, about like a woman of eighty or more now, but was about sixty five at the time. She could make the best pancakes. I think Uncle Jim and Uncle Ob must have supported her. Ob was just nineteen years old and was born when Grandma was forty-six years old. Grandma’s home seemed mighty humble by the side of Uncle George’s which seemed a mansion to me. His children were all good looking, four girls and two boys. The girls all had dark eyes like their mother’s except the youngest, Katherine, who was a blonde like her father. Mother said her father [or my] grandpa [Jerome Bonaparte Kempton], was a blonde all his life. But mother, was like her mother [Rosetta Anise Chapman], who had dark eyes and hair, and father [Welcome Chapman] had real black hair and blue eyes, so we never had any that stayed blonde in our family although Jim and George were blonde till they were seven or eight years old and then grew darker.

Up to this time Mother’s son Jimmie who was almost three had worn long blond curls, and dressed in something resembling Scot’s kilts. While we were at Grandma’s Uncle Jim, for whom Jimmie was named, cut off Jimmie’s curls, and Mother felt bad about it, but he then became a boy in looks.

I Can’t remember anything about our trip home, but do recall that when we reached there, Aunt Olive [fathers other wife] was established in our home with her two daughters, Ruby and Mary. Father had brought her there from Richfield or where ever her parents lived. I was too young to realize how Mother felt at the time but have thought about it hundreds of times since and have realized how I would have felt, under the same circumstances. Father had bought Aunt Olive a new home (not much of a house) next to his blacksmith shop and soon moved her there.

They were building a railroad from Provo to Heber that summer, Ed and Mike got jobs on the railroad, moved their wives and babies down onto the Provo river south of Charleston. Zettie’s baby Hattie was about seven months old and Emily’s baby Ina was about four months old at the time. They took me with them to help care for the babies, as the women cooked for other railroad workers. We had two or three big tents set in the willows along the river, and large wooden boxes for play pens for the babies, and having very good food and when the babies were asleep, I’d play by myself in the willows.

In about September of that year Father received word his mother, who lived with his sister in Murray, was very ill. He couldn’t go at that time, so Mother took me to hold baby Millie, and started for Murray. The rest of the children were left with Elva to care for them. We stopped overnight in Snyderville with some friends, the Gibsons, then arrived in Murray the next day. Grandma [Elizabeth Birch] knew us when we got there, but before long she grew so ill she knew no one. She died October 1899.

Father came to the Funeral, we brought home a few trinkets and keepsakes, grandma had brought from England, two of the figurines where a hundred years old. Mother kept them until she moved from Vernal, then she gave them to my sister Elva.

Aunt Olive lived in Midway with her two daughters more than a year, the girls Ruby and Pearl went to school there in 1899-1900. I don’t know how it happened, but she always had much better food than we did, and Tine and I went to her place often.

In the fall of 1899 the school took an outing to Schnitter’s Hot Pots north of Midway. Aunt Olive sent up some raisin bread for my lunch. The teacher gave prizes for the races we ran and I won a prize. It was a small box with two or three pieces of candy and a trinket. I was so happy especially about the little prize.

I remember Mother crying a great deal that winter, she always said she had a headache, it was more heartache, I imagine, but much of her life she had terrible headaches.

The next spring Olive had a baby girl “Myreel” in April, and Mother had a baby boy in May. I don’t know how Father escaped being arrested living with two women in the same town, and the two babies being born just a month apart. I remember Olive bringing Mother a little blue outing flannel nightgown for Royal E. our baby.

When Royal was two weeks old we nearly lost little Millie. I’ve told about the large irrigation ditch which ran through our place. It was high water time (early in June) and the ditch was brimming full. Millie who would be two years old in July was crossing the barnyard footbridge when she fell into the raging waters. There wasn’t a man or boy around to help us, she went under the large bridge and we could hear her crying. Mother, just a day or two out of bed jumped into the water and tried to reach the little girl. My sister Elva and myself (eight years old) also got into the water but none of us could reach her. I ran across the road to a neighbor’s “Joe M^CCarrel” and asked him to come and help us. He wasn’t very well and had been lying down but he came anyway. He reached under the bridge, found Millie’s arm and pulled her out. She looked like a drowned rat. They took her, wrapped her in a quilt and began to work with her. She coughed up leaves and sand all night, as they sat up and worked with her, but by morning she was looking and acting much better. Mother had a slight setback from getting in the water, and also the shock she’d received but wasn’t as bad as the adults feared she would be.

George and Amasa went to Idaho to find work, George was lucky enough to find a place where he could make good money, a “pest house” as they called it, where patients with small pox were isolated. George had never had small pox or been vaccinated for it, but as he had never taken any contagious disease he felt that he probably wouldn’t take it, and he didn’t although he worked with many victims. He sent some money home to Mother which helped out quite a bit. I think Olive moved to Provo about 1901.

That fall (1901) I caught the measles at school and was quite sick. The four younger than I was, caught them from me—even baby Royal about one and a half years old, but Tine was the sickest of all. She was weeks getting well, and didn’t go back to school till spring. Mother wrote to George about her and as she was always his favorite he sent five dollars to buy her some new shoes. Mother bought her a beautiful pair of shoes with brocaded tops and shinny bottoms. I didn’t even envy her the shoes, but wished I had some like them. I was about nine years old and she seven. Zettie always bought me clothes when I lived with her and the next summer I went to Park City and lived with her and got new clothes all around.

In December 1902 Olive had her first son they named him Wallace Edwin, although Mother’s oldest son was named the same. That was very odd. Father was so happy over his birth and called him little W.E.. Royal about two and a half years old called him little “double E..” Father was always telling us how cute he was, when he went to see him in Provo. About this time Father took a course in optical work and received a diploma, and given the tile of Doctor. He didn’t have enough money to set up a shop, but started a little shop in Heber about 1903, or 1904. About that time the Uintah-Ouray lands (up till then occupied by a few scattered Utes, Piutes and Uncompahgne Indians, and known as Uintah Ouray reservation) was opened for white settlers, they drew numbers indicating the sections in Heber.

Father also had a little jewelry, some clocks, watches etc., and was able to repair the same. Olive had another daughter about 1904 born in Provo, Father sold the house he bought for her in Midway and gave her the money. It wasn’t very much but helped her some.

Zettie lived in Midway the winter of 1900-1901 and I lived with her. Her son Michael Searle was born in January or February 1901. Her husband was there at the time the baby was born afterwards her little girl was awfully sick with lung fever, probably just pneumonia.

Zettie moved to Park City the next spring in a little one room house which was the only thing they could find to live in as Park City was booming then and living quarters were scarce. Later in the summer they found a larger house, I lived with them in the little house when Mike was on night shift at the mine. I guess I was company for Zettie, when he was on day shift I slept on a little blanket in the corner. Mike road a horse to the mine which was several miles up the canyon, and took a lunch with him. Later on they got some kind of buggy in which we rode the thirteen miles to Midway to visit the folks. The road was over the mountain then I walked with Mike to lighten the load for the horse.

After we came back from Idaho Grandma [Anise Chapman] Kempton lived with us for a short time. I think she must have come on the train from Pocatello Idaho. She was sick most of the time she was there so she went back to Idaho.

In 1902, Zettie’s husband, Mike, was killed in an explosion in the Daly West mine where about forty men lost their lives, evidently from the carelessness of a young fellow that tended the explosives who probably dropped a match or cigarette into the powder. Zettie and Mike always seemed to be very much in love and she was going to have another baby in about five months so begged Mother to come and live with her in the big house she’d bought with Mike’s insurance and money she had received from the mine. Mother with the three younger children, Jim, Millie, and Royal lived in two rooms of Zettie’s house. Tine and I slept with Hattie (Zettie’s daughter) [who was] four years old.

As near as I remember Amasa was about twenty, Arnold fifteen, and George about twenty three, all got work in the mines, and boarded with Zettie. We moved home to Midway about February or March 1903. Zettie’s son Harry Donald was born December 1902. He cried night and day for weeks. He was just one day older or younger then Olive’s son Wallace Edwin.

In Midway Mother sewed and knit for people besides caring for her large family. George married Abbie Daniels in Park City April 14^th, 1903.

Father built a small building next to his jewelry store in Heber, here Mother ran a small restaurant but things didn’t do as well as they expected. Mother decided she could keep a boarding house in Provo for BYU students. Aunt Olive [Fathers other wife] had been keeping two or three boarders for two or three years.

We moved to Provo in the summer of 1905. Tine had been staying in Murray with [her] sister Elva Turner [then married to Ivan in 1904], she went to school there the winter before. Mother rented a large building that was partly occupied in front by Cluff’s store. In the back there were three large rooms where Mother kept both boarders and roomers. The boarders each paid three dollars per week, for board and room. I don’t remember how much rent the roomers paid. They were all BYU students during the school year and some other workers during the summer. Our family lived in two large rooms in the back. The other room was the dining room for the boarders. Mother worked hard, for part of the time, she had ten students to cook for. Tine and I swept the rooms upstairs, the long hall and down the stairway. We also helped with dishes after supper.

Arnold started in school at the BYU but didn’t finish the year out. The rest of us started school at the Parker school except Royal who was too young in 1904.

Amasa went to the Uintah Basin with a cousin Will Weight [this relation is through Eliza Ann Potter/Brown Weight, Will is the half brother of Ada Belle Weight ^{See Endnote concerning Eliza Ann}] in the fall of 1905. He carried mail that winter between Fort Duchesne and Whiterocks. Father sold the house in Midway that was supposed to be Mother’s. He took the money received and went to Vernal in 1906.

We girls, Tine and I, picked strawberries on Provo bench during June. A wagon would stop at a corner a few blocks from our home and pick up a crowd of girls early each morning and bring us back in the evening. I believe we received twenty cents a crate of twelve cups. I earned enough for my fourth of July outfit, shoes, dress, petticoat, stockings, and hat. Tine didn’t earn quite enough for her outfit, but Mother made up the rest. Then when raspberries came on we got the same chances to pick. They were harder in a way than strawberries, as they kept our hands scratched and tore our clothes. We made enough, however to buy some clothes for school, Zettie sent some clothes to us but I know we were surely shabby. Father’s half brother Uncle Frank lived in Provo. He was partly paralyzed but could walk stiff legged. His wife Aunt Lydia and one daughter Crystal, (Named for me) and a daughter May Evans that lived in Murray were all that were left of about eight children, the rest having died very young.

Father decided to go to Uintah Basin and see if he could find a permanent location for us. He left sometime in 1906. He had sold the home in Midway, took the money from it to buy property in Ashley Valley. He stayed that winter and bought a two room sawed log house in Glines Ward Vernal from Will Pearce. He came back to Provo in the early spring to move the family.

I can’t remember what Mother did about her boarders, but I know we left before school was out, and went to Salt Lake first. Amasa and Ivan [Turner, Elva’s Husband] rigged up a covered wagon. Together they took Mother’s carpet loom, the old organ, several chests and boxes as their load.

Father drove his white top buggy the same size as a surrey, but with white canvas top and side curtains. I think Millie and Royal rode with them and sometimes Tine or I rode with them too. George bought a fine big team, and wagon, he and Abbie made the trip with us, with their two little girls Ruth and Ida, about three and a half and one and a half years old.

But before we started for Uintah Basin we went to Salt Lake city where we visited with Ed and Emily, and their three children and with Father’s half sister Aunt Rosella Lord, and her husband Hyrum and two children Ada and Dan, and Mother’s sister Eliza Ann Worthen, her husband Ed and three children Myra (then married) Welcome and Theodore Worthen.

We saw a few automobiles in Salt Lake at that time but they were very rare, their had also been two autos in Provo before we left there the first of May 1907.

Zettie had married Jesse Fuller two years after Mike died and was living in Park City. We went there to visit her about two days in her large house, where she still had some boarders and her three children Harriet, Michael and Donnell.

We left Park City and went to Charleston where we camped at the home of George and Rosie Noakes (Emily’s[, Ed’s wife’s] parents), and left there early the next morning. We reached the summit of Daniels Canyon that first day, and had crossed the stream twenty odd times. We were twelve days on the road from Charleston to Vernal, camping where we could find grass and water for the horses. We crossed Current Creek and Red Creek both very high water with no bridges. The first bridge was at Theodore [in honor of Theodor Roosevelt, but was first named Dora, and is] (now Duchesne¹⁵), on the Duchesne river. The roads were rough all the way and in some places muddy from recent rains. On some steep dugways, all that were able to walk climbed the hills on foot to make the load lighter for the horses. Abbie who was expecting another baby in about five months walked with us. Her little girls Ruth and Ida were so cute. Ruth walked along just fine but Ida insisted on being carried, by her mother, Tine and I both tried to carry her, she kicked and screamed, but we finally carried her part of the time.

The ranches were few and widely scattered the first settlement with a few stores and homes was Theodore (Duchesne) on the Duchesne and Strawberry rivers. There were trees along the creeks, rivers and streams, but between Duchesne and Myton¹⁶ it was a desert. Myton just built along the Duchesne river had one or two stores and a few homes also a few scattered new ranches. Roosevelt¹⁷ was ten miles beyond Myton, about the same as the other two previous towns. Beyond Roosevelt we came to the home of Father’s niece Lottie Wardle. She and her husband Al had recently built their home and planted crops, and looked like they were prospering.

Father and Mother went to what was called Hancock’s Cove the next morning to collect a debt from Father’s cousin’s husband Levison Hancock. Wallace Wardle took us children on to Vernal. George and Abbie and family left for a place on Dry Gulch, that Amasa had filed on. It didn’t have a house on it so they lived in a tent, and stayed there for a short time. Then Abbie went back to her Mother’s home in Hoytsville and stayed till after her baby, the third daughter Winnie was born and [it was] almost a year before they came back to Uintah in 1908.

It took us all day to go from Wardle’s home to Vernal, around thirty miles. We stopped at what was called the Half‑Way‑Hollow, where we got water for the horses for ten cents, I believe and also water for ourselves. We ate a lunch we brought with us and rested the horses for a while.

The place Father bought had a two room sawed log house with corral, stable, sheds etc.. There were plum and apricot trees on the five acre lot with plenty of pasture for the cows, and horses and a small garden spot.

The house was small and inadequate for the nine people who landed there. The boys took the wagon box off their wagon and had that for a bedroom. We had very little furniture but with two beds (one a folding bed) the organ, Mother’s carpet loom in the front room it was well filled. In the kitchen Father set up his work bench where he mended clocks, watches etc.. Then we had sort of a pantry where the groceries etc. were kept. There was a stove, a table, some chairs, a wash bench and it was really crowded.

Amasa went over to Dry Gulch to help George build a shack on his property. Ivan [Elva’s husband, and Elva?] went back to his family, which I think were in Knightville [just east of Eureka in Juab county] at the time. Zettie and her husband Jesse Fuller, also moved to Knightville. Arnold found some kind of work perhaps at the coal mines north west of the valley.

Father worked at his optical work fitting glasses and also fixing watches, clocks and jewelry, besides he did a little blacksmithing. I started school that fall in the eighth grade at central school about three and a quarter miles away. I rode a horse, sometimes I went with a neighbor girl Ora Carroll who hitched her horse to our single buggy or later when snow was on the ground she had a home made sleigh which we rode in. She quit before school was out then I sometimes walked the three and a quarter miles to school.

Zettie sent clothes for the three girls but they were mostly second hand, which Mother made over for us. Tine, Jim, Millie and Royal went to Glines Ward school. I could have gone to Uintah Stake Academy ninth grade as I had finished most of the eighth grade in Provo, but they charged ten dollars tuition, and I couldn’t get that much money.

Mother wove rag carpet and rags on her loom for twelve and a half cents a yard, and it was a hard way to make a living. She never had any new clothes herself but spent all she made on the family. We always had one or two cows and when the boys were not home to do the milking, Mother did it until Tine and Jim learned to milk. I was afraid of cows, dogs, ghosts, bees and everything, so I didn’t learn to do any outside chores except plant and weed garden, also some irrigating, and going to school. I had to start early for school and got home late so I didn’t get to help Mother much. She even chopped wood and carried water from the irrigation ditch across the street. She never let us learn to cook, make bread or cakes, for fear we would do it wrong and waste the ingredients. It took a great effort on her part to keep food that would nourish us and yet be cheap enough that she could afford it.

Mother had a hand washer that helped with her washing. It had a handle that moved back and forth. And she would let us work the washer, but she always had to boil the clothes in a large honey can on the stove to get them whiter, and sometimes rub the colored clothes on a washboard if they were soiled.

Father would sit in the house tinkering at his work bench or reading, while Mother did these outside chores, but he was getting milder. I could see as he had quit whipping the boys, and only grew real angry on certain occasions. The last real outbreak he had was the summer he died. Mother had been washing most of the day. She had clothes in the boiler and a pan full on the back of the stove, which she had taken out to be rinsed, and hung out. Father decided he wanted his supper right then, and asked when supper would be ready. Mother said as soon as she could get those clothes out of the way, she would get his supper. He grabbed the pan full of clothes, threw them out in the dirt of the backyard, and as Millie, who was about eight or nine began to cry, he grabbed her and threw her out into the yard too. I was about seventeen years old, and was always afraid of my father, but somehow I got the courage to say, “why are you acting so crazy?” “Throwing out poor Mama’s clothes that she has worked so hard to wash, and poor little Millie.” He said “I’ll throw you out next!” And I said “well go ahead if you think you can.” He calmed down then, and soon Mother had him some supper ready and all went well. She told me later that only once or twice in her life, when he was angry had she tried to defy him.

Once when he was whipping my brother Ed, when he was just small, with a tough willow, that she saw blood coming through the back of Ed’s shirt, she grabbed the willow from his hand, sort of blistering his hand. He turned on her next and said “you’ll get it next.” She just said “you ever try to hit me and I’ll fix you so you’ll never hit anyone again.”

He whipped his oldest daughter by his second wife once, and Aunt Olive told him never to hit one of her children again, and he never did except for a little switching he gave Mary and Ruby for wading in a ditch.

I think that none of us appreciated our dear Mother for what she sacrificed for us.

In the fall of 1908 Mother awoke one morning, and said, “by my dream something awful is going to happen to John. Before the day was out a telegram came that John had been killed getting off a street car the night before. The street cars were so you could walk down the steps, ready to get off. Just as the car was ready to stop it jumped the track and threw John in front of it running over him, killing him instantly. He left a wife and two little girls, Alice two years old and Ethel Lynn two weeks old. Father took the stage and went to his funeral.

The summer of 1908 I worked to [at?] Johnnie O’Niel’s supposeably for a dollar fifty per week. I stayed three or four weeks and when I left they gave me fifty cents in money, a piece of cloth not quite large enough to make a waist (blouse), and one or two old pieces of clothing.

Mother made the cloth into a blouse for me but had to put a piece of another kind on the bottom, to make it long enough for to stay inside my skirt.

That winter I stayed at Alva and Nettie O’Niel’s, and went to school in the ninth grade at Uintah Academy one and a half miles closer to school than our home. Tine went to the eighth grade at Central. She either rode a horse or took a horse and buggy. She had tried to work at a few places trying to take care of babies and do light house work, but couldn’t stay very long at any place. She was bright in school work, wrote plays and stories but didn’t care weather she went to school or not. Her plays were put on in the little Glines Ward church at programs, and she could have done better if she had tried.

On the other hand Jim was crazy about school, he had skipped two or three grades, and was a whiz at mathematics, and very good at all other studies, but he had a very mean disposition. He was larger than either Tine or I, although Tine was two years older and I was four years older, but he would knock either of us down with his big fist and beat up on Royal all the time, although he was four years older than his little brother.

Millie on the other hand was quiet and sympathetic toward people, and animals, and went to school with very little to wear, and we all had very little to eat when we stayed at home. We all stayed fat however, I guess because we ate mostly starchy foods.

Royal was full of mischief it seems, but he went to work real early, to help make some money. He didn’t like school and stayed away anytime he got a chance. The summer that he was twelve years old he went to work at a shearing corral tying wool sacks, he herded sheep later and worked at anything he could find to do.

Father was always discontented to stay in one place very long. He must have thought the pasture on the other side of the fence was greener. He wasn’t doing too well with his optical business. He couldn’t afford to rent a little shop in town and I think most people thought he was a fraud, because of the poor way he had of advertising his business.

In the summer of 1909 he began to talk of going away again. He said he didn’t know where but he had to do better.

That summer I went down on Ashley Creek with the Alva O’Niel’s. It was to get a little money, and my board. Mrs Nettie O’Niel wasn’t very well so I had to do all the washing on a washboard, down by the creek. The water was heated in a large iron kettle over a campfire. After scrubbing the clothes with home made soap and warm water they were boiled in a large copper wash boiler on the fire. Then I had to scrub the large kitchen with its bare wooden floor with lye water and also use lye in the wash water. My hands were always eaten with the lye and chapped. I also mixed the large batch of home made bread, although I didn’t know what ingredients went into it, for Nettie prepared the flour etc., for mixing and I just did the kneading at her direction. They gave me a little money, enough to buy a material for a summer dress—white lawn [? linen?] with yellow roses in it. Mother bought enough for Tine a dress too that had pink roses in it. Mother took time to make the two dresses which we wore all summer, and washed so much they became faded and limp.

I started to Uintah Academy in the tenth grade and stayed at O’Niel’s. Tine had graduated from eighth grade by then but did not start to school again. I asked Mother to buy some black dye so that I could dye my Lawn[?] dress and petticoat.

On September 29^th, I came home from O’Niel’s to dye my dress, and found that we had enough dye to dye Tine’s dress and petticoat too. So we did.

On the way back to O’Niel’s, I met Father in his white top buggy, on his way home. He stopped to talk to me, and said he was going away but was trying to finish a cellar for Mother’s fruit and vegetables before he left. He also said that he thought he would have the other five dollars I owed on my tuition to give to me before he left. He was so kind and good that I felt that he had changed and I couldn’t understand it.

The next morning he said to Mother “I dreamed of John all last night, I was with him in the shop and everywhere I looked there was John.” Mother said, “oh I’ve dreamed of him several times since he died.” “It was just a year ago today that they had his funeral.” Father said “I hadn’t thought about that but this didn’t seem like a dream, it was so real.” Then he said “I have a pain in my chest, I guess it is from that whole cucumber I ate last night for supper.”

After breakfast he went down to dig in the cellar, but soon came back saying the pain was getting worse, and had gone to his arms. He went out and met the mailman about ten a.m. and talked to him. Mother gave him all the home remedies she could think of for indigestion but nothing helped. George’s wife Abbie had come over from Bennett¹⁸ to be near a Doctor to have her fourth baby. She was staying in Glines place across the road. They had moved a short time before that, but came over to be with Mother.

As Father kept getting worse Mother told Tine to get on “Old Button,” the fractious horse, and go for the Doctor. Father had always objected to having a Doctor but his time he didn’t. Tine got on the horse but it threw her off. But she climbed back on and soon brought Doctor Martin back with her. He also rode a horse.

As soon as the Doctor looked at him, he said “his heart is on the bum.” An odd expression but often used for anything that was bad. He asked for brandy but when Mother told there was none in the house, he gave Father some kind of medicine. Abbie then asked him if he felt any better. He said “I can’t say that I do.” Then turned on his side and died right then^b.

Arnold was in California at the time working, but Mother got word to Zettie, Ed, and Elva. It would have taken them at least five days to get to Vernal then, so they didn’t come to the funeral, but sent money to pay for the casket. As there were no mortuary or mortician in Vernal at that time the Relief Society came and helped Mother prepare him for burial. We of course, Tine and I wore the black dresses we had dyed the day before his death and it was a good thing that we had them for everyone of the relatives wore black at funerals. I know that the neighbors were good to Mother and brought her food etc., and George and Amasa helped her all they could.

Mother had asked Father to put the house and five acres in her name many times but he hadn’t done so. He had fifty dollars in the bank in his name when he died but she couldn’t get it until the whole estate was probated. She finally sold his optical equipment for fifty dollars to one of the Doctors and a few of his blacksmith tools. But she gave most of his tools to Amasa, his fine gold watch to Aunt Olive as she only had the one boy and Mama had several.

Mother had a hard time supporting the rest of the children after his death. Although he had not helped her much he must have bought most of the food. Jim was working for his board, tuition, to the Academy, a horse to ride to school and I believe a little money, at Charles Glines place in Maeser. He had to milk feed and water several cows, feed horses and other animals. He kept that job all winter and the next year too, and his school mates said he was the youngest and smartest boy in the class.

I also was staying at O’Niel’s where I got my board and was a mile and a half closer to the Academy than our home was. I never took any lunch to school, and had nothing to eat from early breakfast till about six p.m. unless my friends treated me to crackers and candy.

The next summer I took a teacher’s examination and passed it well enough that they gave me a one room school six grades nineteen children on Indian bench [or Weight bench] about one half mile north of where Todd Elementary now is located^c. I’ll admit I didn’t know much about teaching.

Mr. Allen one of the trustees of the little school let Mother have his house as he and family were going to move to Roosevelt for the winter. One of the boys moved Mother over. Both Mother and I begged Tine to stay at O’Niel’s as I had done for two years, and go to high school but she wouldn’t stay. So she and Millie and Royal all went to my school. I also had George’s oldest girl Ruth and Ed’s two sons Ted and Bill and thirteen other children in all grades but no sixth or third grade.

Each school was supported by taxes from that district at that time so that Alta, as the school was called, was in a scattered ranch district. I received fifty per month for five months. My first check was paid in November as I recall a hundred dollars. We went to Roosevelt and bought groceries, clothes etc., for the whole family, that were there at that time.

Jim stayed in Vernal and worked for his board, some clothes, tuition and a horse to ride to the Academy, at Charlie Glines place where he had worked the year before. Mother thought that because I had gotten a school to teach that I should be responsible enough to take care of myself and do what was right, so she never bossed me or counciled me at all, but I was pretty immature as I look back now. Tine and I both went with several different boys, and some we shouldn’t have gone with. I wish now that she had been stricter with me and Tine too. Tine finally married Orso Allen in January 1911, just before her seventeenth birthday and went to live with his parents, just till they could get together a few pieces of furniture etc., to live by themselves in a little log house on the Allen property. Orso hadn’t much [work?] but herded sheep and helped on farms.

Mr. Allen that had let us live in his home, came back early to start farming so Mother moved back to Vernal. I stayed at Ed and Emily’s which was just under the bench from the school, until school was out and I could get my last check.

In the meantime Zettie had separated from her second husband Jesse Fuller, and had secured a position as cook in a hotel in Vernal. I got a job there as a dinning room girl for a few weeks. I had bought a few clothes and had enough money to pay my tuition at the Academy where they had added another year that fall.

Although Charlie had played a mean trick on me just after I got home from the Reservation we finally started going together again.

He had asked me to go with him and some others to see where the Dinosaur fossils were being dug. It was a sort of High School picnic. I went and as I had been out of school a year I didn’t seem to find any of my old companions. Charlie left with a younger bunch he’d been going around with and I didn’t miss them for a while. They went into some bushes near the river. When I did miss them I hunted all through the group that was left but couldn’t find him, so I just waited. They came back just about time to go home, and he had been with another boy and three girls. I was very hurt by the treatment, and later sent his ring back with a letter telling him it looked like we were through but he came back and I rode to school with him that fall and winter in his buggy, which he had bought with his summer earnings at the Dragon¹⁹ mines.

Mother went to the coal mine to take care of Abbie’s children while she cooked for the miners. I think that Jim was away that year too, working for his board. Royal stayed away from school every chance he got and was slow getting through his school, but the summer he was twelve years old he went to work for Steinaker, tying wool sacks. He got his board and a small wage, at the shearing corral.

Mr. George Perry, a trustee of Glines school came to me in May and said if I could go to summer school they would give me a school in Glines Ward. The president of our stake Don B. Colton went to the bank with me and signed so I could borrow fifty dollars. I got one or two dresses some shoes etc. went on the stage by way of Jensen to Colton where I boarded a train for Salt Lake city. I had already written Aunt Rosella (Father’s half sister) and asked if I could stay at her place. She is another person that I never did pay back for all she did for me. I intended to send her some money after I received my school pay, but I didn’t. I ran low on money and wrote Mother to know what to do. She told Charlie and he sent me twenty dollars.

I started teaching second and third grade in September 1912 at Glines school. Then they gave me five boys that could neither read or write that the first grade teacher should have worked with. She had thirty first graders and I had about forty, in the two grades and I was supposed to count those boys in the second grade. The oldest was sixteen years old and the others were twelve. Two of them were taller than I was.

Charlie [Charles Preston Lewis] kept wanting to get married so on October 30^th [1912] we were married at the court house and I left poor Mother stranded again. She wove carpets and rugs and managed somehow. We should have waited until school was out in the spring, so that I could help Mother again, as it was, I never gave her one cent of my money. I paid my debt at the bank and got some clothes out of my first paycheck.

After the first check we put the rest of my checks in the bank in Charlie’s name and lived on what Charlie made playing the trumpet with a small orchestra for dances. He made three to four dollars a night, once or twice a week. We had potatoes, milk and cream as we were staying at Charlie’s folks’ place. They were in Vernal sending their two daughters to High School and Grandpa Lewis was doing janitor work at the High School. Charlie was milking cows, taking milk to the creamery and feeding and watering the horses and cows.

This part of my history concerns Mother in several ways. She was having a hard time supporting herself and the three left at home, Jim, Millie, Royal, and I should have been helping her financially but I couldn’t and live as we felt we must in order for us to go to college the next winter. But instead of saving our money for school we bought a small two room log house and moved there when school was out.

We worked for Charlie’s brother Sidney in his confectionery. We didn’t make much but were able to get some clothes and save a little money. We were awarded scholarships that paid our tuition at the University of Utah that fall.

We let Mama move into out little house, which was one and a half miles closer to town than her home in Glines. Millie walked to high school, Jim was working for Steinaker and contracted rheumatism in his legs.

In 1914 World War I started in Europe but at the time it seemed so far away from America and that we were in no danger here, but it spread until many nations in Europe had joined the struggle. On one side were the Allies; England, France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia, Monte Negro, and Japan. They were fighting the Central Powers; Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. The United States declared war April 6, 1917 after unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany and sinking some U.S. ships especially the Lusitania in 1915. Jim and Royal both enlisted in the Army in 1918. Jim was sent to the Hawaiian Islands. I should have said that Royal enlisted in the Navy on his eighteenth birthday May 29^th 1918.

We came home from the U. of U. in 1914 we traded places with Mother and was supposed to give her two hundred fifty dollars difference. Part of that was a motorcycle which Charlie acquired in Salt Lake. Jim took it over an used it in his work at the telephone company. I don’t know weather he ever paid Mother anything for it or not. I got a job teaching in Maeser school and Charlie went back to the U. of U. but only stayed a month. We both stayed at the Lewis home that winter. Chas. taught some band music and woodwork at the Uintah High School and took a few classes.

Mother lived on a place on the Reservation that Arnold had filed on for one summer. She and Millie, Royal and Jim lived in the little place we traded them until the boys went into the U.S. service. Jim took a course at the Chicago Technical school for six weeks sometime during that time. After the boys left Millie and Mother lived in the house. Millie worked in town for her board while she went to High School.

Arnold married Hazel Bates early in 1917 in California where he had been working. He brought her to Vernal the next summer. Their first daughter was born in Vernal in October 1917, Ivy, now Mrs. Chance Wilmot. Millie was married to Clifford Daniels, September of 1917. He was drafted into the Army that month and had to leave for training when they had only been married a month. He trained at fort Lewis Washington. He was sent to Europe and was somewhere in France most of the time, and stayed on even after the Armistice was signed in November of 1918.

During the summer and fall of 1918 (maybe the spring) a terrible epidemic called “Flu” came to Uintah Basin. It was rampant all over the Nation and was thought it had been brought from Europe. It seemed to go hardest on adult males, many of whom died within a few days after it struck them. Here in the valley the schools and all public meetings were closed. The teachers were asked to help nurse the sick. Chas. went to nurse three men in a makeshift hospital over a business house. Two of the men died but the third one lived. Chas. came home and was digging a trench to fix the water pipes when all at once a terrible pain struck him in the back as he was covering the trench, and the “Flu” had him in it’s grip. About this same time Millie who had been working in the Uintah Drug company came down with it and Mother took it about the same time. I took Lenore, one and a half years old to Nonie who took her with her son George nine months older than Lenore. She was real good there. I nursed Chas. and he recovered fast. Mother too seemed to recover fast, but Millie was real bad. A teacher Miss Rodabaugh took care of them. It was reported in the Vernal Express that Millie had died. I [wrote a] letter right off to Cliff in France telling him of the false report, and that she was getting better. It was a good thing I did for one of the boys from here Herbert Bell got the Express sent to him but Cliff had already gotten my letter. Chas. Hatch took his car and went up thee mile and a half, and brought Mother and Millie to my place. Mother was able to help take care of Millie by then and neither Miss Rodabaugh or I took the Flu. When I brought Lenore home we thought Charlie had quit coughing then he started to cough again so I took her back to Evans, but she took such a tantrum I had to bring her back. She didn’t take the Flu either. Millie was quite a long time getting better. On November 11^th 1918 the Armistice was signed in Europe ending the war (World War I). Up to this time everyone in Vernal was required to wear a Flu mask that covered their mouth (a piece of several thicknesses of gauze whenever they went into public places or into town). Well when the news of the Armistice reached Vernal a big parade was suddenly organized and there was shouting singing etc. and no one wore a Flu mask. It never was actually proven that the Flu mask prevented spread of Flu but after that “Victory March” dozens of people came down with the Flu and several died.

I am not sure just when Cliff came home from France. When he got home he and Millie moved to Park City.

In the late summer of 1921, Mother came to live with us. Lenore was four and a half years old and Howard was 2 [on] October 8^th. I think we paid Mother five dollars a week. Mother had Charlie’s sister Minnie come two days a week to help her do the washing, ironing and mopping. Mother did the rest of the work. She did well and the children loved her. When she left us about the last of May she had bought herself some nice clothes and had saved some money, so she went to Park City, where Millie, Zettie, and George lived.

If I remember right she got a job taking care of an invalid lady about that time. The lady had shriveled legs, so Mother had to lift her and care for her in every way. While she was working there she bumped into the door and got a bad bruise. When Millie asked her how she happened to bump into the door, she said she couldn’t see well and was getting blind by the day. They took her to an optometrist who said she had cataracts on both eyes. All the children that could, gave money and she went to Holy Cross hospital where she had the cataracts taken from both eyes. From then on she had to wear very thick glasses as long as she lived.

She lived in one room in George’s house for sometime. Millie and Cliff bought a house that had several apartments in it. They later let mother live in one free. She had a little allowance from Park City or Summit County and that took care of all her needs.

We moved to Hiawatha^d in 1925 where Charles taught school for two years and I was in charge of the teacher’s dormitory where they took care of their own rooms, but I cooked for them. I had a girl to help me most of the time. In 1926 Mother lived with us there for a few months. I had to let her sleep in the upstairs hall on a cot, as I had no other place we were so crowded. She came out here [Vernal] with Lenore after we moved back to Vernal and stayed for a week that year.

Millie and Cliff moved to California and Mother wanted to live with me instead of going to California with them, but I had no room I could keep her in or put a bed in for her. I wish I could have kept her. I still regret that I couldn’t when she wanted to stay so badly. She was here on her eightieth birthday and we had two old friends come and spend part of the day with her. They were Mary Brown Henry, and Jennie Lind Freestone. Mrs freestone was one year older, and Mrs. Henry was one year younger than Mother.

Millie and Cliff sold their place in Park City in 1936. They came to see us just before they left for California and took Mother with them. They had a hard time at first and Cliff took any job he could find. They had a farm for awhile with cows and chickens, I believe. Anyway they both worked very hard. They lived in Cottonwood after they left the farm. They almost lost Lois their youngest daughter as a result of a serious operation.

Both Royal and Amasa moved to California and Mother stayed with the boys families part of the time. When Mother stayed so much with Millie the first years George used to give Millie some money, and help out with the groceries. After Mother had been in California so many years she was given a pension and gave some of it to the ones she stayed with.

I sent little gifts and wrote to her and she wrote back to me for several years.

It must have been hard on Mother to be juggled around from one son to another. Millie worked in town at a hotel and yet she took her turn of caring for Mother. A few years before she died she became confused in her memory. She thought her sons were her brothers and begged to go home to her Mother. She would sometimes walk out doors in the night and when they found her she would ask them where she was. She would run away sometimes during the day and when they found her she would say she was going home to her Mother because her Mother needed her.

I went down in 1946 and she was staying at Amasa’s. She could take care of herself but didn’t seem to know what was going on around her. She went to the outside toilet alone. She had a bad bruise on one side of her face. Maggie said she had bumped into a tree. They told me she wouldn’t know me. I finally got her to sit on the couch beside me. I hugged and kissed her and asked her if she knew I was Crystal. She said yes she knew me. I told her I had come a long way to see her and she said that she knew I had. All the rest of the family said she didn’t know any of them. I wanted so badly to take her home to Vernal with me then, but I wouldn’t have had a place for her and I felt too that it would be hard to take her on the bus. After I left, Millie wrote that Mother was getting worse both mentally and physically. No wonder her poor brain wore out before her body she had, had so much poverty, trouble and sorrow. She must have tried to forget, and just live from day to day. She made quilts after she was eighty years old, by hand, and hemmed dish towels mended hose and other clothes for anyone where she was staying until her memory left her.

Millie took Mother to her home in the fall of 1947 and kept her there. It was awfully hard on Millie for she tried so hard to care for her. Cliff was so good to her and never objected to Millie doing anything she could for her. Millie’s girls were so good to her too, and all of them tried to do everything they could for her.

In February 1948 Millie wrote me that Mother was failing fast. I was teaching school at the time but I went anyway to Redding. Millie was bundle of nerves when I got there. She had worked so hard with Mama. Mama didn’t seem to be in any pain but she didn’t seem to know anyone or anything. Arnold came down from Oregon that day before Mama died. The next day Millie tried to feed Mama, but she just clenched her teeth and wouldn’t eat at all. Millie phoned the Doctor but he told her not to try to feed her any more. Millie turned down the bedclothes to see if she could give her a bath. Her legs had turned a deep purple. She put the covers quickly back and began to cry. Toward evening Mother began to wailing a sad piteous wail. Millie phoned the Doctor again and he said it was sometimes natural for people to do that even though they weren’t in pain. Arnold and I begged Millie to go upstairs and we stayed on each side of Mama’s bed and rubbed her forehead and hands. The wailing finally ceased and we realized she had died.

She had a nice funeral—the first one held in the new chapel. Millie and I together bought her clothes. George, Jim and I each gave some money on funeral expenses.

Mother died March 1^st 1948 just twenty days before her ninety-second birthday. I did not cry because she had passed away, but because she had, had so much trouble and sorrow in her life. I have regretted for many years that I did not do more for her.

Notes for Wallace Edwin Potter & Harriet Susan Kempton

History of

James Ross & Sarah Catharine Provost

Compiled by Eleanor Ranae Peterson

Great-Great Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Sarah Catharine Provost was born 28 May 1854, in Newark, Essex, New Jersey.

She was the youngest daughter of Luke and Julia Ann Wheeler Provost.

Her father was president of the Newark Branch of the LDS Church. He was ordained to the office of High Priest on 27 June 1841 in Pomptom, Morris, New Jersey. The family was told that he had great faith and that people would come for miles to have him administer to their sick. Luke and Julia Ann had lost four children at this point, so little Sarah born 28 May 1854, was a welcome addition. The census of 1850 states that Luke’s profession was a saddle rivet maker. His life work was as a blacksmith and he was very skilled in his work.

On April 22, 1856, Luke Provost and Julia Ann, his wife sold their property which was located on the northeast corner of Market and Mulberry Streets in Newark. This was sold for $1,000. They wanted to join the saints and go to Zion in the Great Salt Lake Valley.

They left Iowa City in August traveling with the Hodgett's Wagon Train, they were near the Hunt Wagon Train, The Willie and Martin Handcart Co's. Because they were instructed to leave a month later than they should, and the snow storms and cold weather coming in a month earlier than they normally would, made this a formula for disaster. The handcarts had more deaths, but the two wagon trains suffered also from low rations, cold, worn out shoes and clothes, frostbite, sickness and death. If Brigham Young had not sent the Rescuers, who were themselves in low supplies, to rescue these people they all would have perished.

Little Sarah Catharine was only two years old, I'm sure they rubbed her feet every night trying to keep her from getting frostbite. They suffered so much, but the powers of heaven finally came through with the help of their brothers in Zion and brought them into the valley which had about 8 feet of snow that winter. They literally gave up everything they had to get here.

They settled in the Provo Valley and after having Luke Elisha 26 November 1858, their son Charles Bauldin age 23 died. In 1863 Luke and Julia Ann decided to go back East and get their trunks and possessions they had left with a trusted friend. This was during the Civil War, They traveled clear back there only to find out that their possessions were gone and so was their friend.

Luke decided to go out of his way and go to a Flour grits mill and bring back some flour. It was very cold and he caught pneumonia and died 13 March 1863 St. Marys, Mills, Iowa.

Little Sarah Catharine was only nine now. Her mother with the help of her boys made it back to Utah and settled in Midway never marrying again. Sarah had suffered so much for a little girl, being in the tragic exit in the winter of 1856, losing her older brother in 1859 and traveling clear across the country only to lose her father in 1863. I am sure Julia Ann paid extra attention to Sarah and little Luke. They were surrounded by friends and family.

James Jackson Ross James Isaac Ross Sarah Catherine Provost

69244056_130436585321[1] Sarah Catharine met a handsome man named James Jackson Ross. James had lost his wife and Sarah and James were married 13 October 1873 in Heber, Wasatch, Utah. Sarah helped him raise his children from a previous marriage and they had two children of their own, Emile Jane born 22 July 1874 in Midway, Utah and James Isaac Ross born 5 December 1876 (Keith’s Chandler’ Great Grandfather) in Midway, Utah.

Emile Jane was met by tragedy when she was kidnapped and killed by a migrant worker in Vernal in 1884 she was only ten years old.

James Isaac married Fannie Jane Young and had 11 children. Sarah Catharine had many sad things in her life. She had a quiet disposition and was held in high esteem. She died ten years after James on 17 March 1919, in Vernal and is buried in the Measer Cemetery, Uintah, Utah.

Aldo Ardeen Allred and Mathilda Johnsen

This picture has
Aldo Ardeen Allred,
Matilda Johnsen,
and Nora Matilda Allred
their daughter and
my Great-Grandmother

Taken in Artesia Arizona
around 1898

Great-Great-Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

3^rd Great-Grandparents

Arnold Potter & Elizabeth Ann Birch

Utah Pioneer of 1849

Written by his Granddaughter; Crystal Potter Lewis

Great-Great-Great Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Other history of Arnold Potter by Ruby Potter Valantone (included below) differs somewhat.

Arnold Potter was born in Salisbury, Herkimer county, New York, January 11, 1804 the son of David and Elizabeth Vaughn Potter. I felt that I must write a little about Arnold’s parents before giving his brief history that I have.

David Potter was born in Coventry, Kent County, Rhode Island June 26, 1760 and volunteered as a soldier in the Revolutionary War before he was sixteen years old; February 1^st, 1776. He served as both a volunteer and a draftee in several different companies. Some of the battles he served in are; White Plains, Tommuny Hill, and Butts hill. He received his final release in 1779. Elizabeth Vaughn Potter was born in 1763, was married to David about 1785 and the couple had the following ten children: John (1786-1817), Martin (1790-?), Willis (1791-1872), David Jr. (1793-?), Jemima (?), Polly (?), Margaret (1798-?), Erastus (1800-?), Arnold (1804-1869), Elizabeth (1807-1884).

Elizabeth Vaughn Potter died in Salisbury, New York February 5, 1831 age 68 and David died in Cotton Township, Indiana May 13, 1838 age 78.

David Moved his family from Pittstown, New York to Salisbury New York in 1802, two years before Arnold was born in 1804. Arnold spent his childhood and young manhood in Salisbury where he evidently met and married Almira Smith. Data on this marriage is lacking, there were some children but nothing is known of their birth or death dates or how many there were of them.

According to a legal item in the Salisbury records, Arnold bought a hundred acres of land near Salisbury from his father, David, for the sum of two hundred dollars on June 11, 1831. About this time David moved to Indiana where it is thought his son Martin lived.

Arnold’s wife Almira died before 1845 and Arnold joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints before that date also, but no record can be found of the exact date of either occurrence.

He married Elizabeth Ann Birch, daughter of John and Ann Craven Birch, English immigrants, and converts to the L.D.S. Church. Arnold and Elizabeth Ann received their Endowments in the Nauvoo Temple February 2, [22?] 1846.

Both of Elizabeth’s parents died before her marriage to Arnold Potter. Elizabeth Ann Birch was born March 22, 1821 in Radnorshire, Wales.

Arnold and Elizabeth Ann were Utah pioneers of 1849. They were members of Captain Luddington’s ten, of Captain Silas Richards company of fifty, and arrived in Salt Lake city October 27, 1849.

They settled in Mill Creek¹, near Murray. Here their first child (as far as we have record) Wallace Edwin was born April 14, 1850. When Ed was very young they migrated to San Bernardino, California where their second child George was born in 1852: he died when just a baby.

Their third child, Mary Adaline, was born in San Bernardino September 1855.

In July 1855 Arnold received a call to go on a mission to Australia, for the L.D.S. Church. According to members of the family, Amasa Potter a nephew of Arnold’s was called at the same time. They sailed from San Francisco on the ship “What Cheer,” August 30, 1856, for Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

It took sixty-six days for the sailing vessel to reach Sydney, arriving October 26, 1856, all passengers in good health.

The Church Historian’s Office has this record: Arnold Potter was sent to labor as a missionary in New Zealand December 11, 1856 and was diligent in his labors.

He returned to San Bernardino September 1857. He was ill with some kind of fever and was delirious most of the way on the return voyage.

Early next spring, 1858 Elizabeth decided to leave Arnold and go back to Utah where she had a brother and other relatives.

Francis Brown, a member of the Mormon Battalion, with his Indian wife and two children, Ellen and George Brown, was making the journey to Utah and said that Elizabeth and children could go along with them. For some reason little Mary was left in San Bernardino, evidently with Arnold and his children by Almira Smith and Elizabeth with eight year old Wallace Edwin accompanied the Brown’s, although Elizabeth was expecting a baby and Brown’s wife was also.

Brown’s wife died somewhere in what is now Nevada, of a miscarriage, and was buried there. The rest of the party went on and reached Beaver, Utah in May 1858, where on June 5, 1858, Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter, Eliza Ann [this is the first wife of Martin Weight, who latter married Jennie M^CClennon Gee and were the parents of Ada Bell Weight ²].

Soon after reaching Beaver Elizabeth completed her separation from Arnold Potter according to the laws of that time and when Eliza Ann was six weeks old she [Elizabeth] was married to Francis Brown.

Arnold stayed in or near San Bernardino the rest of his life [see other Arnold Potter history, by Ruby Valantone, which says he went back to Council Bluffs] and never did see his daughter, Elizabeth Ann nor his son Edwin after Elizabeth left him.

He sent his son Edwin money from time to time and at one time he sent him a fine violin which Ed soon learned to play very skillfully.

Arnold Potter was a brilliant scholar and a gifted musician and handed these traits down to his on Edwin.

When Edwin was nineteen years old his father, Arnold died in San Bernardino August 1852, at the age of 68. [In the copied/typed document available the location is crossed out and Counsel Bluff Iowa April 2, 1872 is hand written in, in pen] He left seven hundred fifty dollars from his estate to Edwin.

Mary evidently came to Utah after her fathers death for she married a Utah Man, Welcome Chapman Jr. about 1870. [Again the typed copy has been pen changed to read; Mary came to Utah with her Mother she Married a Utah man...] She died at the age of nineteen, leaving two little daughters.

Another History of

Arnold Potter

Written by Ruby Potter Valantone

Great-Great-Great Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Before beginning the history of Arnold Potter, it seems fitting and proper to give a brief resume of the Potter Family in America.

Our earliest ancestor George Potter. Very little is known of him. Where or when he was born, his wife’s name, exactly when he came to New England or the date and cause of his death. We know he was admitted as an inhabitant of the Island of Aquidneck (presumably Rhode Island) [near the town of Coventry; directly west of Warwick near the center of Rhode Island, is a reservoir and town named Quidneck, Aquidneck may refer to this area] on December 6^th, 1638. Later, he and twenty eight others signed the compact of loyalty to King James of England. Among the signers were Robert and Nathaniel Potter. This compact was signed April 30, 1639. Robert and Nathaniel are presumed to be brothers of George. He died under strange circumstances because on September 7^th, 1640, eight men were appointed to look into the cause of his death. No further mention was made of this inquiry so he must have died a natural one. One son was born to him about 1639 or 40 and was named Abel. George’s widow married a Nicholas Niles who bound out Abel to William Daulston on February 4^th, 1646, for a period of eighteen years.

Abel was born at Portsmouth, Rhode Island. He married Rachel Warner who was the daughter of John and Priscilla Holliman. The Warner line has been extended to one William Warner born about 1550, [it] also connects to a Dover line. Priscilla was the daughter of Ezekiel Holliman, who was a companion of Roger Williams [the founder of Rhode Island colony] and worked with him. They baptized each other into the Church Williams founded. The Holliman line extends to 1525, along with an Oxton line to about 1561.

Abel had eight children, the youngest Ichabod and Job (twins) were born 1692 after their father died. Nothing is known of Job’s first wife. She may have died when her son John was born about 1716. In 1725, Job married Meribah Carter and had a large family. There were three John Potter’s in Rhode Island born about the same time. Because of this, there were mistakes made by reputable genealogists. For one thing our John was given as the son of Job and Meribah. My sister Myreel and I, had corresponded with a Mr. Hubbel in Ithica, New York whose family had married into the Potters. He gave us the first inkling of John being the son of an unknown mother. A Mr. Sears did work for me and showed conclusively where all records pointed to John as the son of this unknown mother. It took much money to convince the genealogical society that they were correct. Even yet I often get a sheet from them with John listed as one of Meribah’s sons. All our earliest ancestors were admitted as free men after being in this country for a few months. Also all of them appeared to be very industrious, acquiring farms and other property. All of them also bought and sold various parcels of land, much of it being deeded to their sons, and all of them left wills. Abel moved from Providence to Coventry, Rhode Island in 1743.

John, the son of Job, was admitted as a free man in 1739. He married Phebe __?__ and very early began to buy and sell land. In looking over these old land transactions, the Potters seemed to be doing business with everyone in New England at that time. The Children in each family married into other well known families until almost everyone was interrelated. All of them seemed to be industrious, well known and liked and who held positions of trust in the community. Numerous deeds were found, showing the great activity of Job and John Potter. John was mentioned many times in these deeds as son of Job, thus identifying him. We only have record of four sons born to John and Phebe, but there might have been others. One son David was born in Coventry, June 26^th, 1760 [and] was our direct ancestor.

When David was only sixteen years old, he was for a time in Saybrook, Connecticut where he enlisted February 1^st 1716 for ten month to serve under Captain John Ely’s Company of the State Troops in the Revolutionary War. He helped for six months in building Fort Trunbull [Sp?, Fort Trumbull is in New London, Connecticut; which is very close to Saybrook, Connecticut]. Later they marched to White Plains [New York?] and were in battle there, and from there retreated to North Castle. He was discharged December 1^st, 1776. In 1777, he was drafted from Coventry to serve for one month. Several times later, he was drafted to serve a month or two at a time, he was in the battle of Rhode Island, also in Butts’ Hill. In 1779 he was in Brooklyn, Windham County , Connecticut, and from here he enlisted as a paid substitute for a Doctor Baker for three months. Returning from his war services, he resided in Coventry for five or six years. He married Elizabeth Vaughn in 1785.

We have the Vaughn’s allied families back to the time when they came to New England. Some have been extended into England. The Sweet’s, Jeffrey’s and Periam’s which we have to 1400 or earlier. The mother of Elizabeth Vaughn, was Catherine Godfrey. Through her line, we have a line of Godfrey’s and a very long pedigree line of Scotts and allied lines. This line extends to ancient times in England and branches off into an extensive Spanish line back to around 900 A.D.. Another branch goes into more of English nobility. It is most interesting to study these pedigrees and to realize that we, their descendants, have a part of their blood flowing in our veins. It is to be hoped that we have inherited their better qualities. Just because they happened to be royalty does not make them more desirable as ancestors. The humblest farmer or artisan might have had more sterling qualities to pass on to us. Even so, it is pleasant to know we have these noted ancestors as part of our family tree. Studying these people is intensely interesting and I almost feel that I know them personally.

Our New England ancestors possessed the true pioneer spirit. Opening new territory, living under the stern laws of that time and imbued with the religious fervor that was everywhere. Some of our ancestors were Quakers and suffered much sever persecutions, some married into the Roger Williams family and followed him. All of them signed the Compacts that were made between King and colonizers in the New World. We can be proud of these early sturdy citizens. Many, besides our David Potter, fought for freedom in the Revolutionary War. The Potters who remained in New England became some of the country’s most valued citizens, holding positions of trust and were Doctors and men of learning. Many of them had the urge to migrate so that many went to Vermont, New York, and states farther west. Phebe, when her husband John died, went into Vermont with her son John and disposed of her property back in Coventry. It seems probable that David and Elizabeth also went into Vermont before going to New York. Before leaving Coventry, David deeded his homestead farm of one hundred sixty acres to Job Lawton on February 24^th, 1791. Dower released by Elizabeth, his wife.

They first settled in Pittstown, Renssalear County, New York. They resided here from 1791 until 1802. Here the following children were born: Cathrine, Benjamin Franklin, John, Martin Willis Amasa, David Jr., and Jemima. The family next moved to Salisbury, Herkimer county, New York and lived there for thirty years. The following children were born there: Polly, Margaret, Erastas, Arnold, and Elizabeth. David’s wife, Elizabeth died here February 5^th, 1831. Mr. Hunnell saw her headstone used as part of a fence at a farm there. After Elizabeth died, David went to Cotton Township, Switzerland county, Indiana to be with his son Martin. He died there May 13^th, 1828.

Arnold the subject of this sketch, was born January 11^th, 1804 in Salisbury. We know nothing of his early life except that about 1822, he married Almira Smith, birth and parentage unknown. They were the parents of five children. The first one was born in St. Lawrence County New York and the others were born in Herkimer county. Harriet, born August 8^th, 1824; William, May 30^th, 1826; Ann, July 25^th, 1828; Sarah Delight, September 9^th, 1830; John H., November 9^th, 1832. His wife died perhaps after the last child was born. What Arnold did after his wife died [and before 1939] is not known, nor where he went. There is only one item known about him. On June 11^th, 1831, he bought from his father in Salisbury, one hundred acres of land and paid him two hundred dollars. We only have knowledge of one of his family, Sarah Delight, who married William Mangum and went to Utah. Her Great Granddaughter Delta I.M. Hale now lives in Blackfoot Idaho. She knows nothing of the other children.

Arnold heard the message of the gospel while he still lived in New York and was baptized a member of the Church November 13^th, 1839. He believed implicitly in the principles of the Church and became an ardent missionary. He traveled out to Ohio, where his nephew Amasa Potter was living at that time and taught them the gospel. We also found mention of him being in Sullivan county Indiana about this time. We think he must have gone to Nauvoo before too long, as he was there in 1843 when he married our grandmother Elizabeth Ann Birch. She, with her mother and two brothers had come from Radonshire, Wales, to Nauvoo in 1841. We have found Birches and Craven’s back to around 1620.

Elizabeth was almost twenty tears younger than Arnold and it seems the marriage, at least on her part, was one of convenience and necessity, rather than deep love. Weather any of Arnold’s children were with them, we do not know. Both Arnold and Elizabeth were in Nauvoo during the last trying days of the church the and the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum.

They took out their endowments in the Nauvoo Temple February 2^nd, 1846, but weren’t sealed to each other. When they left the stricken city and had proceeded into Iowa, Elizabeth’s mother, Ann Craven Birch, died and was buried in Lee county Iowa. They stopped somewhere with the company of saints and from there Arnold made a trip into Salt Lake city. He left the Elk Horn on June 1^st, 1848 and arrived in Salt Lake the 20^th to 24^th of September 1848. The next year he went back and he and Elizabeth made the long trip together. Through the courtesy of the Historical Society in Salt Lake, I was able to get some information on the trip.

They came in the third company of that year under Captain Silas Richards. There were one hundred wagons. They left the Elk Horn river about July 10^th, 1849. They had a stampede on July 29^th, but it wasn’t serious. Captain Richards discovered a new ford across the Loup river opposite an old Pawnee village, better than the others. They forded one hundred wagons, cattle sheep etc., in one half day. They found a man who had wandered away from another company and saved him. They were at Independence Rock on September 23^rd. They were in a terrific snowstorm October 2^nd. They had twenty-two head of cattle frozen there. They camped at Fort Bridger about October 20^th and arrived in Salt Lake October 27^th, 1849.

They first settled at Mill Creek¹ near Murray. Here their first child, Wallace Edwin was born April 14^th, 1850. When just a child, his parents made another long trip down to San Bernardino, California, with a group of saints under the leadership of Elders Amasa Lyman and Charles C. Rich who went there to build up another city as a stopping place for people coming from Los Angeles to Salt Lake.

A boy George A. was born to them April 25^th, 1853, but he died as a baby. Their third child, Mary Adeline^a was born September 7^th, 1855. March 16^th, 1856, Arnold was called to go on a mission to Australia and New Zealand. With several others and his nephew Amasa Potter, they embarked from San Francisco August 30, 1856 on the ship “What Cheer” bound for Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. They arrived October 26, 1856. They were in good health. Arnold Potter stayed in Sydney until some other Elders came and then went to New Zealand.

Eighteen months later, he returned home a very sick man. He reached San Bernardino September 18^th, 1857. The extreme zeal that he put into his missionary work, as well as his sickness left him with mental delusions about religion. He claimed to have received new revelations about the church and that Christ had come back into his body. He attempted to preach his new beliefs to the people there in San Bernardino and managed to get a few followers. Finally, he was dis‑fellowshipped from the church. Most of this information was received from the Journal history of the town. The majority of the people returned to Utah the fall of 1857 as President young had called them back because of the threat of war from Johnston’s Army, camped in Wyoming. So we had no more information about Arnold Potter from that source.

In writing to Salt Lake about the above, brother Alvin G. Smith said, “the fact that Arnold Potter journeyed across the plains in 1849 and then crossed over the desert to California and then as a voluntary missionary went to New Zealand, establishes him as a hardy pioneer. The untold hardships and adjustments required of a person undertaking such treks is explanation, if not excuse, for many a failure at the end of a hard trail. We call them failures, but when all the facts are unfolded, a merciful judge may interpret it in another light.” therefore, I don’t judge, but have a deep compassion for my grandfather Arnold Potter. If we knew everything about his life, we might more readily see why his mind broke the way it did.

In the spring of 1858, his wife Elizabeth, with the two children Wallace Edwin and Mary Adeline, left San Bernardino, in company with the Brown Family, and perhaps others, to return to Utah. Arnold gave her a good outfit for the trip, but it still proved a most difficult one, Brown’s wife had a miscarriage and she and the baby died on the way and were buried in Nevada. When others got to Beaver, Utah, Elizabeth gave birth to a baby girl, Eliza Ann July 5^th, 1858 [this is the first wife of Martin Weight, who latter married Jennie M^CClennon Gee and were the parents of Ada Bell Weight ²]. Elizabeth had separated from Arnold and she married Francis Brown six weeks later^b.

Now, Arnold was alone in San Bernardino. He remained for a few months, then began a trip back to where the early saints had been. Through a friend of mine, whose sister had married a Potter out in Iowa, I was able to learn a few more facts about his later life. A paper called the Nonpareil and issued in Council Bluffs, Iowa, had one story of him. That he had lived in Salt Lake for a while after leaving California. There were several articles about him in the paper and in some books because he was known on account of his eccentric ways. From the story printed at the time of his death, it said he first went to Independence Missouri, but people were quite hostile to him there. From there, he and his followers went to a small town called Saint Marys—twelve miles south of Council Bluffs. A flood from the river washed this town away and they moved into Council Bluffs. Here, he lived with a family by the name of Kimball, near fifteenth and sixth avenue. The people here were very fond of him. He was kind to children and seemed a quite nice old man. Unfortunately, he was the butt of thoughtless people and always took it sadly. He dressed in white robes. He had white hair, was rather stocky in build and medium height. He was a scholar, very intelligent and a fine musician.

The family had always maintained that he had remained in California for he sometimes sent gifts to his son Edwin—one time a fine violin and another time seven hundred and fifty dollars. According to the Nonpareil story, he had no money, his followers took care of him. I suppose we will never know the complete truth.

He died in Council Bluffs April 2^nd, 1872 and was buried in the Fairview Cemetery there. I went with Leta Harris (this relative of the Potters) to this cemetery, but could not find his gravestone. In the older part of the cemetery many of the markers had fallen down and others, being made of soft sandstone, showed no traces of the names that ha been carved on them. We know, however, from his obituary in the paper, that he was buried there. Also from the Potters who still live there in that vicinity, for they had heard of him often.

His services were conducted on a beautiful spring day, the flowers beginning to bloom everywhere and the song of the birds singing his funeral song. The earth was bathed in the sun’s warmth and all nature seemed to say “Goodby Arnold. Someday, we will understand. Until then, we judge you not.”

Notes for Arnold Potter

Jerome Bonaparte Kempton
&
Rosetta Anise Chapman

Utah Pioneer of 1848/49

Written by Crystal Potter Lewis

Historian of Camp Vernal 1957; Vernal D.U.P.

Great-Great-Great Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Jerome Bonaparte Kempton was born 13 October 1820 at Fort Ann, Washington County, New York to Sergeant and Susan Kempton. He was apprenticed early in his boyhood to a stone mason and carpenter. He became very skillful with his hands. He learned to be a blacksmith, gunsmith, stone and brick mason, carpenter, and could also carve in marble, granite, etc. very artistically. He was blonde; having blue eyes, blond hair and fair complexion. I have no record of when he joined the L.D.S. Church but know that he was one of Joseph Smith’s bodyguards and a member of the Nauvoo legion. I have no record of his first wife’s name or when they were married but they separated when Jerome wanted to cross the plains with the Saints after Joseph Smith’s martyrdom. She refused to come with him and left the Church in Nauvoo.

Jerome was a Captain of one of the groups of Mormon pioneers and crossed the plains either in 1848 or 1849. There is no record of when he got acquainted with the Welcome Chapman family whether it was while he was crossing the plains or after he reached the Salt Lake Valley. At any rate he married their oldest daughter Rosetta Anice September 20, 1850 when she was sixteen years old and their second daughter Amelia a few months later when she was fifteen years old. He was thirty years old at the time.

This was probably in Manti for Chapman’s were called to help settle there in 1850.

In 1851 their first child Jerome B. Jr. was born. He was always called “Dome.”

In 1853 Rosetta’s Second son Teacum Russel was born. His nickname was Tan. I have no record of Amelia’s children, only heard that she had six or seven children and that she lived near her sister part of the time at least.

Welcome, Rosetta’s third son was born in 1855, he died while still a baby. Harriot Susan [mother of Harriot Elva Potter, noted in title] was the first daughter of Jerome and Rosetta and was born March 21, 1856 in Salt Lake city. She had dark eyes and hair just like her Mother and Grandmother before her. I don’t know where the name Harriot came from but both of her grandmother’s were named Susan.

During this time Jerome worked as a blacksmith, gunsmith, stone mason and carpenter. He moved his family up Big Cottonwood Canyon in the spring of 1858 where he did both black smithing and gun smithing for the teamsters and hunters.

Their fifth child George E. was born in the canyon in 1858.

Jerome could understand and talk quite a bit of the Indian language. He was offered the position of Indian Agent and interpreter at Fort Bridger and moved there about 1859. He remained there two years. He was adept at trailing and tracking both men and animals and this skill helped him many times.

He was able to negotiate between the Indians and white settlers many time. While he was at Fort Bridger he also did blacksmithing and gunsmithing.

Their child, James, was born at Fort Bridger [in] 1860.

They moved back to Manti about 1862 where Rosetta’s and Amelia’s parents lived. Here their seventh child, Eugene, was born. When he was ten years old he was accidentally shot by a boy companion while they were out hunting, and died a few days later in 1872.

The Kempton’s eighth child was born in 1864. He was named Hyrum and died while still a baby.

Their ninth child was a pretty little blonde girl, born in 1868, whom they named Sylvia. She was the second daughter and they’d had seven sons although two had died while still babies.

Hattie [Harriet Susan] has told how much they loved this little sister, and how they tried to take care of her. However she died at the age of two.

Eden the third daughter was born in 1869. She was dark like Hattie.

They moved back to Salt Lake city about 1870 where Jerome contracted and built several homes and business houses among them were Hyrum Clawson’s home, and the Godbe ‑Pitt drug store.

He also helped out [hauling or cutting?] stone for the Salt Lake temple [This was the occupation of his wife’s father Welcome Chapman, perhaps he helped or learned from him. See Welcome Chapman History Page 185]. Among the men he hired to help him was a young man Wallace Edwin Potter who married Jerome’s oldest daughter Harriet Susan on August 21, 1871.

In March 1871 the Kempton’s were blessed with a fourth daughter Annie. She married Cal Allen. She died at the age of twenty-eight near American Falls, Idaho leaving her husband and six children (1899). [This is noted by Millie in her history, of her mothers Sister and Fathers death see Page 148]

The Kempton’s twelfth child, Edwin, was born in 1878, probably in Idaho where they moved when they left Slat Lake city.

Osborne, called “Ob” was born in 1880 when Jerome was sixty years of age and Rosetta was forty-six.

The Kempton’s spent their last days in Idaho. They had a small farm near American Falls. Jerome died in a Blackfoot, Idaho hospital in May 1899 after being ill for many years, seventy-nine years old. Rosetta died in 1914 at the age of eighty near Malad, Idaho.

Notes for Jerome Bonaparte Kempton

Luke Provost and Julia Ann Wheeler

Great-Great-Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

The Census for 1850 states that Luke's profession was a Saddle Rivet Maker. His life work was as a blacksmith and he was very skilled in his work.

Luke was reported to be the president of the Newark Branch of the LDS Church. One document that is in the family's possession is the ordaining him to the office of High Priest on 27 June 1841 in Pompton, Morris, New Jersey. This was done by an Elder G. Beebe. It states that he is duly authorized to preach the

Gospel agreeable to the authority of the office. It says that he had a good moral character.

We have been told that Grand- father Provost had great faith and that people would come for miles to have him administer to their sick. When he entered the room the power of the priesthood could be felt....

On April 22, 1856, Luke Provost and Julia Ann, his wife, sold their property which was located on the northeast corner of Market and Mulberry Streets in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey. This was sold for $1,000.

In the "Perpetual Immigration Fund Perpetual Records" for 1857, Luke and his family are listed as emigrating with the following: One wagon loaded with 1060 pounds being pulled by 3 yokes of oxen. They had one cow. They were carrying one shotgun, one rifle, one pistol and one sabre. They also had 2 pounds of powder, six pounds of lead along with 60 caps. For food they had 500 pounds of flour. They came to Utah in Captain Wm. B. Hodgett’s Ox Wagon train which arrived in Salt Lake in sections from Dec. 10 to 18, 1856.

The winter of 1856/57 was very severe with the snow in the valley being as much as eight feet. On the l5th of December, according to the Deseret News of that day, in Little Cottonwood Canyon there was seven feet of snow on the ground. Another article in the paper had to do with the wagon train that they had accompanied to Utah.

"'The last part of Captain William B. Hodgett's train had left Iowa City in the latter part of August arrived in The Great Salt Lake Valley today. They were instructed to keep

in the rear of Capt. James D. Willie's and Edward Martin's handcart companies, in case that the emigrants traveling by handcarts should be disabled and need whatever assistance teams could render them. It may be stated here that the two wagon trains lead by Capt. Hodgett and Capt. Hunt suffered as much from cold, snow and starvation as did the Handcart companies mentioned. Following is a somewhat complete list of the emigrants who crossed the plains with Capt. Hodgett’s wagon company and who were helped in by the relief trains sent from the valley."

Luke and his family are listed in this group. The relief group told about had left Salt Lake December the 2nd with 60 horses and mule wagons.

What this family went through to practice religion as they wanted is very sad to think about at this time but some letters from Julia Ann's sister appear to show that others of the family were members of the Church and only a few of the family came to Utah.

Lukes father, Luke, was baptized 15 May 1840 along with his Mother whereas Luke himself was baptized 15 Nov. 1840.

According to various sources, the family resided in Provo when the last child was born and then in 1862 the entire family went back to New Jersey to retrieve property and several trunks of clothes that they had left behind with a friend. Arriving in Newark, Luke found that the friend had sold everything and left the country.

{I have often wondered myself just what was so important in those trunks to cause Luke to expose his family to this trip across the entire country during the middle of a Civil War, which he had to travel through}.

On the return trip, the weather was very cold and, being quite well off for the times, Luke went quite a distance to obtain flour from a gristmill. On this trip he took pneumonia and died in St. Marys, Iowa. He was buried there, about 10 miles down river from Nebraska City. Julia Ann continued on to Utah, settling in Midway. She probably settled there because her oldest daughter and son-in-law already lived there.

The family arrived in time for the Indian trouble which brought the town of Midway into being, this settlement having been two separate areas before. The fort was built at the site of the present town square. The Provost family members were in the cabins along the south side of the fort. Each cabin area was 33 foot of the wall area. After the fort was disbanded, her sons built her a home that was located where the Guy Coleman home, which is covered with white stucco, is currently standing.

LUKE PROVOST & JULIA ANN WHEELER

Luke Provost was a pioneer with the Oxteam Comapny. He came to Utah December 18, 1856 with the William Blodgett company. He was President of the branch at Newark, New Jersey.

Luke Provost was born January 2, 1809, at Pompton Morris, New Jersey, a son of Luke Provost and Catherine Hennion. Married Julia Ann Wheeler. Died March 13, 1863, St. Marys, Iowa.

Julia Ann Wheeler was born September 23, 1815, Newark, New Jersey, daughter of James and Sarah Wheeler. Died June 4, 1881, in Midway.

Luke Provost and Julia Ann and their family of small children emigrated to Utah on December 18, 1855 or 1856 with the William B. Hodgett Company where they could live their religion the way they desired to live it.

Luke was President of the LDS branch while he was in Newark, New Jersey. He had great faith in God and the Priesthood. Also had great healing influence in administering to the sick. Faith in God and in his fellow men was characteristic of him and of his children. His faith in some of his friends was soon shaken, for he had left property and 7 trunks of clothes, with what he thought was a friend. In 1862 he and his family went back to New Jersey to visit and claim his property. Arriving there safely he found the so-called friend had sold everything and left the country. This was a great shock to him and his family. Being quite well-off for those times he decided to load his wagon with flour and return to Utah. This he did and got as far as St. Marys, Iowa, where he took pneumonia and died on March 13, 1863. He was buried in St. Marys, Iowa, ten miles down the river from Nebraska City, Iowa, leaving behind his beloved wife and five living children and five having died before they had left Newark, Ner Jersey, for Utah.

Julia Ann filled with grief at being left alone, was determined to carry on and serve the Lord in the best way she could. She decided to go on to Utah with other wagon trains.

Jim Provost being the oldest boy took over the responsibility of getting the family back to their home in Provo. He became a man over night. In due time they arrived back to their home in Provo and moved to Midway with friends and neighbors. They started to Midway from Provo, when word came that the Indians were on the war Path. The man with the other family climbed up on the wheel of the wagon to get his gun. Pulling it toward him it discharged and killed him. They hurried and wrapped him in a quilt and buried him before the Indians arrived.

They then went on their way again with hearts very sad, but with courage to continue landing in Midway. Julia Ann and her young children were among the first pioneers to settle in Midway. Julia and her family built their first home in the lower settlement known as Stringtown. Their nearest neighbors were John Clayburn and Mark Smith. They later moved into Fort Midway and Julia Ann lived on there in her log cabin until her death in 1881. She kept up her courage and faith in the Gospel until the end, and through a rivh and useful life won the love and respect of all who knew her.

Jonathan Young and Sarah Toomer

Great-Great-Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

At his sealing in the Endowment House, Jonathan Young gave his birthplace as Portsea, Hampshire, England on November 11, 1801. Very little is known about his childhood. However, in official state documents discussing his profession, Merchant And Seaman Reports, it was stated that Jonathan first went out to sea at age 9 in the year 1810. It also stated that he served in the Royal Navy for 14 Years and 6 months.

Some other interesting traits found in this report stated that he was five feet three inches. He had dark hair and a dark complexion. It also stated that his eyes were Hazel in color and he had a scar.

Jonathan married Sarah Leigh at age 22. They had a son, George. There may have been other children, but we have not located any additional children to date. When he married Sarah Toomer Farr, he was a widower.

Jonathan served some of his time on ships going between America and Europe. Sometimes his passengers included Mormon missionaries and he was impressed by them. It is not known who converted him, but when he was taught the gospel, he wholeheartedly accepted it.

He had used snuff all of his life, but when he accepted the gospel, he took all of his snuff and everything pertaining to it and threw it overboard. He never used it again. Jonathan returned to his home area to be baptized, and the Portsmouth Branch Records show that he was baptized December 18, 1849.

Sarah Toomer Farr was a widow in the Portsmouth Branch. She was baptized just 2 months before Jonathan on October 19, 1849. Sarah had married William Farr who was also a sailor. He went to sea three months after their marriage to support her and their unborn child. Neither he nor any of his crew were ever heard from again. Sarah believed that perhaps the black plague had wiped out the ship’s crew, as was the case on many British vessels.

Jonathan told Sarah, that he had decided to go to Zion and that he wished to take a wife with him and that she was his first choice. He would pay her way and her sons.

Sarah at first refused the proposal, but later she told the Presiding Elder about the incident. He said, “How long have you been praying for a way to come to Zion?” Sarah replied she had been praying for a long time. He said, “Don’t you recognize the answer to your prayers?”

Sarah sent word to Jonathan that she would go with him, but he was already preparing to leave and board the ship. He sent word back to her to pack and meet him on the ship.

After the ship had set sail, Sarah and Jonathan were married by a returning Elder named Lewis Robbins. The marriage was performed at 2 O’clock in the afternoon on February 12, 1852, aboard the Ellen Maria; which the church had contracted to bring a load of saints to New Orleans. There were 367 passengers aboard.

The ship charted its journey on February 7th but did not put out to sea until February 11, because of a wind storm. Even then, some wind persisted and most of the passengers were ill. However, on February 13th the wind became calm and Isaac C. Haight, who was in charge recorded this positive and encouraging entry:” Peace and charity prevailed throughout the ship and the saints were enjoying the spirit manifested by their united love and good feeling one toward another.”

The ship docked on New Orleans and the passengers were taken by boat up the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri were they were met by Abram O. Smoot who conducted them across the plains.

After they arrived in Salt Lake Valley, Jonathan built a small craft with a sail and became the first known white man to set sail on the Great Salt Lake.

Jonathan always listed his occupation as a Mariner and a sail maker. Work was extremely scarce for everyone, but there was little demand for his trade. Almost everyone made their living by farming at that time, but Jonathan knew nothing of tilling the soil or any phase of agriculture. He had been a sailor his whole adult life. It was extremely hard for him to make a livelihood.

One of the first things Jonathan did was to visit Brigham Young. They talked about the fact that Brigham Young’s ancestors came from the same area as Jonathan’s and that they were undoubtedly distant cousins.

The family resided in the 1st Ward in Salt Lake City for 6 years (1858) they moved to Payson where 2 more children were born to them: David Toomer and Fannie Jane Young Clyde Wall. The family resided here in a dugout. In 1862, they moved to the lake bottoms near Provo, no doubt so Jonathan could be near the water where he could have more opportunity for work as a sail maker. Again they endured many hardships and privations.

Once, when Sarah had nothing else, she cut the canvas off the sail that Jonathan had made and fashioned clothes for her children. She colored the canvas with dye from sagebrush. The children later commented that the canvas was so stiff that they had a hard time sitting down, but they were grateful for anything to wear.

In 1864, the family moved to Heber City, where they lived in one end of a one roomed log schoolhouse, this is where the Jessie Witt home was late built. (The corner of 2nd West and 3rd North).

They later moved into a small one room log house with a dirt roof. It had a cloth smeared with grease as a covering for a small opening which served as a window.

Again they endured many hardships there also. At one time, they had nothing to eat but some bran. Sarah tried to make it into bread, but it was very unpalatable.

Jonathan was given the job of tending the cow herd for the settlement and this helped them.

Jonathan also made cheese and sold it in Provo. On one trip he and his son, Brigham, had an open wagon box of cheese going through Provo Canyon. The road was rough and some of the cheese bounced out and rolled down the embankment. Brigham ran down to get the cheese and expected it to be broken and ruined. But he found the cheese was totally intact, firm, and not damaged in any way.

In October 1865, Sarah traveled to visit a sister who had just emigrated from England. While she was away, Jonathan died. Brigham J. said that he went to bed and died in his sleep. Jonathan was buried in a snowstorm and before Sarah could get back from Salt Lake. He was one of the first two people to be buried in Heber Cemetery. The following spring, his grave could not be located and is unknown today.

After having a joyful reunion with her sister, Sarah returned in the middle of the night to find once again, she was left alone to face life as best she could and support 5 children. This must have indeed been a sad time for Sarah and a very challenging one. The family had been very poor before, but now their circumstances became even worse.

Out of the many heart tugging struggles of Jonathan and Sarah, also comes one of the great legacies that they left for their posterity. This was their monumental faith and courage. In the face of personal privation and suffering, they never gave up or looked back. They were steadfast and went forward in the cause of the gospel.

--Written by Marva Y. Watson- Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Wasatch Co.

Joseph Taylor and Jane Lake

Great-Great-Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Joseph Taylor (1825-1900)

& Mary Moore, Jane Lake, Hannah Mariah Harris

& Caroline Mattson or Madson

In their pioneer home in Kentucky, William and Elizabeth Patrick Taylor became the parents of their eighth child, Joseph, on 4 June 1825. Although some records indicate he was born in Bowling Green, the Taylors actually lived approximately 12 miles north of that town and just west of Richardsville near the Barren River.

Joining in the westward migration that was characteristic of those times, the William Taylor family, including their eleven children, moved to Monroe County, Missouri, in 1831 along with other relatives. The family obtained an 80-acre land grant on 3 Nov. 1831 in Jefferson Township along the Ivy Branch of the South Fork of Salt River. William said that Missouri was the most beautiful and fertile land he had ever seen when his family moved there.

Apparently the early missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints met the Taylor family in 1832. Joseph's father, a man who was very conversant with the Bible, believed himself to be the first person baptized into the Church in the state of Missouri. The Taylors lived in an area called the Salt River Branch. (The above facts appear to disprove an earlier account of William Taylor's miraculous conversion as written by Leila Marler Hoggan in Fred. G. Taylor's Book of Remembrance.)

Ever loyal to the Gospel from the time of their baptism, the Taylors moved successively to Ray County, Missouri, then to Long Creek in Clay County eight miles south of Far West, then lived briefly in Far West.

The Taylor children early learned to revere the authorities of the Church. Their mother Elizabeth often sent the children to take food to the Prophet Joseph Smith while he and some associates were incarcerated in the Liberty Jail.

When Governor Boggs issued the infamous "Order of Extermination", the Taylors loaded what belongings they could take with them and moved to Illinois. William Taylor, weakened by persecution and exposure, became ill during the journey and passed away soon after arriving in Illinois, on 9 September 1839.

Although four of the older Taylor children had married prior to their father's death, ten children remained with their mother and worked to assist in providing the material necessities of life. In Nauvoo, Joseph and his younger brother Green worked for John Gilmore for 25 cents per day. They took their pay in corn to help their family. Gilmore was very bitter toward the Mormons. He made the statement that if his huge wooden pump were a cannon loaded with shells, and if all the Mormon boys were lined up in a row, he would shoot them all.

In Nauvoo Joseph met Mary Moore and married her on 24 March 1844. They were later endowed in the Nauvoo Temple 24 January 1846. Their first child, Clarissa Jane, was born 4 July 1845 in Nauvoo.

Knowing the Prophet Joseph Smith personally for most of his youthful years, Joseph Taylor had many wonderful experiences which he loved to relate to his children and grandchildren in later years ( see Attachment I ). He became a member of the Nauvoo Legion and often served as a bodyguard of the Prophet Joseph (see Attachment 2).

Joseph Taylor shared in those bitter days of persecution and hardship that followed the Saints wherever they moved. One can only imagine the effect of the heartbreaking news that came to Nauvoo following the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. And the next two years must have been a nightmare of hatred, prejudice and violence before the Saints fled Nauvoo, crossing the Mississippi River on 8 February 1846. The earliest saints to leave had to use a ferry. Then the weather turned bitterly cold and the river froze over so solidly that the wagons (including the Taylors') crossed the river on the ice.

The Taylors migrated westward with the other saints across the harsh lands of Iowa until they reached Council Bluffs in June 1846. On June 26th Captain James Allen of the United States Army arrived at Mount Pisgah with three dragoons. The camp was momentarily in turmoil as the first cry went out, "The United States troops are upon us!" The excitement stemmed from Governor Ford's false report before the saints left Nauvoo, in which he stated that the federal government intended to prevent their move west, using U. S. troops if necessary.

In January 1846 Brigham Young had sent Elder Jesse C. Little on a special mission to Washington, D. C., to confer with President Polk about the possibility of helping the saints in their migration to the West. During a three-hour conference in June the president mentioned the possibility of assisting them by enlisting a thousand men, arming and equipping them and sending them to California to defend the country (the war with Mexico had already begun). While further development of these plans had taken place, Brigham Young had received no communication indicating that the plan was being considered. When Captain James Allen of the U. S. Army arrived at Mount Pisgah with three dragoons, he announced that he had come to enlist 500 able-bodied men to assist in the war with Mexico, Brigham's first thoughts dwelt on the difficulty of giving up 500 young men when they were needed so badly in the pioneers' migration. However, he was quick to comprehend the positive benefits of responding to the call. He took Heber C. Kimball, Parley C. Pratt, Orson Pratt and others with him from camp to camp to persuade the saints to respond to the call.

Joseph Taylor and his brother Pleasant Green both enlisted in the Battalion on a Sunday morning. Next day P. G. was stricken with a fever, so he was unable to depart with the other soldiers. (When Joseph enlisted, his papers indicated he was 6' in height, had black hair and dark complexion and blue eyes.)

Captain Allen's recruiting of the men to serve in the war with Mexico proved to be a blessing to the saints despite the fact that it temporarily delayed the departure of the saints for the West. The financial support provided from the soldiers' pay enabled the saints to purchase supplies that were sorely needed.

On 20 July 1846 the Battalion, under Allen's command, started its march southward to Fort Leavenworth, Joseph Taylor having been assigned as a private in Company A. The story of their march across the southwest, said to be the longest march of infantry on record, was a continuous experience of trial and hardship. Trudging through blistering sands; often wanting for food, water and clothing; attacked by herds of wild bulls; suffering from both cold and heat along the way; and cutting roads through solid rock in places all added to the misery of the experience.

Joseph served as a teamster from October 1846 through March 1847. Arriving at the end of their journey in San Diego on 29 January 1847, the Battalion was congratulated by Col. P. St. George Cooke for their splendid achievement in the face of such difficulties, and they were commended for the fine caliber of men in that group.

Upon arriving in San Diego, the members of the Mormon Battalion found themselves in the midst of a political dilemma. Lt. Col. John C. Fremont, who had been acting as temporary governor of California, refused to accept Brigadier General Stephen W. Kearney as the new Washington appointed governor and continued to subvert the efforts of this governor. Finally, Gen. Kearney decided to initiate court-martial proceedings against Fremont. To do so, he would have to take Fremont to Missouri for trial. He ordered fifteen men of the Mormon Battalion to escort him and his detachment as far as Fort Leavenworth (in present-day Kansas). Joseph Taylor was reassigned by the 10th Military Department Order No. 12 to be a bodyguard for General Kearney (Pension file).

Riding horses and mules. General Kearney's detachment traveled north from Monterey to Sutter's Fort, then proceeded to Truckee Lake (later named Donner Lake) near the Nevada border. There they found the site where the George and Jacob Donner Company had been trapped by the winter snows a few months earlier. Although survivors had spread news about the disaster, no one had been able to reach the site to bury the dead until this military detachment arrived about June 1847.

Clearing out an old cellar, Joseph and the other men buried the bones of 36 people who had perished from starvation and exposure. One of the escorts, Matthew Caldwell, described the awful sight as follows: "There was not a whole person that we could find." Because of the threat of starvation, members of the Donner party had resorted to cannibalism.

The last two hundred miles on foot were "very hard on us, ' wrote Matthew Caldwell.

After discovering an ambushed guard of soldiers, one group of Mormon Battalion soldiers fired their cannon every night to ward off Indians.

The detachment traveled to Fort Hall, then Fort Bridger and Fort Laramie, where they joyfully met an LDS pioneer company on their way to the Salt Lake Valley. Joseph was discharged when they reached Fort Leavenworth (Joseph's journal). Along with some of the other men, Joseph continued eastward to Iowa, to rejoin loved ones who awaited their return.

When Joseph reached his family in Iowa, he found that his cattle had been scattered, so it took him some time to get them together and resume preparations for their westward trek.

During Joseph's absence his wife Mary had given birth to their second daughter, Mary Melvina, on 22 February 1847 in Council Bluffs. Their first son, Joseph Alien, was born there 3 August 1848. A second son, William Andrew, arrived on 15 May 1850 at Kanesville, where emigrants had earlier been advised by the leaders to gather for their westward journey.

After the harvest was over in the fall of 1849, Joseph and his brother Pleasant Green and their families traveled south to Holt County, Missouri, to obtain work. They still needed additional supplies to begin their journey the next spring.

The Taylors, Lakes and Marlers started for the West in the latter part of May 1850 with James Lake as their captain and Joseph Taylor as a lieutenant. The journey was a difficult one, filled with privation and even frightening encounters with savage Indians. How grateful they must have been when they passed through Parley's Canyon and entered the Salt Lake Valley on 5 September 1850.

After staying in Salt Lake City a short time, Joseph moved his family northward to East Kaysville, where he and his brother Pleasant Green took up some land. The property was located just south of the present intersection of Mountain Road and Green Road in Fruit Heights. There the family was enumerated in the 1850 Federal Census (actually April 1851) in Kay's Ward.

Joseph later moved his family to the central part of Kaysville near where the main square is now located. He began building an adobe house for his family; his wife Mary carried the mortar for him. While working one day, she became very ill, went into convulsions and died 4 April 1852 at the birth of their fifth child, a stillborn son. Joseph constructed a crude coffin from his wagon box, placed the mother and babe in it and buried them in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

Needing someone to help care for his four small children, Joseph married three months later (12 July 1852) Jane Lake Ordway, a young widow with one son, Stephen. They resided in Kaysville until after the birth of their son Moroni on 1 May 1853. Then, because Jane wanted to be closer to her parents, who lived in Harrisville, she and Joseph moved their family to Ogden.

Joseph Taylor's journal (p.4) indicates that they moved to Weber County in 1854. His father-in-law, James Lake, and other settlers from the Harrisville area had moved their homes into Bingham's Fort in 1853 for protection from the Indians. This fort was situated at the north end of Ogden at 2nd Street and Childs Avenue. Joseph and his family had a home at the fort, where their second child, Esther, was born 3 April 1855. The residents of the fort remained there until 1856, the same year in which Joseph had been elected constable at the fort.

Ed. Note: Bingham's Fort enclosed an area of 40 acres. The walls were built of rocks and mud. Each family had an assigned portion of the wall to build. This wall was erected about four rods from the houses, with corrals taking up the space between the houses and the wall. Thomas Richardson, a pioneer boy who lived in Bingham's Fort tells how the wall was constructed. "The walls were made of mud. We did not have lumber to put up to hold the mud, so we placed upright poles, tapering from about eight feet at the bottom to about three feet at the top. We set stakes between the poles and wove willows in like a willow fence, then filled the space with mud. We made a ditch nearby to run water down to wet the mud. When wet, we threw it in with shovels, spades or anything we had. We built the willow forms as the wall went up. It (the wall) was about twelve feet high. "106 (p. 87) Wilford Woodruff reported in December of 1854 as he toured the northern settlements that there were 753 people living in Bingham's Fort.

Early land records in Ogden do not indicate when or how Joseph obtained title to Lot 4 in Block 30, Plat A in Ogden City (located on 24th street just east of Adams Avenue on property now used for the rectory of St. Joseph's Catholic Church. Because the Taylors had a log cabin and farm animals on the property, it most likely served as their residence when the next two children were born in Ogden. Emma Jane arrived 26 January 1857 and Lydia Ann on 22 October 1858.

A rather significant event in the life of Joseph Taylor occurred as a result of efforts by President Brigham Young in the 1850's to secure a general consecration to the Church of properties held by the Saints. This effort to revive the Law of Consecration and Stewardship established under Joseph Smith was the subject of a public announcement in General Conference in April 1854. Next year a general epistle to the Church stated that the consecrations of the Saints had been delayed for a time to obtain a form for a deed which would be "legal in accordance with the laws of the Territory." Members of the Church began deeding their real and personal property to Brigham young as Trustee-in-Trust for the Church. Joseph Taylor completed such a deed on 14 July 1857 along with a number of the other Saints in the Ogden area. The fact that only one-half of the Saints made such deeds speaks well for the obedience of Joseph and Jane Taylor. (See Attachment #3, a copy of the deed.) Although the property actually remained in the possession of the Taylors (possibly because the idea was not more generally accepted throughout the Church), it does demonstrate the willingness of the Taylors to dedicate their all to the Church.

Another event in Church history also affected the life of Joseph Taylor. In a conference held in Salt Lake City 28-29 August 1852, the doctrine of plural marriage was first publicly announced. Sometime near the end of 1854 Joseph married another wife, Hannah Mariah Harris, by whom nine children were born. Joseph was sealed to Jane Lake and Hannah Mariah Harris in the Endowment House on 7 January 1865. Joseph was later married to a fourth wife, Caroline Mattson or Madson (date unknown). This last wife, a Swedish convert, had been sealed 22 June 1882 to Arne Christiansen Grue; she had no children by Joseph Taylor.

In 1857 a combination of unfortunate circumstances arose which culminated in hostilities referred to as the Utah War. To better understand how Joseph Taylor and other members of the Nauvoo Legion became directly involved in this conflict, consider the following review of conditions leading up to the war.

By 1857 the Latter-day Saints, literally ousted over a decade earlier from the existing borders of the United States, had erected a powerful and cohesive commonwealth in the West. By their industry their territory had become one of the largest and most promising ones, submitting yearly applications for statehood. Brigham Young was Utah Territorial governor by governmental appointment as well as by Mormon desire. Being a rather "unorthodox" type of Christianity which had begun to practice plural marriage, the Church in Utah became a subject of very strange tales around the country. Religious leaders and editors in the East found ample opportunity to publicly denounce the "Mormon Menace."

The Latter-day Saints, interestingly, flew the United States flag in the West after they had been expelled from Illinois. In February 1849 after the government had failed to provide any form of governmental control over the vast area ceded to it from Mexico, a convention was called by the Mormons to form a civil government. The resulting constitution for a provisional state government affirmed complete religious freedom for all sects. A request for admittance to the Union of the State of Deseret was prepared and submitted. Apparently expecting a denial of their statehood request, a request for territorial government was personally carried to Philadelphia, where Thomas L. Kane, loyal friend of the Mormons, was interviewed regarding the matter. He advised against a territorial government, which would possibly result in corrupt men from Washington coming to the territory and causing problems. Though they made no further effort to obtain a territorial government. Congress refused the request for statehood and instead created the Territory of Utah. Wishes of the Mormons as to name, geographical area and self-government were utterly ignored.

Territorial appointees sent from Washington were offended by Mormon practice of plural marriage and by a Pioneer Day oration by Daniel H. Wells in which he took the government to task for demanding the Mormon Battalion to serve in the face of previous injustices to the Saints. He also made uncomplimentary remarks about President Zachary Taylor. Approximately six weeks later, Associate Justice Perry E. Brocchus, an appointee from Washington, requested permission to speak in the Mormon conference, where he objected to portions of the Wells oration. During his speech he directed some remarks to the ladies, urging them strongly "to become virtuous." The latter inference caused an immediate uproar. Brigham Young rose at once to defend his flock.

Misunderstandings and less-than-delicate handling of dealings between the "Gentile" government officials and LDS leaders led to bitter feelings. One after another of the federal appointees returned to the East with terrible accusations against the Mormons and their leaders. While some friends of the Mormons in the East endeavored to assure others of the falsehood in those accusations, it seemed that most people preferred to believe the worst about the Mormons. Judge William W. Drummond, making a fast exit from Utah Territory, sent his resignation letter to the United States Attorney-General, contended that troops were necessary to enforce any laws made by the government at Washington and presented by its appointees in the Territory of Utah.

First steps in forming a military expedition to Utah were taken 27 May 1857 in general orders of the War Department for the "gathering of a body of troops at Fort Leavenworth, to march to Utah as soon as assembled." Since the plan was conducted in complete secrecy, it was some time before knowledge of the expedition reached the Latter-day Saints. Oddly, news came to Brigham Young while the Saints were celebrating in Big Cottonwood Canyon on July 24th, the anniversary of their arrival in the Valley.

On 1 August 1857 Lieutenant General Daniel H. Wells of the Nauvoo Legion (Utah's militia) issued official orders. The people of Utah were reminded that they had been supportive of the Constitution and laws of the parent government, but that when anarchy and mobocratic tyranny usurps the power of rulers, Utah citizens still have the inalienable right to defend themselves against all aggression upon their constitutional privileges. Resistance was justified by the indelible memory of previous year of persecution and mob violence in Missouri and Illinois.

Utah military forces were on the move as early as 15 August 1857. One observation corps was sent east, another sent to Fort Hall and another to Bear River to watch those possible entrances to the Valley. The eastern expedition intercepted a large government supply train near Fort Bridger before the end of August. They learned that Col. Albert Sidney Johnston had then been put in command of government forces and from "soldier talk" they learned what the army intended doing to the "God damned Mormons" once they reached the Salt Lake Valley. How tragic that the Mormons were not informed that the purpose of the incoming army was to be an occupation force! It was just assumed that the army intended to fight its way into Utah.

When Captain Stewart Van Vliet arrived in Salt Lake City with an advance expedition to locate a suitable base camp and arrange for purchase of food, lumber and supplies, he was not well enough informed of the army's plans to explain this to Brigham Young. Pres. Young informed him that the Saints would not sell him anything, and if he planned a base camp, they would have to fight for it. Also, if the invading army won their fight, they would find a Utah as devoid of life and habitation as the Mormons themselves had found it. As Van Vliet returned eastward and met other advance units of the American Army, he warned them not to attempt a forced passage into Utah.

The day after Van Vliet left Salt Lake City, Brigham Young declared martial law. Twelve hundred and fifty men of the territorial "Nauvoo Legion" were immediately ordered to Echo Canyon. Instructions to the militia, signed by Daniel H. Wells, indicated they were to annoy the incoming army in every possible way.

". . .Use every exertion to stampede their animals and set fire to their trains. Burn the whole country before them, and on their flanks. Keep them from sleeping by night surprises; blockade the road by falling trees or destroying the river fords where you can. Watch for opportunities to set fire to the grass before them that can be burned. Keep your men concealed as much as possible, and guard against surprise. Keep scouts out at all times, and communications open with Colonel Burton, Major McAllister and 0. P. Rockwell, who are operating in the same way. Keep me advised daily of your movements and every step the troops take, and in which direction.

"God bless you, and give you success.

Your brother in Christ,

Daniel H. Wells".

A postscript emphasized that they were to take no life, but destroy the government trains.

Leaving his home in Ogden, Joseph Taylor, appointed a major in the 5th Battalion of the Mormon militia, took his command of 50 men and marched toward Echo Canyon on 18 September 1857. This group traveled east from Echo Canyon to the emigrant trail until they met General Wells on his way to reconnoiter the approaching U.S. army. At this time Joseph received a copy of the message noted above, which General Wells had issued 4 October.

Joseph Taylor and his men proceeded at once to Fort Bridger, then surveyed the area eastward near Black Fork, Ham's Fork and the Green River. Leaving most of his group behind, Joseph took a few men, including his adjutant William R. R. Stowell and Wells Chase into an area known to have been occupied by army scouts. Some men thought it unwise to follow the army so closely as they chose the route to travel.

After camping on Ham's Fork where the soldiers had camped two days earlier, Joseph and his comrades on 16 October followed the soldiers' trail until they saw smoke in the distance. Thinking the smoke came from comrades' camps, the small group proceeded in that direction, soon noticing a small group of men about a mile away. As the men proceeded, they were suddenly rushed by men on horseback. Part of the group escaped, but Joseph, drawing his pistol to defend himself, was captured with his adjutant as prisoners of war.

Searching the prisoners, their captors discovered the letter that had been given Joseph by General Wells. Apparently this was the first official understanding the U.S. Army had of the intentions of the Mormons; it affected all army decisions regarding its future operations.

Kept apart the first night, the two prisoners gave differing information next day during interrogation. Joseph stated that between 20,000 and 25,000 "warriors" were awaiting the U.S. Army. Stowell raised the number by 5,000. Hearing the obviously exaggerated numbers apparently astonished Colonel Alexander, for one of the prisoners described his reaction thus: (He) "stood aghast, while I could have hung my hat on his eyes."

In captivity these two men had reason to fear for their lives. Not only were they warned that if they tried to escape, they would be shot, but more than once they claimed that an attempt was made to poison them. Once when their captors put poison in the soup, Joseph warned his hungry companion, "Don't drink; it's poisoned." Stowell just tasted it, but became deathly ill. Another time the army tried to smother the prisoners by putting them in a tent and building a smoking fire by the tent. The captives escaped being smothered by hollowing out some small holes in the ground large enough for the nose and mouth, then holding their hands closely about their faces as they breathed in the holes.

As the army that held them captive approached Fort Bridger, the prisoners heard threats that they would be hanged. They hoped that the army's commander. Colonel Albert Sydney Johnston, would arrive with the rest of his troops and prevent the threat from being carried out.

Prompted by a dream, Joseph planned to escape. Delayed once by Stowell's illness, he decided to make a break the first week in November. Feigning illness, he removed his coat and boots to make it appear that he had no intention of leaving. Then as a herd of cattle passed near the camp, distracting the guards, Joseph took his boots in hand and raced away in his stocking feet. Stowell said that Joseph was not missed for about fifteen minutes. A detail of soldiers was sent after the escapee. Returning a little later, they reported that they had found and shot the escapee.

Joseph ran about three-quarters of a mile in his stocking feet before the stockings wore out. Seeking refuge on the side of a mountain, he knelt and gave thanks.

As a storm set in, Joseph, hungry and under clothed, forded both Smith's and Black's Fork, his clothes freezing to his body. The next day he found a coat in a bundle, which contained stockings in the pocket. Then, exhausted from exposure and hunger, he found six of his comrades about four miles from Fort Bridger. At the time the Saints were in the process of abandoning this fort. After Joseph was fed and provided with a horse, he traveled westward until he met General Wells on the Muddy.

Joseph had overheard sufficient conversation while a captive that he was able to provide valuable information to General Wells about the immediate plans of the U.S. Army. Still very weak from his experience, Joseph continued on to Salt Lake City, where he reported to President Young on November 9th. After he gave his report, he was instructed to get a gun and return to the mountains. By the time he returned to the canyons, the immediate threat of a winter invasion by the U.S. Army was gone. Joseph was released and allowed to return to his family.

The Mormons' burning of Fort Bridger and Fort Supply, applying the torch to more than one government supply train, burning the grass, and other tactics forced the federal army to set up winter camp at Ham's Fork on the Green River. It was most difficult for the men to subsist on short rations and for the animals to live on the little forage available. Several offers of food from Brigham Young brought churlish rejection.

With Johnston's Army hopelessly trapped for the winter, the Utah militia withdrew to Salt Lake Valley, maintaining military units only at the canyons leading to their valley.

The complexion of the war changed when Thomas L. Kane made his appearance as a messenger from President Buchanan. Kane used his personal influence to help Brigham Young avert otherwise certain bloodshed during the ensuing year. Kane persuaded President Young to permit U.S. appointed Governor Alfred Cummings to enter the valley and assume his duties. Also, President Young then announced a change in strategy. The Saints were directed to leave their homes and move south, taking their supplies with them and leaving their homes with kindling material ready so if the invading army should molest one person or dwelling, every building would be torched.

Weber County residents were instructed to move to the area around Provo. The move was underway in April 1858; the people stayed in Utah County for approximately three months before returning to their homes. Fortunately, Johnston's Army gave no reason for applying the torch when they marched through silent Salt Lake City on 26 Jun 1858 and moved on to Cedar Valley to set up camp.

With the Utah War concluded, Joseph and his family resumed their activities in Weber County, probably moving at this time from Ogden to the western part of Harrisville, later called Farr West. Homesteading the area, he resided in this location for the rest of his life.

Originally on 31 May 1856 a charter had been granted to the Western Irrigation Company to take water out of the Ogden River for irrigation in the Harrisville area. After colonists returned to their homes following the Johnston's Army episode, a new charter was issued. Reportedly, Joseph Taylor and two other men built a ditch to bring irrigation water to their farms. He was water master for many years on the canal that was later constructed.

Joseph and his family milked as many as forty head of cows and sold the milk, cream, butter and cheese to help provide for their sustenance.

Joseph was active in church and community affairs. In December 1866 he became 1st Counselor to President Daniel B. Rawson in the Eighth District (a school precinct). He later succeeded Daniel B. Rawson (then referred to as a "trustee"). In 1883 he was ordained a Patriarch for Weber Stake, a position he held until his death (no blessings are recorded for this period of time).

The Utah State Archives contains a copy of Joseph's resignation as Major of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Regiment of the Weber Military District. The letter, written by Gen. Chauncey W. West, indicates that Joseph felt he was unable to perform the duties of the office longer because of weak eyes. He attributed his condition to the attempt by Sergeant Newman of Johnston's Army to smoke him and William Stowell to death while they were prisoners of war. (Editor's note: Somewhere I have read that this Sergeant was court-martialed after the war.)

Joseph Taylor had a total of 25 children by his first three wives; he had no issue from the fourth.

After an illness of three weeks, Joseph passed away in Farr West 11 August 1900. Bishop James Martin conducted his funeral in Farr West. Five members of the Mormon Battalion were present at the service, namely: James Owen, John Thompson, Lorin dark, Alexander Brown and Jesse Brown. Bishop James Martin, George Middleton, William Fife and Thomas Doxey spoke of his faithfulness in doing God's work.

Some of Joseph's grandchildren have related a few incidents which reveal some interesting aspects of his character. A short time before his death, as Joseph was driving his team and wagon into Ogden, he kept looking around at the scenery. One of his family observed the unusual behavior and inquired why he was doing it. He replied that this was the last time he would be going to town, and he was "just looking around."

During the latter part of his life, Joseph presented rather an amusing sight as he attended church on Sunday afternoons in the old Farr West Meetinghouse. He tied a knot in each corner of a red bandana and put it over his head to keep the flies from bothering his bald head. Seated with the dignitaries on the rostrum, he made quite an impression on those in attendance.

Joseph displayed a fiery temper at times; too, he exhibited a rather stern disposition in some ways. When he hired young men to work for him, he gave strict instructions as to the way he wanted things done. for example, in pitching the hay onto the stack, he expected it to be thrown into the middle of the stack, and he would accept no other way of doing it. His hired help preferred to follow his directions rather than incur his displeasure.

He also had a kind, loving way about him. Neighbors used to call on him to come into their homes in case of illness. In March 1892 his son William Andrew became critically ill and required emergency surgery. Shortly before William passed away, his father was seated in the bedroom near the bed. As Joseph stirred from his rocking chair, William roused and begged, "Father, don't leave." Joseph spoke, his voice kind and filled with love, "I won't. Son." After William passed away, Joseph was mindful of his son's widow and her family, occasionally dropping in to leave them a box of groceries.

We, his descendants, could do well to follow in his footsteps in devotion to the Lord and service to our fellow man!

REFERENCE LIST

1. Barker, Elwood. Pioneer Forts in Oqden, Utah 1848-1855.

2. Berrett, William Edwin. 1940. The Restored Church, 2d ed. Salt Lake: Deseret News Press.

3. Interview with Riley E. Taylor, a grandson of Joseph, about 1962.

4. Interview with a neighbor, Jethro D. Brown, about 1958.

5. Porter, Larry C., Aug. 1989. "From California to Council Bluffs", Ensign, pp.42-45.

6. Taylor, Brian L., 1980. History of Farr West. p.2.

7. Taylor, Joseph, Journal, 1857. (LDS Historian's Office, MS 1469)

8. Tyler, Sgt. Daniel. 1888. A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War, 1964 ed. Chicago: The Rio Grande Press, Inc.

9. U. S. 1850 Census, Davis County, Utah; SLFHL film #025,540.

10. Warner, Jesse L. 1973. Coneto Creek Taylors. Provo: J. Grant Stevenson, p. 14.

11. Weber County Court Records. Ogden FHC Microfilm #l. p. 134.

Source: "Recollections of the Prophet Joseph Smith,. The Juvenile instructor 27 (1892):202, 203

[Elder Joseph Taylor, Sen., of Harrisville, Weber- County, Utah, was born June 4th, 1825, in Warren County, Kentucky. He was baptized into the Church in Ray County, Missouri, in the summer of 1835. In Zion's Camp, on the Salt River, Monroe County, Missouri, in June, 1834, he first met the Prophet Joseph Smith. Of him he thus testifies:]

When I first saw him I believed he was one of God's noblemen; and as I grew older I became thoroughly convinced that he was a true Prophet of God.

[An incident he relates of the Prophet is the following, given in his ovm words:]

In February, 1841, my brother John was in jail, in the hands of the Missourians, about two hundred miles from home, and my dear widowed mother was very much concerned about his safety. On one occasion she was crying and fretting about him.

When I saw her in trouble, I asked what was the matter.

She replied that she was afraid the Missourians would kill her dear son John, and she would never see him again.

I was strongly impressed to have her let me go to the Prophet Joseph and ask him if my brother would ever come home. She was very desirous for me to do so. As the Prophet Joseph only lived about three miles from our house I got on a horse and rode to his home. When I reached there. Sister Emma Smith said that he and his son Joseph had just gone up the river near Nauvoo to shoot ducks. I rode up to them. When the Prophet inquired about my mother's welfare, I told him that Mother was very sad and downhearted about the safety of her son John; and she had requested me to come and ask him as a man of God whether my brother would ever return home.

He rested on his gun, and bent his head for a moment as if in prayer or deep reflection. Then, with a beautiful beaming countenance, full of smiles, he looked up and told me to go and tell Mother that her son would return in safety inside of a week. True to the word of the Prophet, he got home in six days after this occurrence. This was a great comfort to Mother for her son had been absent about six months.

Ogden City Weber Co. July 12, 1865

A Blessing, By James Lake Patriarch upon the head of Joseph Taylor, son of William and Elizabeth Taylor, born Warren County, state of Kentucky June 4, 1825.

Joseph my beloved son, in the name of Jesus Christ I place my hands upon your head to seal upon you a father's blessing even all the blessings of Abraham through the loins of Ephraim. The hand of the Lord has been over you for good all the days of your life through angels seen and unseen his hand has been over you. In as much as you have embraced the Gospel in the days of your youth the Lord is well pleased with the honesty and integrity of your heart. In as much as you have gathered with the saints to the valleys of the mountains that you might be instructed more perfectly in the principles of truth and righteousness. The blessings of the Lord shall attend you and you shall be blessed in your basket and store. In as much as you are faithful the spirit of the Lord shall be in and about your habitation. In as much as you are faithful you shall have power to heal the sick, to cast out unclean spirits, and have faith to do a great and good work in the Kingdom of God. Your name shall be had in honorable remembrance in the church and Kingdom of God, and raise up a numerous posterity and you shall live till you are satisfied with life, even to a good old age, and your posterity shall be a crown to your gray hairs in your declining years and you shall be an instrument in the hands of God in instructing your fellow creatures. And when you have lived out your probation here you shall be gathered with the saints and have an inheritance with the sanctified in the Kingdom of God. These blessings I seal upon you by the authority of the Holy Priesthood vested in me.

Even so, Amen.

Short Biography of JANE LAKE ORDWAY TAYLOR 1830-1914

Jane was born in Canada, the fifth child of James and Philomela Lake. She was a fifth cousin to the Prophet Joseph Smith. In the Summer of 1832, missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to Ernestown carrying the message of the Restoration. Brigham Young's brothers, Phineas and Joseph, were among those who baptized the Lake family into the Church. Brigham Young and his brothers returned often to visit the Lake family and partake of their hospitality.

In 1833, Brigham Young returned to help move the Lake family across Lake Ontario and travel overland to Kirtland, Ohio. When moving westward became a necessity, the Lake family had such meager means for their large family that they were required to stop for a season to replenish their supplies in Scott County, Illinois.

After the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, the family moved into Nauvoo, Illinois. Here, Jane's father helped to build the Nauvoo Temple and the Nauvoo House. Jane was baptized in the Mississippi River in 1845. When they were driven out of Nauvoo by hateful mobs, the Lake family went first to Council Bluffs, Iowa and then to Florence, Nebraska. Jane's father was appointed Captain over a Company of 50, and the family began the journey westward in 1850.

While crossing the Plains, Jane became acquainted with Stephen Ordway, a fine young man who impressed the Lake family. He and Jane were married sometime during their journey West. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in September, 1850. They lived first in Ogden, then moved to Harrisville, Utah. Her husband was killed on April 29, 1851 while hauling logs for their first home. Their first child was born the next August.

In 1852, Jane married Joseph Taylor, a widower with four small children. At the age of twenty-two, Jane became the mother for five children under seven years of age. They moved to Ogden, Utah and then to Far West, Utah. Their pioneer life brought much heartache, for of the eleven children she and Joseph had only five grew to maturity. Two more children preceded her in death.

In 1868, the first Female Relief Society was organized in Harrisville, where the family attended Church. Jane's sister-in-law was sustained as President. She chose Jane as her first counselor. Jane and her husband, Joseph, were sealed in the Salt Lake City Endowment House on January 7, 1865. During the ensuing years she gave loving service to her growing family.

After her husband passed away, she moved to Fairview, Wyoming to live with a daughter. Jane passed away there in 1914. Jane had lived a faithful, exemplary life. In trials she was patient and cheerful. She always bore a very faithful testimony. Her monument was her family.

PIONEER: James Lake Co. Wagon Train

SPOUSE 1 - Stephen Ordway, married Summer 1850.

Ordway Children;

Stephen Ordway, Jr. 11 Aug 1851;

SPOUSE 2 – Joseph Taylor, married 1852.

Taylor Children;

Moroni 1 May 1853;

Esther 3 Apr 1855;

Emma Jane 26 Jan 1857;

Lydia Ann 22 Oct 1858;

James Bailey 4 Sep 1860;

Jeanette 13 Nov 1861;

Juliett 24 Sep 1862,

Mary Ellen 17 Jun 1864;

Elizabeth 23 Oct 1865;

Philomela 20 Sep 1868;

Amanda 6 Jan 1870.

Daniel Berry Rawson & Nancy Boss

Great-Great-Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Short Biography of Daniel Berry Rawson (1827-1892)

Daniel Berry Rawson Daniel B. Rawson was born Dec. 16, 1827, in Washington County, state of Indiana, and was a remnant of the old American stock as far back as the Mayflower.

In 1831 his parents joined the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and in 1832 moved to Jackson county, Missouri.

On account of the intolerance there manifested they were forced to leave their all and move to Lafayette county, the deceased and eldest sister traveling barefooted on frozen ground with bleeding feet. After living there a short time persecution again forced them to leave and move to Clay county.

When 8-years old he was baptized.

The next move of his family was in 1836 to Caldwell county. From there they moved to Quincy, Ill., where they remained till 1841 when they settled in Nauvoo.

In the year 1845, this brave son of America married Mariah Atchison.

Saga of the Mormon Battalion In 1846 he went west with the general church move and upon the arrival of his father-in-law, he settled in Council Bluffs. While here, fired with the patriotism of his ancestry, amidst the sound of the xxxx and beating of drums, he fell in line and leaving his beloved spouse, enlisted in his country's cause, in the war with Mexico.

After the discharge of the battallion he worked for Capt. Sutter. It was at this time the first gold fever broke out, while digging a mill race for the captain, in the spring of 1848.

In the spring of that year he commenced his return trip. After many vicissitudes and perils he landed in Salt Lake City, June 1, 1848.

In August in company with others of the battalion, he started east to meet his dear ones left behind. On the way they met President Brigham Young on his return trip to Utah and he kindly furnished them with several teams, making their travel more pleasant. After an absence of two years and four months he arrived at Council Bluffs. To his great sorrow he found his wife had broken her marriage vow and made his home with his beloved parents.

He married Nancy Boss, 26 Nov 1849, Salt Lake City, Utah

4^th-Great Grandparents and Beyond

Welcome Chapman & Susan Amelia Risley

Compiled by a Granddaughter Jessie Chapman Mickelson

Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Welcome Chapman was born July 24, 1805 in Reedsboro^a, Bennington Co., Vermont. He was a son of Benjamin and Sybil Amidon Chapman. His father had helped settle the city of Reedsboro, and it was here Welcome spent his boyhood days.

He was the oldest son and second child in a family of nine children. As a child he had very poor health, and as a result of this he was unable to attend school regularly. But his limited schooling did not stop him from learning the fundamental principles of school such as; reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic. It was said that he was a good reader and could spell as well as any of his class mates.

As a young man he wasn’t able to do any hard labor, so when he was offered work as a cook on a fishing boat, he took the job. He would spend six months at a time on the ocean cooking for these men and during this time he regained his health becoming well and strong. After this he had very little sickness.

While still a young man Welcome heard rumors and stories of a young man who lived in western New York, who claimed to have visions, revelations, and a golden book, which had been given to him by the angel Moroni, with instructions to translate it into the English language. This young man also claimed that he had seen God and His son Jesus Christ, and that through visions, revelations and inspiration he had been instructed to organize this new church which he, Joseph Smith had set up with prophets and apostles, as well as many other things concerning the organization of a new religion. This new church was called The Church of Jesus Christ of latter‑day Saints.

Welcome became very interested, and though he was ridiculed by his brothers and his friends, he continued to investigate and learn what he could about this new religion. Many times he discussed his interest with his parents and other members of the family, they always tried to discourage him as to the truthfulness of the reports and rumors that were being circulated. After much consideration of the matter he decided that he would go and find out for himself whether these things were true. So against the counsel of his parents and other members of his family he saddled up his horse and rode 200 miles to New York.

Welcome was successful in locating the Prophet Joseph Smith, he found the prophet to be about his own age having been born the same year. Welcome now received a complete account of the prophets visitations, and how he had obtained the records, and the translation of them, as well as a thorough account of the many other manifestations that the prophet had received. He was very much impressed with the prophet and his wonderful experiences. He stayed two weeks at the home of the prophet learning all he could of the gospel, at the end of the two weeks he was convinced that this was the true religion, and so he was baptized a member before leaving for his home in Vermont.

Upon his return home he taught the Gospel to his family, and as a result of this they too were converted to Mormonism. Not long after this he left Vermont and went back to New York to join the Saints there.

At the age of 26 years he married Susan Amelia Risley of Madison County, New York^b. She joined the Church and was baptized a member in 1831. As far as we know none of her people joined the Church.

Welcome and Amelia became the parents of ten children. It was after the birth of their second child that they moved to Palmyra, New York to be with the saints there. They traveled with a team and wagon so they could take only the things that were most necessary; a few implements, some furniture, household goods and a meager supply of bedding.

As a result of Welcome’s activities in the church and the esteem the prophet had for him, he was made a member of the body guard who kept a constant watch of the prophet. He held this guard position until the death of the prophet, which took place on the 27^th of June, 1844 in the Carthage Jail in Nauvoo, Illinois.

On July 2, 1843 a company of men of which Welcome was a member was asked to meet a boat on which the prophet was traveling. They were told that regardless of all hazards they were to rescue the Prophet Joseph Smith and bring him safely back to Nauvoo.

One time when Welcome was away on guard duty, a mob came to their house and told his wife Amelia, that if there was anything in the house that she wanted to get it out because they were going to burn the house down. With a sad heart she got everything out while the mob looked on, the cupboard was so heavy she could not move it alone, so one of the men helped her get it out. Then while she and the children watched those men burned the house to the ground.

Welcome and Amelia passed through many of the trials, persecutions and hardships that fell upon the church, and its members at that time, and when the Saints went to Kirtland, Ohio, the Chapman family went with them. While in Kirtland he cut stone for the Kirtland Temple, later on when the saints were building the Nauvoo temple he cut stone for that temple also.

The four corner stones of the Nauvoo temple were laid April 6, 1841, just eleven years after the church was organized, and five years later on the first day of May 1846 the temple was officially dedicated by Orson Hyde and Wilford Woodruff. During the month of December 1845 and the early months of 1846 many of the Saints received their blessings and endowments in this temple. Welcome was one of them, he received his endowments on the 30^th of December, 1845.

The saints were driven out of Nauvoo in the early spring of 1846, and they began their long trek westward. When they left Nauvoo the Chapman wagon was overloaded so rather than leave her feather bed behind, Amelia carried it across the Mississippi river. In those days a feather bed was considered a luxury, but she felt she must take it with her.

This family spent the first [next] winter at Winter Quarters which was the next gathering place of the saints. During the winter months Welcome built a wagon so they would be ready to continue their journey across the plains.

Brigham Young and several of the other church leaders came back to Winter Quarters in the spring, and organized the people for the journey. Welcome and his family were ready to leave with this group. So with three oxen and a milk cow they were again on their way westward. These people were organized into several companies with a captain over each company. Welcome was appointed captain over the fourth company. It was in the late summer of 1848 that these people arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.

After their arrival in Salt Lake, Welcome made a living for his family by cutting stone. He also hauled wood from the mountains and took it to Fort Douglas where he would sell it.

Those first few years were hard years for the pioneers and there were times when they didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. To keep from starving, the people dug Sego and Thistle roots and cooked them, they also made glue soup, which was made by boiling raw hide, these were means of sustaining life until crops could be planted and raised, and more food was made available. These pioneers often went to bed hungry.

The following incidents is found in the book, “From Kirtland to Salt Lake City.” and was written by Lorenzo D. Young.

“One morning I met Brother Welcome Chapman with a basket of Cowslips. As I had been accustomed to these for early spring greens in my youth, to me at that time they seemed a great luxury. That they grew in this mountain regine [Sp? Region] surprised me. Only those who have longed for something palatable and refreshing can appreciate the feelings that caused me to exclaim with considerable enthusiasm, “Brother Chapman, where on earth did you get them?” He replied, “I have found a little spot up the canyon where they grow, and I go and get a basket of them each morning and it is enough to last us during the day.” “I ask him if the supply was sufficient to let me have some.” He thought so, and he gave me what he had with him. When cooked we enjoyed them very much. They were a change, a variety. Brother Chapman continued to furnish us a few greens, from which we realized much benefit. In these times faith was an important factor in our lives. Our prayers that the Lord would bless our food that it might strengthen us was not made up of idle words. It came from the heart, and in return the blessing was often realized. With meager fare we were able to accomplish much labor. Elder Young’s experience, with some variation was that of hundreds of the early colonizers of Salt Lake Valley. Strangers who now visit this country cannot properly sense its primitive bareness, and the privations endured from being a thousand miles from outside resources. The youth born in this valley today can never realize, without a similar experience, the toil and privation with which was laid the foundation for the comfort and luxury they enjoy.

It was on June 14, 1849 that Walker, the Utah Indian Chief from Sanpitch Valley, with 12 of his tribe, met in council at Salt Lake City with President Brigham Young and some of the other leading church officials. These Indians had come to request the Mormon leader to send colonists down to their land to make settlements, and to teach them to live as the white men lived, he said, “I do not care about the land, but I want the Mormons to go and settle it. Two months later Explorers were sent to the valley, and after visiting various localities they recommended the present site of Manti for the proposed Colony.

Having acted upon the report of these men President Young began to make the necessary arrangements for selecting the Colonists.

In October 1849 a company of men under the leadership of Issac Morley left Salt Lake to settle the Sanpete Valley, or the Sanpitch Valley as it was then called. We have no record of whether Welcome was with the first group of settlers, but he did move to Manti in 1849, where he and his family spent the next fifteen years.

On April 30, 1851 President Brigham Young and Brother Kimble came to Manti and organized the High Council there. On that day Welcome was ordained a High Priest, and was put in as one of the Twelve High Councilmen. In the year 1854 Issac Morley was called back to Salt Lake City, and on the 27^th of July 1854 Welcome was made President of the Manti Stake. He held this position for eight years. During this time his counselors were: Warren Snow, Walter Cox, James Warcham and James Richey.

On the afternoon of July 27, 1854 as they were baptizing some white people who had been converted to Mormonism, a large crowd gathered, among them was Chief Walker and many of his people. President Chapman asked Chief Walker if any of his tribe would like to be baptized. Walker replied that he did not know but that he would ask them. Many of them did wish to be baptized so Elders John D. Chase, Nelson Higgins, Joseph Allen and James Richey baptized them. There were 103 males and 17 female Indians baptized that day, and later they were all confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints.

During the time that the Church leaders were advocating polygamy Welcome married two more women, his second wife was Ann Mackey, they were married October 5, 1855. Eleven children were born to them. His third wife was Catherine Stainer he married her March 5, 1856. She became the mother of ten children. Two other women were sealed to him but they had no children.

After he was through cutting stone for that temple [Salt Lake??] he and his family moved back to Manti to make their home.

When he was eighty years old he rode a horse bareback several miles to build a chimney on the house that belonged to his third wife Catherine. It was late in the Fall of the year and the weather was very cold. While working on the chimney he got chilled through, but he finished the job and rode his horse back home. He became ill with a cold, pneumonia set in and within a week he was dead. This was on December 9, 1893. He was buried in the Manti Cemetery.

His life had been one of service, he and his wives had raised a large family. He had endured many hardships as a pioneer, he had cut stone for three temples and he had served as a church leader, always glad and willing to do his part and to give anything he had to help those who needed help. He had, had close association with the leaders of the church. He was an honest and truthful man, he was often heard to say that he owed no man any money.

At one time one of his sons was in Pinctop [Pinetop?^c] Arizona, Joseph F. Smith was there shaking hands with the people, when Welcome’s son told Brother Smith who, he was. Brother Smith said, “Your father was a good man, yes a very good man there are few like him.”

The Following article appeared in the Deseret News Feb. 17, 1858. The inhabitants of Sanpete County, assembled in the Council House at Manti and drew up resolutions approving of the present administration of Utah territory. The committee that framed the memorial consisted of: Welcome Chapman, James Richey, R. Wilson Glenn, P.E. Kofford, Tore Thurston, James T.S. Allred, John Edmeston, and Parlan M^CFarlin, John Eagar was Secretary. Welcome Chapman was ordained a seventy in the L.D.S. church, Jan.5, 1839 by Joseph Young, Zerah Pulsipher, Heary Harriman and David Hancock.

The above history was compiled by a granddaughter Jessie Chapman Mickelson

Notes for Welcome Chapman

Grandpa Welcome (The Friend 1993)

Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

as published in the LDS magazine “The Friend”, December 1993

Welcome Chapman

by Myrna Hoyt based on a history written by the author’s Grandmother

Mother couldn’t help noticing the serious, thoughtful look on Eric’s face as they drove home from church, “How was Primary today, Eric?”

“Fine.”

“What did you learn today?” Mother asked.

“We talked about choosing the right in our class, and Sharing Time was about temples.

“I can’t think of anything more special to talk about than temples.” Mother cheerfully replied. But she noticed that the faraway look was still in Eric’s eyes as they pulled into the driveway. “After you change your clothes, would you please help me set the table for dinner?” she asked.

As they were setting the table, Eric asked, “You and Dad were married in the temple, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So that means I’m sealed to you for eternity? “

“Right again,” Mother replied.

“I won’t get to go inside the temple until I’m grown up, will I?”

Mother reminded Eric that his brother Nathan, who was twelve and a deacon, had gone to the temple the month before and had been baptized for the dead, and how he, Eric, could do that, too, when he was twelve and held the Aaronic Priesthood. She also told him that when he was nineteen and ordained an elder, he could go through the temple for his own endowments before leaving on his mission.

Eric smiled at Mother, “I’m really looking forward to doing both of those things, but it’s not the same as what Joey did. When Sister Jones asked today in Sharing Time if anyone had a special experience to tell about the temple, Joey told about the missionaries teaching his family and about their baptism. He said that a year after they were baptized, they went to the temple as a family and were sealed together. He told about how beautiful the temple is inside and about how special it was to be dressed all in white and kneel down by the altar with his mom and bad and brothers and sisters”.

“Mom, that sounds so exciting! I wish I had a story about the temple that I could share.

Mother’s eyes sparkled. “You do, Eric, I’ll tell you all about it after dinner.

Mother always fixed someone’s favorite dinner on Sunday, and of course the best part was dessert. Today though, Eric was anxious for a different kind of after dinner treat. It made his day

when his older sister, Angie, and Dad volunteered to clean up the dishes so that Mother could tell him the special temple story right away.

They went to the family room, and Mother pulled her book of remembrance from a shelf and turned to a picture of a man with white hair and a white beard. She told Eric, “Welcome Chapman was my grandmother’s grandfather. While still a young man, Welcome heard rumors of a Joseph Smith, who was living in western New York, and who claimed to have a golden book that was given to him by an angel, and to have herd visions and revelations. He also claimed that he had seen Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. He said that They had instructed him to organize a new church.

“After thinking a lot about it, Welcome decided to find out for himself whether what he’d heard was true. Against the wishes of his parents, he saddled his horse and rode two hundred miles to New York. “When he found the Prophet Joseph Smith.” Mother continued, “he discovered that they were about the same age. Welcome heard a complete account of all that had happened to Joseph, including how he obtained and translated the records on the golden plates, and was very much impressed with the Prophet and his wonderful experiences. “He stayed two weeks at the home of the Prophet, learning all he could of the gospel. Convinced that this was the true religion, Welcome was baptized. Because of his activities in the Church and the esteem Joseph Smith had for him, he was made one of the Prophet’s body guards.

“Wow!” Eric exclaimed, “He had an Important job, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Mother said, “but sometimes it was dangerous, not only for him but for his family. One time while he was away on guard duty, a mob went to their home and told his wife that if there was anything in the house that she wanted, to get it out before they burned the house down. Sick at heart, she got everything out while the mob looked on. The cupboard was so heavy that she couldn’t move it alone, so one of the men helped her get it out. Then while she and the children watched, the mobbers burned the house to the ground.”

“Welcome and his family passed through many of the trials, persecutions, and other hardships that fell upon the Church and its members at that time.”

Eric had heard stories about the pioneers before, but he had never imagined that his very own grandparents had been some of them. It was exciting to picture Grandpa Welcome with the Prophet Joseph Smith. He also felt bad for their losing their home and having been treated so cruelly, But he wondered what Mother told him had to do with the temple.

“You see,” she continued, “Welcome was a stonecutter, so when he was living in Kirtland, he was called to cut stone for the Kirtland Temple, Later, when the Saints were building the Nauvoo Temple, he cut stone for it. And it was in the Nauvoo Temple that many Saints, including Welcome, received their endowments.”

“The Saints were driven out of Nauvoo in the early spring of 1846, and they began their long trek westward. Welcome and his family spent the first winter at Winter Quarters. That next spring, Welcome was appointed captain over the fourth company, which arrived at the Salt Lake Valley in the late summer of 1847.”

“In 1849, Chief Walker, the Ute Indian chief, met In council with President Brigham Young. He requested the Mormon leader to send colonists to settle on their land. Welcome and his family went to help settle the town of Manti in the Sanpete Valley.”

“On July 27, 1854, Welcome was sustained as the Manti Stake president. That afternoon, as they were baptizing some settlers who had been converted, a large crowd gathered. Among them was Chief Walker and many of his people. Welcome asked the chief if any of his people would like to be baptized. The chief replied that he did “not know but would ask them.” That day many Indians were baptized there. “After serving as Manti Stake president for eight years, Welcome was called by President Young on a mission to cut stone for the Salt Lake Temple, which he did until he was seventy-five years old.”

Eric looked up at the picture on the wall of the Salt Lake Temple with a new feeling of reverence. He felt proud that one of his ancestors had cut stone for the beautiful temple. He also felt proud as he thought of the good and faithful life Welcome had lived.

Eric gave Mother a big hug and kiss and thanked her for telling him about Grandpa Welcome. You know, Mom, not only do I have a temple story to share, but I also have a neat Grandpa that I didn’t know about before. I want to live my life like Grandpa Welcome did and do what Jesus wants me to do so I can go to the temple someday too.

Notes for Welcome Chapman

Richard Smith & Diana Braswell

Great-Great-Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Short Biography The Smith Family - by Leon Pitman

Richard Smith

Born September 19, 1792, Holston River, Sullivan County, Tennessee.

Died March 18, 1876, Provo, Utah.

Diana Braswell

Born October 9, 1797, Greenville County, South Carolina.

Died March 8, 1875, Heber City, Wasatch County, Utah.

Married December 11, 1817, Gibson County, Tennessee.

Richard Smith's birth place of Holston River, Sullivan County, Tennessee was very much a new frontier area at the time he was born there. The county is located in the easternmost portion of that state near the Virginia border. The first permanent settlement by white people in Tennessee was in the Holston River valley in 1765, only a few years before Richard Smith's father arrived there sometime in the early 1780's. Richard Smith grew up there not only with his own father's large family but also with the families of his uncles on his mother's side of the family (the Agees).

Richard Smith's father, George Thomas Smith, was from the Piedmont of central Virginia, having been born either in Buckingham County or in Powhatan County where he would have known his wife's family, the Agees. From a source titled "Descendants of Sir George Thomas Smith of Virginia," it states that George T. Smith was born in Buckingham County Virginia May 9, 1741 or 1742. He married Leah Agee in about 1776. He may have lived in Powhatan County at that time on or near the estate of Edward Maxey Jr., son of Edward Maxey Sr. and brother of Elizabeth Maxey (wife of John Radford Sr.). In about 1782-84 a George Smith was leasing a large tract of land from an Edward Maxey in Powhatan County (see Hamlin). The Maxey families were neighbors and relatives to Agees and Radfords while living near Flat Rock, Virginia. They owned land adjacent to each other on Jones Creek and Mathews Branch (tributaries of the James River). The record states that about 1883-84, George Smith left that land to emigrate "to the west," (perhaps to Sullivan County, Tennessee). Leah Agee's father Anthony Agee and several of her brothers also eventually made the move to Sullivan County, Tennessee.

George Thomas Smith's parents were William Smith who was born in Pennsylvania in about 1692, and Elizabeth Maier, also of Pennsylvania, born about 1792.

Leah Agee was a descendent of a well known French Huguenot Family. Her Grandfather Mathew Agee, of France, arrived in Virginia about 1700 where he became the owner of land a few miles west of Richmond in a community called Manakin. He lived south of the James River in what is now Powhatan County. Leah's father Anthony Agee and mother Christan Worley both grew up in that Huguenot community and had some of their children there, but later moved to Buckingham Co. near Dyllwin Va. Leah Agee grew to adulthood there near Green Creek, a tributary to Slate River. Leah Agee's parents and several of her brothers also eventually made the move to Sullivan County (see Agee family).

All of George and Leah's ten children were born in Sullivan County Tennessee. At some later time (probably after most of the family had grown), George and his wife Leah moved to Lexington, Kentucky where George died in 1834, and his wife died in Lexington in 1815.

Richard Smith's wife Diana Braswell was born in the foothill (Piedmont) area of Greenville, South Carolina. She is the daughter of John Braswell and Rebecca Pruitt whose ancestral origin in America is not yet certain, but it is believed that John Braswell's family were from Nash and Edgcombe Counties on the Lowland Plains of eastern North Carolina. Rebecca Freeman in her unpuplished book "Footprints in Time" includes a pedigree chart on Braswells showing their earliest ancestors in America lived in Isle of Wight County, in eastern Virginia as early as 1651.

At or near the time that Richard Smith married Diana Braswell in 1817, he and his wife were living in the area now Bradford, Gibson County, located in the far western part of Tennessee. They are said to be among the earliest settlers in that community (see Flossie Fletter) (and Culp). Gibson County was not formed as a county until 1823. Prior to that time it was a ward of adjacent Carrol county. And the name "Bradford" was not given to that community until after 1872 when the first railroad was constructed there. Probably all 13 of Richard and Diana's children were born in Gibson County, a densely forested wilderness at that time. There is some evidence that Richard's brothers James, Thomas and William also lived in Gibson County, as well as some Agees; all names are listed in the 1840 Tennessee Census Index.

Richard and Diana, according to Mormon Church records, joined the Church in August of 1840 or 41. They and their children remained in this frontier community in Gibson County until perhaps sometime in 1842 or l843 when they moved to St. Albans, Hancock, County, Illinois, about five miles south of the Mormon city of Nauvoo, Illinois.

Nauvoo, the principal Mormon city at that time, is located on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River just opposite the Iowa border. It was founded by the Mormon Church in l839. By l846 Nauvoo had already reached a population of over 12,000, essentially all were members of the Church. Mormon converts like the Smiths were also migrating to communities surrounding Nauvoo.

Rachel Leah Smith (always known as "Leah"), the third child of Richard and Diana was about 21 years old when she moved to St. Albans, presumably with her parents in l842 or 43. She had recently been widowed by the death of her first husband, Andrew Jackson Ross, who died from a logging accident in Tennessee. She had had two children by her first husband. They were James Richard (Dick) Ross, born in 1839, and Melvin Ross, born in 1842. These two Ross sons and their later families remained with their mother and her subsequent families for most of the rest of her life.

The Mormon exodus from the Nauvoo area to the Great Salt Lake Valley in Utah began in February l846 and continued for many years. The Smiths were among those Mormon groups that left Nauvoo in 1846. The slow and difficult progress across Iowa forced the Mormon leaders to reconsider their plan to continue on to the Great Salt Lake area in 1846. The Church established temporary settlements that could serve as outfitting points for those journeying to the far west in the following years.

In 1846 the Smith family moved to one of these camps in Iowa called Mt. Pisgah, where they remained for about four years. Mt. Pisgah was in what is now Union County, Iowa. While there their sons Thomas C. and Philip Smith married sisters Sarah and Eliza Frampton. In addition to Richad's sons and daughters, at least one of Richard Smith's brothers, James Agee Smith, and most of his family also joined the Mormons and migrated to Utah, settling eventually in Washington County near St. George, Utah (see Deuel).

By l850 more than 11,000 Mormons had reached Utah. The Richard Smith family, including Leah and her second husband John Whitlock Radford were participants in this movement, having arrived in Utah by l850. Richard, Diana and many of their children settled in the Provo area after an initial stay in Salt Lake City. Richard Smith is listed in both the l850 and the l860 census of Utah as a resident of Provo. In 1860 Richard and Diana were listed as farmers in Provo and had a house valued at $150.00. None of their children were listed as part of their household., they were age 68 and 67 respectively.

In about 1860 Richard and Diana and their son Ephraim and his family moved to the beautiful Heber Valley in the Wasatch Mountains east of Provo. They arrived there only one year after the initial settlers. They lived with other settlers in a compound of log cabins that were adjoined in a fort style arrangement forming a square, as they had previously done when first settling in Provo. These cabin row forts afforded protection against possible Indian raids. Ephraim became a tanner in Heber, a trade which he had learned in Tennessee. By 1862 another son, Thomas C. Smith and his family also moved to Heber, and their son Philip and his family also lived in Wasatch County (possibly in nearby Wallsburg). The Smiths all raised very large families in Heber. Leah, however was not among them, she instead moved with her husband John Whitlock Radford and their families to Millard County, Utah

Diana Braswell Smith died in Heber City, Wasatch County on March 8, l875. According to one report she was blind for about the last 20 years of her life (Mortimer p. 486). Her husband Richard then moved to Provo where he died a year later, March l8, l876. He and Diana are both buried in the Heber City cemetery.

During their eight decades of life, the Richard and Diana Smith family had helped establish at least five new pioneer settlements in four states and territories, and were among the very first pioneers in each of the these five communities: Bradford, Tenn.; St. Albans, Ill.; Mt. Pisgah, Iowa; Provo, Ut.; and Heber City, Ut. They left an exceedingly large number of descendants who today live primarily the western states.

Sources of information on the Richard Smith Family

Agee, Louis N. 1982 The Agee Register Gateway Press, Baltimore.

Census of Tennessee, 1840

Census of Utah, 1850,1860

Culp, Frederick and Mrs. R. R. Ross, 1961 Gibson County Past and Present Gibson County Historical Society, Trenton, Tenn.

"Descendants of Sir George Thomas Smith (Va.)" Unpublished typscript.

Deuel, Geneve Smith 1999 History of James Agee Smith Privately published.

Flettar, Flossie "History of My Great Great Grandparents Richard Smith and Deannah Braswell" Unpublished.

Freeman, Rebecca 1993 "Foot Prints In Time, A History of John Whitlock Radford and Rachel Leah Smith and Their Families." Unpublished book.

Hamlin, Charles H. 1967 Virginia Ancestors and Adventures Richmond, VA

Mortimer, William J (Compiler)

1963 How Beautiful Upon the Mountains. Daughters of the Utah Pioneers of

Wasatch County, Published in Wasatch County, Utah.

Reddin Alexander Allred & Julia Ann Bates

Great-Great Great-Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Short Biography of Redden Alexander Allred 1822 - 1900

Redden was born in Bedford County, Tennessee,
21 Feb 1822 to Isaac Allred and Mary Calvert. He was a twin, his identical brother was named Reddick Newton. His mother was the daughter of John Calvert and Mary McCurdy. The Calverts were a fine Southern family who came to Virginia in 1608 and settled in Maryland and Virginia. These Colonists founded the city of Baltimore. Ann Mynne was the wife of George Calvert and the 4th great grandmother of Mary Calvert and Isaac Allred and was a direct descendent of the King of England.

His parents were religiously inclined and belonged to the New School Presbyterian Church and taught their children to love God and walk in his ways. His mother was looked up to by all who knew her and his father was an honest and sober man.

In the year 1831 the Settlement was startled by the announcement that religious services would be held at Al Ives home by a couple of strangers, representing a new Church that believed in a new prophet. They proved to be Hiram Smith, brother of the Prophet and John Murdock on their way to locate the Centre Stake of Zion. These men left an impression at their meeting that never was lost to many of their hearers, but some of course cried false prophet. After some months George M. Minkle and others came and baptized the Allred families and many others, organizing a large branch known as the Salt River Branch in 1832.

In 1835 our family moved into Clay County and located on Fishing River with other families from the Salt River Branch. While they were there the Prophet came with Zion's Camp and stopped and rested a week, organizing his company. James Allred, brother of Isaac, joined them with a company of ten men. This family endured much persecution and were driven from place to place with the rest of the early Saints in Missouri and Illinois.

Redden Alexander Allred married Julia Ann Bates in the Nauvoo temple 21 Dec 1847. He was at the funeral of the prophet Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith and later crossed the plains. He drove Orson Pratt's ox team across the plains. He also helped to hold back Johnson's army in Echo Canyon. Redden, Julia and their family were really pioneers, they suffered terrible persecutions.

Redden went on a mission to Honolulu from 1852 - 1855 leaving his wife to support the family. He died in Arizona in June 1900.

The Diary of Reddick N. Allred

"I'll go where You want me to go, dear Lord; I'll do what You want me to do."

Reddick N. Allred, identical twin brother of Reddin Allred (great, great, great grandfather of Keith M. Chandler)

Reddick N. Allred was one of the well known pioneers of Utah active in Church, civil and military affairs. He was born February 21, 1822, in Bedford County, Tennessee, the son of Isaac Allred and Mary Calvert. He was baptized in 1833, and in 1840 moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, where he remained with the Saints until their expulsion in 1846.

While living in Nauvoo in 1843 he married Lucy Hoyt. After the exodus from Illinois, Reddick enlisted in the famous Mormon Battalion and marched to California and back to Winter Quarters in 1846-1847. He came to Utah in 1849 in charge of a company of seventy-three wagons and located in Salt Lake County.

In 1852-55 Reddick Allred filled a mission to the Sandwich Islands for the Latter-day Saint Church, presiding part of the time over the Maui conference. Upon his return home he removed to Kaysville, Davis County, Utah, where he remained until the move south in 1857 [with the coming of Johnston's army?]. In 1856, Pioneer Allred went out to meet the belated and suffering handcart companies in Wyoming and that same year was ordained a High Priest by Bishop Edward Hunter and set apart to act as a counselor in the Bishopric of Kaysville.

In 1857, Reddick married Amelia J. McPherson and the following year located at Nephi, Juab County, remaining there one year; thence he moved to Sanpete County. From that time on until his death he made his home in Spring City and Chester. He took an active part in the Black Hawk war in Sanpete County and served as a colonel in [p.298] the Nauvoo Legion. In 1861 he married Celestia W. Warrick. In 1867 he was ordained a bishop by President Canute Peterson and set apart to preside over the Chester Ward, which position he held for ten years. He was ordained a Patriarch by Apostle George Teasdale May 15, 1898.

During his lifetime, Pioneer Allred filled many positions of honor and trust besides those mentioned. He served five terms in the Territorial Legislature, was a Justice of the Peace, Postmaster of Spring City, and a member of the first City Council of Spring City. In all his associations Mr. Allred won the respect of his fellowmen among whom he was a natural leader. His integrity to truth, his humility, and his obedience to every call made upon him were characteristic of his nature.

Reddick Allred passed away October 10, 1905, in Chester, leaving a numerous posterity, among whom are seventy grandchildren and forty great-grandchildren all proud of his life record.

Throughout his journal, Pioneer Allred signed his name, Redick but his family and others give the spelling as Reddick. We have chosen to present the journal as written and have only given the correct spelling when the meaning was not clear. It is an outstanding record of a great man who, in his humble way, tells the story of everyday living in pioneer times. Of necessity we have omitted paragraphs in the diary dealing with unimportant events.

THE DIARY

I, Reddick Newton, son of Isaac and Mary Calvert Allred, was a twin. My brother said to be the first born, but doubted by some. His name was Reddin Alexander. His weight was 9 1/2 pounds, mine 8 1/2 pounds. We resembled each other so much that our mother was under the necessity of making our clothing different to prevent us from getting mixed up until we got old enough to know our names. After that we dressed alike as long as we remained at home. We were always a great puzzle to the people. He appeared to be endowed with all the boldness and I with all the bashfulness.

I first learned my letters in an old log school house, and when seven years old removed with my parents to the State of Missouri, on Salt River, Tols County, afterwards Monroe. Father purchased a home on the great highway from east to the west. My parents were members of a school of Presbyterians and brought up their children to reverence a God and were very exemplary in their lives, so that when a new religion was introduced, they naturally looked at it with suspicion, having been taught that Prophets and Apostles were no longer needed, so some cried false Prophet. ln 1831 two men preached in our settlement saying a new Prophet had organized a new church and introduced a new gospel, or rather the old one come again. His name was Joseph Smith. Their names were Hyrum Smith, brother of [p.299] the Prophet, and John Murdock. Other Elders were passing every few months from Kirtland to Jackson County, the gathering place for the Saints, and father opened his house for meetings. George Hinkle and others stopped a few months and baptized the Allred families, Ivies and others, and a large branch was organized in 1832 called the Salt River Branch.

Brother Reddin and I were baptized in the spring of 1833 by John Ivie, local Elder and President of the Branch. In the fall of 1833, the Saints were driven out of Jackson County, Missouri, into Clay where they remained temporarily. The night the Saints were expelled from their homes, the western world was shocked by the stars falling from the heaven that lit up the whole atmosphere.

In 1834, early spring, the Prophet Joseph Smith came, along with a small company of armed men called Zion's Camp, to reinstate the Saints upon their own lands from whence they had been driven by mob violence. Uncle James Allred raised ten men and joined them. They lay by a week completing the organization, reinforcing it.

On his return he stopped and preached in our settlement and told the Saints that they could not get possession of their lands, but to gather up to Clay County. In 1835 father moved up to Clay and located on Fishing River where he raised one crop, and the influx was so great that the old settlers became alarmed and the mob spirit began to raise, which was checked only by a compromise by which [p.300] the old settlers were to buy out the Saints, and we to move into a new county adjoining called Caldwell County.

[In] 1837 Father preempted land on Long Creek where he hoped to be able to build and inhabit, to plant and eat the fruit in peace thereof. This was eight miles from the newly laid out city of Far West. On the 14th of March, 1838, the Prophet and other leading men came in from Kirtland and settled in Far West and the Saints began to gather and spread out so that two counties had to be organized, Caldwell and Davis, where two Stakes of Zion was organized.

April 12, 1838, Oliver Cowdery was cut off from the Church and on the 13th, David Whitmer was cut off for not keeping the Word of Wisdom, and soon after the Johnsons, Boyingtons, and McLellans were cut off. The foundation of a temple was started in Far West and the fame of the Church began to be heard. The few ranchers in Caldwell and Davies counties raised false reports about the lawlessness of the Mormons and at an election in Galiton, Davis County, they forbade any Mormon to vote and surrounded the polls to prevent it, but a fight ensued and the Mormons cleared the way and voted. This was enough to wake up the whole of Jackson, Clay, Ray, and Carlton counties into a howling mob, and they began to make raids upon outside settlements. We had meantime organized a regiment for self-defense, and the Prophet called all the outside settlements into Far West.

In order to be able to stand a siege, a company was sent to Davis County to bring in a horse mill to grind our corn. I was 16 years old, but boy as I was, I went with father's ox team. We were gone two days and three nights and scarcely slept any to prevent a surprise. We returned on October 24, 1838, and I had put up at Father Morley's and finished my supper as Father came in and said a mob was attacking families on Log Creek within a few miles of our place. He told me to go home (8 miles) that night so we could move out next day.

Although I did not know at what moment I might meet the mob, I slept while I walked beside my team, but I got home at 1 o'clock all right and found all well. As I drove across the Public Square in Far West as dark was approaching, I saw Apostle David [W.] Patton on his horse rallying his men to go out to defend the exposed Saints. He found the mob headed by Bogard on Crooked River, and attacked them in their camp at daylight and routed them, himself and P. Olbanian being mortally wounded and Gideon Carter killed. Father heard the gunfire five miles distant.

On the 25th [October, 1838], we moved into Far West and so did all the settlement except at Haun's Mill. The Prophet sent them word to come in, but they thought they could protect themselves, but a mob from Carlton County massacred the most of them.

October 30th, 1838, Governor Boggs' army of 4000 made their appearance against Far West, 3000 more to follow. We had two companies out, leaving only about 150 men and boys in town, being in line, the [p.301] Prophet stepped to the right of the line and said, "Come on boys." We halted at the edge of the town and formed a line. The mob militia commenced to form a line of battle, but when about one Regiment was formed, seeing our two companies charging into town on the east and west, they broke ranks and fled in confusion.

They camped that night in the timber and rallied several times in the night fearing an attack by us and next day had an interview with our Colonel George Hinkle, who agreed to deliver up the Prophet and other leading men and lay down our arms.

October 31st, [1838], the Prophet, his brother, Hyrum, and others were delivered up as prisoners of war and about 800 pieces of arms including guns, pistols, swords, spears, etc., at the word "Ground arms," was laid down while there 4000 men had us cooped up in a hollow square and them outside about 4 deep. That night they held a court martial and passed sentence of death upon the Prophet and those with him to be shot next morning at 8 o'clock. General Doniphan protested and lead his Brigade out of camp which changed the program, so they sent them under a strong guard to Jackson and after to Liberty Jail.

General Lucas then marched our men onto the Public Square and compelled them at the point of the bayonet to sign what he called a Deed of Trust to hold all their property, real and personal, to pay the expenses of the war, which was, however, never fully enforced, but we were permitted to fit up teams as best we could and leave the State in the dead of winter.

The people of Illinois made the Saints welcome and they scattered out wherever they could rent land or get work to supply immediate wants. Father rented a farm of Mr. Stone in Adams County, 20 miles south of Quincy. The Prophet Joseph, Hyrum, Parley Pratt and others were held until far into the next season when it pleased the Lord to deliver them.

IN NAUVOO

The Prophet lost no time in securing a place to gather the Saints on the Mississippi River at a place called Commerce, but the Prophet named it Nauvoo. A general conference was held at Nauvoo in the open air on the 5th and 6th of October, 1833, the Prophet presiding.

I engaged in the mason trade and while the temple was being built in Nauvoo, I worked upon it part of the time. Many of us worked on bread and water part of the time because of extreme poverty after the mobbing and driving from Missouri.

ln 1840 about November, Brother Reddin and I went on a visit to Uncle John N. Calvert's in Marian, Williamson County, Illinois. On the way I was taken with chills and fever, so we had to lay by about [p.302] a month at Brother Harris Alexander's and Thomas Allred, a distant relative. As soon as I was able to travel, we went to Uncle John Calvert's and stayed with him about a month, during which time we preached by the fireside and left a very favorable impression upon his mind in regard to Mormonism. He said it was scriptural and reasonable, but he thought he could get all the salvation he needed where he was by being a strict Presbyterian. In about 3 months we returned on foot to Alton and by steamboat to Nauvoo.

In 1841 at fall conference, the Prophet called out a large number of Elders and sent them into different parts of the U.S. [United States]. I went with Daniel Garn and Jacob Foutz by steamboat. They went on to Pennsylvania and I stopped in Cincinnati as I was sick with chills and fever. In about two weeks I was able to take the field with Father Lamoreaux and later with Andrew Lamoreaux, a noted preacher, but he could not sing, so I done the singing and he the preaching. Together we drew out the people. A large branch of the Church was raised up and organized in the vicinity of Trenton, Indiana, with John Chaplan as President. When Elder Lamoreaux found I did not improve much in public speaking, he sent me alone to fill an appointment in Trenton. Had a full house in attendance. After this I traveled alone most of the time, but occasionally with father David Pettegrew, Willard Snow, and Elder Moss, and finally I was left entirely alone as Elder Lamoreaux had gone home.

REDDICK'S FIRST MARRIAGE

November 26, 1843, I married Lucy Hoyt, daughter of James and Bulay Hoyt, starting out on the sea of life without house or land, money or stock, except one cow. In about a week we went to Patriarch Hyrum Smith and got our patriarchal blessing in which he promised us a long life.

The further organization of Seventies was completed and Reddin and I were enrolled in the 4th Quorum. The Nauvoo Legion was organized and the Prophet was commissioned a Lieutenant-General by the Governor, also Mayor of Nauvoo. When the enemy began to see the greatness of his achievements and the rapid gathering of the Saints and the union of our people under the leadership of the Prophet, mobs began to rage and Governor Boggs sent a demand for him and they sent a posse to kidnap him while he was on a visit to Dickson, but in this they failed as our people were on the lookout.

The mob spirit prevailed so much in Illinois and Missouri that the Mayor declared the city under martial law, and made a last speech to the Legion leaving them to protect the city while he crossed the river having in view the intention to go to the Rocky Mountains to find a location for the Saints where they could dwell in safety, but [p.303] some half-hearted Saints followed him and accused him of cowardice for leaving the Saints at the mercy of the mob. Then the Prophet was killed.

LEAVE NAUVOO, THE BEAUTIFUL

In February, 1846, the Church, being continually in fear of mob violence, began to evacuate Nauvoo, crossing the Missouri River on ice. Father Y. Allen Taylor fitted up a team and I drove it to help out the first company. I went in Bishop George Miller's company as far as Garden Grove and then returned to help our own folks. I was gone about two months, enduring much hardships in the heavy storms of rain falling like a flood. President Young traveled with the main camp, but Bishop Miller kept ahead showing his bullheadedness. I went back to visit President Young's camp and he said to me, "Tell Bishop Miller the nearer the root, the sweeter the grass." The storms were so bad we had to lay by for days at a time and two other men with myself was sent out to trade for the camp with a settler as guide, but they had a jug of whiskey along and drank so freely that I left them the first afternoon and returned to camp.

I found my folks on the Iowa side of the river opposite Nauvoo being unable to move until I returned. We were soon on our way and, as the storms had ceased, we had good roads and plenty of grass. Having a pleasant time, we soon passed the newly formed settlements of Garden Grove and Mt. Pisgah and found President Young on the [p.304] Missouri River in the Potawatomi country, but Bishop Miller was still ahead up the river.

JOINS THE MORMON BATTALION

President Young said, "Go and you shall have no fighting to do-you shall go before and behind the Battles." In two or three days five companies were organized and we were mustered into service on the 16th of July, 1846. I was third Sergeant in Company A, Jefferson Hunt, Captain. I left a wife and one child in camp in my father's care, and we marched to Fort Leavenworth where we were armed and equipped for the war. My brother, James Riley, also enlisted in the same company. I was appointed Quarter Master Sergeant to deal out rations for Company A and have charge of the baggage train. This permitted me to have my luggage hauled.

Our first point of destination was Santa Fe where General Kearney had preceded us, but we had only been on the way a few days when our Colonel died and Lieutenant A. J. Smith of the Regular Army took command. We regretted the loss, for Colonel Allen had been very kind to us and had refused to admit any in our ranks that were not of our people, and entered us on the Muster Roll as the Mormon Battalion.

Colonel Smith, as he was called, was more harsh and put us on a forced march, and if any got sick they were not permitted to ride unless they reported to Doctor Sanderson who was quite cruel in his treatment to the sick call and many walked when they were not able, rather than take his calamal [calomel ?], etc.

So many became feeble that Captain James Brown was detailed to stop and winter with them at Pueblo. The rest of us hurried on to Santa Fe, arriving October 12th, [1846], to find the place captured by General Kearney who had moved on to California, leaving Colonel Doniphan in command to hold the country of New Mexico, with orders for Captain P. St. George Cook to take command of the "Mormon Battalion" and follow him on to California. When we marched into the Fort, General Doniphan ordered a salute fired, but when Colonel Price came in with his cavalry two days later, he made no demonstration at all, much to the annoyance of Colonel Price. The cause of this was that while Colonel Price was a mob leader, Colonel Doniphan was our friend. I went with a requisition to get the Colonel's signature and drew sixty days rations to last us to California. We stayed about a week without seeing our future commander, then he sent his orderly with orders to march. We went about eight miles and found his tent by the roadside waiting for us. After tents were pitched, he sent his orderly and invited all the commissioned officers to his tent, and all responded but [p.305] Captain Hunter who had ridden back to Santa Fe. When he returned, the Colonel asked him why he left Camp without leave and took his sword saying, "You can walk in the rear of your company tomorrow," which strict discipline he exercised throughout, especially with the officers, all of which pleased the men for the reverse was the case with Officer Smith. We were soon put upon half rations as a precautionary measure.

We traveled down the Rio Del Norte River several days, then crossed over and traveled west to the Copper Mine Road which runs south into the Spanish country. There guides persuaded the Colonel to go down where we could get plenty to eat, but we would have to fight for it. The Colonel consented and ordered likewise. Levi W. Hancock, remembering the promise of President Young that we should have no fighting to do said to a few of us, "Pray that God will turn him from his course." We had not gone more than a mile until he ordered the halt sounded and said to the guides, "I was ordered to California and take this course," then he turned a square corner. We felt satisfied it was in answer to our prayer.

We approached the summit of the Rocky Mountains on a gradual slope from the east, but to look off west was like the jumping off place. We had to pack everything down on mules and take the wagons down with one span of mules with as many men as could get around them. I had charge of one wagon and got it down without accident, while some others tipped over.

We camped at the base and reloaded wagons. While Timothy Hoyt was eating his dinner Lieutenant Oman called him to help, and because he was slow starting he ordered me to put him under guard, but I told him I was in other business. He, however, got him tied up to a stack of arms. We moved down into a beautiful valley where once stood a Spanish Town which had been broken up by Indians. The country was well stocked with wild bulls, so we lay by next day and got a good supply of fresh meat, as our own supply had been exhausted days before.

The next day, while passing down San Pedro Valley, the bulls made a descent upon our train which resulted in the wounding of two men and the killing of 3 mules and 12 bulls. I stood between the Colonel and staff and the train surrounded by wild beasts, unharmed, and saw the battle.

One day we saw an army drawn up in line of battle across our road, which proved to be friendly Indians ready to join us.

We met a carrier with news from General Kearney that he had formed a junction with Commodore Stockton's Fleet, had fought the decisive battle with Phena Castro who had fled to the mountains with his regular army, and to look out for him, but for us to march direct to San Diego. We crossed the Coast Range and sighted the Pacific [p.306] Ocean on the one hundredth day from Santa Fe, and arrived at San Diego on the one hundred and second day, January 30, 1847.

Commodore Stockton's Fleet was in San Diego Harbor, but sailed away the next day. We stayed there two days then went up the coast 40 miles to San Luis Mission where we remained over a month, kept under strict military drill. Here I was appointed Quarter Master Sergeant of the Battalion which gave me the oversight of the Baggage Train, including men and animals-an extra duty. I attended the drill and was soon set in charge of a squad drill. We was here a month without flour, living entirely on fresh beef, but were allowed 5 pounds per day. General Kearney sent orders to _______, to march at once to Los Angeles with the Mormon Battalion, compel Fremont, who was quartered there with his Battalion of mountaineers assuming the governorship of California, and who refused to submit to General Kearney to give up. I was mounted and stood the trip well, but the men were much fatigued. When Fremont learned we were coming, he made haste to Monterey and surrendered to General Kearney rather than risk a fight with the Mormon Battalion. The General placed him under arrest and took him back to Washington, detailing some of our men as guards, much to the annoyance of Fremont.

For a time fears were entertained that his men would join the Californians and make an attack upon us, so the Colonel ordered earth works thrown up around the camp on the hill overlooking the town. This found employment for the men instead of Drill. I found daily employment riding about to see that the mules were properly taken care of.

Colonel Cook returned home with General Kearney and left Colonel Stevenson in command of the Post. As I had a good chance riding about and getting able to speak Spanish, many of the boys got me to buy animals for them, as we were soon to be discharged. I bought one that proved to be a stray and they thought to get me into trouble, but I protested that I was innocent, yet it bothered me and that night I dreamed that I was to be hung, and that the Prophet Joseph Smith came into court with a big knife in each hand and said, "I appeal this case to the highest court," and I was instantly released.

We were called upon to re-enlist one company at our discharge and Lieutenant Dykes asked me to favor it, but I told him no. He said, "Don't say no, you have influence with the boys and if you don't it will fail." I said, "I enlisted by council and will not again without it." He said, "We can't get it and must act upon our own judgment." I said, "That is what I am going to do and return." The boys sent a man to say if I would enlist they would make me captain. I said no.

About a month before our discharge, a mule fell with me and tore the ligaments of my left wrist which caused such pain I couldn't [p.307] sleep day or night for some time, and I was in the doctor's care until we were mustered out.

On the 16th day of July, 1847, we were mustered out of the service, and before we broke ranks, a sealed letter was opened by Brother Levi Hancock and read, signed by the Apostles, saying, "You will meet the Church in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake on the east side at the foot of the mountains." We moved out a few miles from Los Angeles and camped about a week, organizing for our return trips. Brother Hancock assumed with Father Pettegrew the responsibility and organized us in tens, fifties, and hundreds. William Hyde, Captain [of] 50; Daniel Tyler 2nd and 3rd with Andrew Lytle over all.

July 20th, my company being ready, we moved up 20 miles to General Pico's Ranch. It crossed a spur of mountains to San Francisco where we remained until the 29th waiting for the other two companies to come up, meanwhile we were jerking beef for the journey. We employed a guide to a place called Hot Springs. August 1, 1847, we camped in a beautiful valley where we found the name of Peter Lebeck who was killed by a grizzly bear October 17, 1837. After our guide left us, we missed the Walker Pass and turned down the "Toolary" Valley to Sutter's Fort on the Sacramento River where the city now stands.

JOURNEY TO COUNCIL BLUFFS

We reached there on the 26th August, 1847, 600 miles from Los Angeles without accident. We found a few families of Saints that came on the ship "Brooklyn" from New York expecting to meet the Church in California, until we told them they were settling in Salt Lake Valley. The Burr family was there. We rested a few days and then took the old California Road, crossed the American Fork [River] and found a daughter of widow Murphy, one of the ill-fated Hasting Party. Brother John King and I visited her to find her married to one Johnson.

Henry Pike Hoyt was taken sick. I stopped with him a couple of days, the company going on to Bear Valley; eight men stayed with me. The third day he said he could go, but after we crossed Deep Hollow he got so bad we took him off his horse as he was apparently dying. Twice we administered to him and he revived so much he said he could go, but got so bad again I had to hold him on and finally I had to break his hold of the horn of the saddle. He said, "No, go on ..." his last words, for he was dead in 15 minutes. We wrapped him in his blanket and laid him one half mile from Deep Hollow two rods below the road, having nothing but a hatchet to dig down in the hillside and to build up the lower side. Over the top we put rocks and sticks and marked on a tree, "Henry P. Hoyt died on the 3rd of September, 1847, after nine days illness with jaundice, 80 miles from Sutter's Fort."

We overtook the company in Bear Valley next day and proceeded on our journey on the 5th [September, 1847], and met Sam Brannan with an Epistle from President Young for all that did not intend to go to the Bluffs for their families to stay in California and get work through the winter. This broke up our organization and Andrew Lytle was our Captain. When we passed the summit of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains, we found Hastings' winter camp. At the base of the mountains we struck the Truckee River, then crossed an arm of the Great American Desert to the sink of the Humboldt River, passing the Hot Boiling Springs. From the sink we traveled several days up the river finding plenty of water and grass, then crossed a mountain to the noted spring wells, some of them without bottom apparently. Then crossed the Goose Creek Mountains to Fort Hall on Snake River where we found Captain Grant of the Hudson Bay Fur Company. When we told him where the Church was locating he said it would be a failure if we attempted to colonize there, for we could not raise a bushel of grain in Salt Lake Valley.

Some of the company went to Salt Lake and the rest of us went by Soda Springs and up Bear River over to Fort Bridger. I sent Henry's outfit to his brother, Israel, also my fine mare to my brother, Harvey. We rested here a few days waiting for the rest of the company to come from Salt Lake. We found Joseph Thorn here with his family who joined us.

We left Fort Bridger 33 strong and made Fort Laramie without incident except I had killed a buffalo. The traders at the Post offered to sell us dried meat, telling us if we killed buffalo on the plains it would make the Indians mad. I had a weak mule that an Indian traded me a pony for. The next day we passed a Sioux camp of 300 lodges and, as I had fallen a little behind on the pony, a large Indian caught him by the bridle and held me fast. Thorn called that they had taken me a prisoner. Captain Lytle and Tyler came back, but they soon lead the weak mule up and swapped back and we continued our journey in peace.

However, when we had got well onto the plains and our meat was gone we killed a buffalo, but as soon as we got it into camp the Indians raised a signal smoke on the opposite side of the Platte River. Captain Lytle called a council of war which favored the idea of striking camp and fleeing in the dark, but I opposed it on the ground that our animals were weak and they could easily overtake us and we would have to fight them at a disadvantage in our scattered condition, and I preferred to fight them in camp on the open plain. To this they yielded, but the Indians only showed themselves on the distant hilltops next day and we passed on in peace.

At daylight one morning we found ourselves under a foot of snow and a hundred miles from timber, nothing to burn but wet buffalo chips and without tents. The day before we got to the Loup Fork [p.309] I found the head of Brother Rainey's mule, a company a week ahead of us, had eaten the animal but left the head. I cut out the brains and I got help to eat them. We got to the Loup Fork too late to cross, so we camped, but when we got up in the morning it was snowing hard and the river was full of floating ice and we could not cross. It snowed all day so we lay in camp, divided all the flour and meat we had and ate it up. It was 5 days before the ice block dissolved enough for us to cross, during which time we lived on rawhide.

On the 5th day of our slow journey down the river, one of Captain Lytle's mules got down and I told the boys to lift it up and I would cut its throat and we would eat it, which was done and all partook.

The next morning, the ice being sufficient, we crossed over into the Pawnee Indian cornfield and gleaned enough corn with some we bought from Indians to last us home at one gill a day which we parched, ground and ate in water with a spoon.

After leaving the Loup Fork, my noble mule was attacked with stiffness, so I had to transfer the pack to my riding pony and take it on foot, leaving the mule by the roadside. The snow was from one to two feet deep and when night came we thought of the saying, "Would to God it was morning," (having to sleep on the snow until our bones ached) and in the morning say, "I would to God it was night," anticipating a hard day's tramp through the snow.

December 17th, 1847. We camped on Elk Horn River 30 miles from Winter Quarters. I told Captain Lytle we could go through next day but he said no, it would be too late to find our friends. I told him I had friends that I knew would rather have me come in than to sleep out on the snow another night. Of course, none of us knew of our folks.

December 18th, 1847. When our animals were packed, I said to the boys driving that day that I would lead out afoot, and if they would keep up with me we would make Winter Quarters that night. When the sun was about an hour high we found we were within a mile and a half of town, so Captain Lytle said to one of the boys, "Let the Sergeant ride your horse and go ahead with me." Before entering the town we were met by Doctor Braley, almost an entire stranger, who turned to me and said, "You go home with me." I thanked him and said, "We will see if my folks are here." The next man was Colonel Rockwood who said President Young sent him to tell us to take our animals to the Tithing Yard and we would be distributed out among the people for the night and he turned to me and said, "You go home with me." This I accepted with thanks, but while I was unpacking Sister Henry said, "If Reddick Allred is here, he must go home with me," so I thought three times and out and stayed with her, a good old friend. But when she got a good supper ready and I had only eaten a few bites she asked me to stop, saying you [p.310] have been starving so long it will make you sick. Of course, I stopped, reluctantly however.

Then she fixed me a good bath, gave me clean underclothes, and a good feather bed. In the night I waked her up with my heavy groans, and she said, "Does your supper hurt you?" I laughed and said, "I have had none, but it is this bed that hurts me."

December 19, 1847. I crossed the Missouri River and went eight miles to Little Pigeon, Allred's settlement, where I found my wife and daughter living with father, all well and overjoyed at the safe return of their soldier boy and husband. It was several days before they would allow me to eat what I wanted, and even then I was much distressed with my victuals. Father had kept my wife and child as one of his family and we remained with him all winter. Father was presiding over this Branch of the Church.

After we rested a while, President Young proclaimed a jubilee in the Log Tabernacle at Kanesville and invited the returned soldiers. As Brother William Hyde and I were approaching, President Young said to President Kimball and others (pointing to us), "These men were the salvation of this Church." We all had a free dance and enjoyed it very much.

In the spring of 1848 I moved a mile below into one of Joseph Egbert's rooms, and that season I put in a small crop of corn. I also went down to Missouri and worked for old Bill, man of mob fame, and earned a cow. I went to Fort Leavenworth and drew three months' pay and subsistence by which I was able to clothe myself and family very comfortable, for I had returned quite destitute.

TO THE VALLEY OF THE MOUNTAINS

November 26th, 1848. A son was born unto us, and we called him Redick Reddin. Up to this time I had not been able to do anything towards a fitout [outfit] for the valley, but in the spring of 1849, I drew a land warrant and traded it for two yoke of oxen and a wagon and set about getting ready for the journey. The first week in June we camped on the Missouri Bottom and was organized in tens, fifties and hundreds by Elder George A. Smith thus: Allen Taylor, Captain of Hundred; Enoch Reese, Captain of first, and myself, Captain of second fifty. I had 73 wagons in my company and Captain Taylor traveled in my company, my father and my father-in-law being with us. My team consisted of a yoke of oxen on the wheel and a yoke of cows on the lead, and I drove the lead wagon to the valley. Captain Taylor, having crossed the plains the year before as captain of President Young's company, was of great service.

He advised us to tie our stock by the head outside of the wagons as they were corralled at night, which I strictly observed, but Captain Reese did not, with the result that he had not been out a week until [p.311] his cattle stampeded in the night, smashing down wagons to get out. This so frightened them that they broke up into small companies. Brother Perkins asked me to let him come into my company with 10. I said yes, fall in the rear, which I soon learned was bad policy for their stock, remembering their fright, started to run while moving. As soon as I saw it I gave the word to halt and stand by their teams. In a short time teams were running in all directions except a few at the head, although one team ran the entire length between the two lines. I stood by my team talking kindly to them and they did not move. It was frightful to behold, especially when we gathered up the wounded, three was badly hurt, and one, Sister Hawks, died that night. We had no more trouble on the road, but the journey was long and tedious and as we entered the mountains, we split up into smaller companies for convenience for feed and camping.

Isaac Allred and Mary Calvert

G-G-G-G-Grandparents to Keith M. Chandler

Written by Rulon C. Allred

A Short History of Isaac Allred

from http://www.allredfamily.org/isaac_allred4.htm

William Allred, the father of Isaac, was born in Hillsborough District, Randolph County, North Carolina. John, Thomas, William and Elizabeth Allred came to North Carolina before our Country was a republic, and settled in Randolph County near Morgan’s Mill, now known as New Salem, North Carolina. The above Thomas was the father of William, the father of Isaac. It is likely that Isaac’s father, William, was married in Randolph county to Elizabeth Thresher; their two oldest children, James and Mary Allred, were born in Hillsborough District.

Sometime before the year 1788, William Allred moved with his family to Pendleton Country, Georgia. It was here that Isaac, the subject of our sketch, was born on the 27th day of January 1788. Before Isaac was two years old the family again moved. This time into Franklin County, Georgia. And it was here that William, Martha, John and Sarah were born.

When Isaac Allred was twenty-two years of age he married Mary Calvert, the daughter of John Calvert and Mary McCurdy. From the records we find that Isaac Allred and Mary C. Calvert were married on the 14th of February 1811. They settled near Farmington, Bedford County, Tennessee. It was here that Mary gave birth to their first four children; ie: Elizabeth,

Martin, John Calvert, Nancy Weekly and Sarah Lovisa Allred. It seems that the family had attained some influence and financial affluence by the year 1818 and had attained a home in the City of Nashville, Tennessee, where the following children were born to Isaac and Mary Calvert Allred, ie: William Moore, was born on the 24th of December, 1819, the twins, Reddick Newton and Reddin Alexander were born on the 21st of December 1822. Mary Caroline was born on the 9th of December 1824 and James Riley was born on the 28th of January 1827. The next born son, Paulinus Harvey Allred, was likely brought into the world back on the old farm, for he was born near Farmington, in Bedford County on the 21st of January 1829. The family moved from Tennessee shortly after the birth of this son and settled on the Salt River in Monroe County, Missouri. It was here that Isaac Allred and his family and some of the older married sons of James Allred settled and formed what was known and referred to in history as “Allred Settlement”. It was likely here, too, that these families were first visited by the Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We find this place and these people lovingly referred to in President Heber C. Kimball’s life history and by other early Elders of the LDS Church. Though James was the oldest member of the Allred family to join the Church in these last days, and was baptized into the Church the 10th of September 1832, it appears that Isaac, his younger brother, accepted the gospel at an earlier date for his Endowment records indicate that he was baptized into the Church and Kingdom of God in the year 1831.

The Prophet, Joseph Smith visited the Allred families on the Salt River and with other Elders was instrumental in organizing the “Salt River Branch of the Church.” Most of the members of these families accepted the gospel and were baptized in 1832 and 1833.

Isaac Allred and Mary Calvert had their next born son, Joseph Allred born at Allred Settlement on the 26th of April 1831. Two years later, on the 22nd of July 1833, Mary gave birth to Isaac Morley, also at the Allred Settlement.

During the expulsion of the Saints from Monroe and adjacent counties, Isaac Allred sought refuge for his family in Caldwell County where they lived until 1838. It was at this place that Mary Calvert Allred gave birth to her last born son, Sidney Rigdon Allred, on the 22nd of October 1837. We find in 1838 that the family had moved to join the body of the Saints who had been driven from their homes in Missouri and with them they settled at Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois.

When on the 12th of July, 1843, the revelation on “The Plurality of Wives and the Eternity of the Marriage Covenant” was first written and was read by President Hyrum Smith to the members of the First High Council called by the Prophet Joseph Smith, we find that Isaac Allred appears as a member of that council. He is mentioned as one of the nine faithful council members who accepted the revelation as the word of the Lord to the Saints in these last days. The other three members of the High Council rejected the revelation and in fulfillment of the prophecy made at that time by Hyrum, brother of the Prophet, they later apostatized.

Isaac Allred and his family were among the 15 Allred families who fled before the mobs when the Saints were driven from Nauvoo. They crossed the Missouri River on the ice and escaped into the bleak surroundings of that uninviting land with the faithful followers of President Brigham Young.

It is well known how the United States Government officials, after having permitted and assisted in the expulsion of the Saints from their homes and lands, later ordered that the fleeing body be overtaken and that 500 of their young men be drafted into the Army to join in the war against Mexico. The Saints were overtaken in Indian Territory and it was here that the Army Officer had been directed to get 500 men or upon failure of the “Mormons” to supply them to count them as traitors, fleeing under false pretenses, and therefore worth of extermination. This is according to the statement of President Brigham Young before the Council of the Kingdom at that time. It was under these conditions that President Young advised the young men to join the Army. He promised them that they would not have to shed the blood of their fellow men, but that this added affliction heaped upon them in this hour of their trials would turn out as a blessing upon their heads. Several of the young Allred boys joined the “Mormon Battalion: and performed with that Battalion in the longest march of foot soldiers in length of miles ever traversed by any army in the history of time.

When President Young and his advance company proceeded on to the west, he advised the remaining body of Saints to stay where they were in Indian Territory and raise crops and provide for themselves and lay up store for the others in the long march which must eventually follow. Besides, he said, at that time many of their young men now in the army could join them and assist them in their track. James Allred and his family remained and at the appropriate time in 1848 continued with a 100 wagon train, many of them Allred’s, on their march to Salt Lake City, Utah. However, Isaac Allred was selected with other brethren to go on ahead with President Brigham Young as an advance company. He was with them when on the 24th of July, 1847, when they entered the Salt Lake Valley.

Mary Calvert, mother of 13 fine children and one of those known and mentioned as one of the noble “Women of Mormondom” having a name worthy to be perpetuated through all time and eternity, died in Sanpete County on the 16th of September 1851. (According to one record, she died in Holladay, Salt Lake County. Sanpete County had not been settled at that time, so she must have died in Holladay.) We find the incident of her passing in Sanpete County referred to by her son, William Moore Allred in his diary, while he was still on his way to Salt Lake City with his delayed brethren and their families and while they were camped at “Loon Fork” on the Platt River.

On the 5th of November 1852, Isaac Allred married Matilda Stewart, the widow of John Miller, she being sealed to him for time and to her deceased husband for eternity. By this marriage, Isaac fathered one daughter Matilda Stewart Allred, who was born 12 May, 1853 at Big Cottonwood, Salt Lake County, Utah.

Isaac joined members of the Allred family about 1853 aiding in the settlement of the Allred family about 1853 aiding in the settlement of the Sanpete Valley and in the formation of “Allred Town” later known as “Little Denmark” then as Spring Town, and now as Spring City, Utah. Some of his sons were sent to establish settlements in Star Valley, Wyoming, in the Great Bear Lake, Idaho and other new places in the west.

Isaac died the 13th of November 1870 at Spring City, Sanpete County, Utah after fulfilling a noble life and leaving a name for good among all Saints.

ISAAC ALLRED (1788-1870)

Isaac Allred was the second son and fifth child in the family of eight children born to William Allred and Elizabeth Thrasher. Between 1786 and the time of Isaac’s birth the family moved from Randolph County, North Carolina to Pendleton, Anderson County, South Carolina, where Isaac was born on 27 Jan. 1788. We have no record of his early life. He may, however, have been employed in Georgia as a young man, or the Calverts may have gone to South Carolina. Whatever the circumstances, on 14 Feb. 1811, Isaac married Mary Calvert, who was born in Elbert County, Georgia. (The distance between these locations is 30 to 50 miles).

Isaac’s older brother, James, had married previously and gone north westward to the Ohio River. Then, following Isaac’s marriage, the two brothers settled together in Tennessee, near Nashville. The newlyweds, Isaac and Mary, must have prepared for the move soon after, if not before, their marriage. We might also guess that they spent their first summer traveling, for their first child, Elizabeth M., was born in Bedford County, Tennessee, on 6 Jan. 1812. (She lived only six years.).

They remained in Tennessee until 1830, when both families moved about 500 miles north westward to Monroe County, Missouri. Isaac’s son, William, described the location as, “....on the State Road (with?) in three miles of one of the three forks of Salt River....” and son, Reddick, noted in his account, “....Father purchased a home on the great highway from east to west....” Today (1982) the three forks of the Salt River are under the Clarence Cannon Reservoir and there does not appear to be any great highway in the area. (This is also very near the birthplace of Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain, born in 1835, the year the Allreds left).

According to William, they found the climate to be much colder than in Tennessee and Isaac was hard pressed to provide -- especially sufficient clothing -- for his large family, which by May, 1831, numbered eleven children. He enjoyed one advantage, however. It was the abundance of game animals. William tells of his father going out and bagging two deer before breakfast, and William, himself, killed one at age 12. We may well guess, then, that Isaac’s family was largely buckskin-clad.

Reddick has left the best explanation I have seen concerning the coming of the LDS missionaries to the Salt River Settlement (also known as Allred Settlement): “....My parents were members of a school of Presbyterians and brought up their children to reverence a God and were very exemplary in their lives, so that when a new religion was introduced they naturally looked at it with suspicion, having been taught that Prophets and Apostles were no longer needed, so some cried false Prophet. In 1831 two men preached in our settlement saying a new Prophet had organized a new church and introduced a new gospel or rather the old one come again. His name was Joseph Smith. Their names were Hyrum Smith, brother of the Prophet and John Murdock. Other Elders were passing every few months from Kirtland to Jackson County -- the gathering place for the Saints, and father opened his house for meetings....” The Salt River Branch of the Church was organized that same day.

William indicates that his father Isaac sold his farm on Salt River in 1832 or 1833 in anticipation of moving to Jackson County, the gathering place for the Church. But when the Saints were expelled from Jackson County, he rented his farm back from the buyer and remained in the area for a time, though the family had to relinquish the house to the buyer and find other accommodations. They stayed there for one more year, during which the Prophet, Joseph Smith, came to their settlement with his “Zion’s Camp” expedition in an attempt to reclaim the homes and property of those evicted from Jackson County.

In 1835, in response to the call of the Prophet to assemble at Clay County, Missouri, Isaac and his family moved. From Reddick’s account, “...In 1835 father moved up to Clay and located on Fishing River where he raised one crop, and the influx was so great that the old settlers became alarmed and the mob spirit began to raise, which was checked only by a compromise by which the old settlers were to buy out the Saints, and we to move into a new county adjoining called Caldwell County.

“1837 Father preempted land on Long Creek where he hoped to be able to build and inhabit -- to plant and eat the fruit in peace thereof. This was eight miles from the newly laid out city of Far West. On the 14th of March 1838 the Prophet and other leading men came in from Kirtland and settled in Far West and the Saints

began to gather and spread out so that two counties had to be organized, Caldwell and Davis were two Stakes of Zion was organized.”

William’s account tells us something about the circumstances and results: “...We lived there about two years and was getting a pretty good start. Broke ground for a temple in 1837. My father had quite a large family, in all nine boys and four girls, the oldest girl died before I was born, and we suffered considerable from persecution and exposure...”

Isaac and Mary’s oldest son, John, married in 1833. This left William (age 19 in 1838) as the oldest unmarried son. But William fled the area after it was learned that the Missourians were seeking him because he had been involved in the battle of Crooked River and in the defense of Far West. This left Isaac and his daughters and youngest sons -- with only one or two ox teams which had not been either stolen or destroyed -- to transport family and good in the wintertime exodus from Missouri.

At length the family reached Illinois and were reunited. Isaac rented a farm a few miles down the Mississippi River from the town of Quincey. The family resided there until the Prophet, Joseph, made his escape from Missouri and founded Nauvoo, on a bend in the Mississippi on the Illinois side. Isaac moved his family there in 1840. We have little information about him from then until the exodus from Nauvoo. Isaac’s family were not among those leaving there early. William noted that it was in the spring of 1846. Reddick’s record is that as he returned to Nauvoo after assisting some of the early movers to camps in Iowa, he found his family (Isaac, Mary and children, and his wife, Lucy) on the Iowa side of the Mississippi awaiting his return so they could resume the journey. He noted that weather conditions had improved so much that they actually had a pleasant trip across Iowa to Council Bluffs (a great contrast to the experiences of those who left Nauvoo early).

It appears that most of the quite numerous Allred clan -- Isaac and James now being the patriarchs of large posterities of children and grandchildren -- settled about five miles east of Council Bluffs at what became known as Allred settlement. According to Reddick, it was at “Little Pidgeon” (probably a stream). A branch of the Church was organized there.

About the time they reached this camp two of Isaac’s sons, Reddick and James Riley, enlisted in the Mormon Battallion. Reddick’s wife and baby remained with Isaac’s family. These soldiers’ pay was received by the Church and helped the families financially, but the great strength of the two sons was missed. Isaac, with other remaining family members, began making preparations to overwinter there.

After Reddick’s return in December of 1847 (James Riley remained in California), preparations to move west were hastened. The journey was commenced in the spring of 1849. Reddick was a captain of 50. Isaac and family traveled with him. They arrived at the Salt Lake valley on 16 Oct and remained in Salt Lake City that winter. In 1850 they located near the mouth of Big Cottonwood canyon. The next year Isaac had the sorrow of Mary’s death -- on 16 Sep 1851, at age 58. The cause of her death was apparently not recorded.

Isaac married Matilda Park, a widow with three children, on 1 Mar 1852. Thus, at age 64, after having raised a family of 12 (two of whom were still teenagers), he began raising a second family. A daughter was also subsequently born to this marriage. They apparently then moved to Kaysville, as that is where Reddick noted finding his father when he returned from his mission in 1855. Reddick’s words: “...they were quite destitute having lost their crop the two successive seasons as also many others throughout the territory, especially the last season.”

In the spring of 1858 most of the Salt Lake valley settlers moved south to the Utah valley and beyond at the approach of Johnston’s army to Salt Lake. Reddick tells us that he remained with the rear guard and sent his family on ahead. It may be that he sent them with Isaac. Then he states, “I came to my family in Nephi and instead of going back I sold my home worth $500 for one yoke of oxen worth $100. Whether Isaac had already sold out at Kaysville or whether he also made a sacrifice trade rather than return we have not been informed. All we know for certain is that he must have proceeded on to Sanpete valley immediately, because later that year he was selected as a committee member for a study of the feasibility of making a settlement at Pleasant Creek, near the north end of the valley. (Isaac’s brother, James, and others had been called by Brigham Young in 1851 to settle the Sanpete valley, but had had serious Indian problems the entire time. They had a stronghold at Manti.) The committee made the survey and reported favorably. Then Isaac was chosen as one of the committee to present the proposal to Brigham Young. Whether he met with President Young is in some doubt, as there is some indication that he was replaced by someone else. It may be that the Allreds had decided against settling there. Whatever the circumstances, Isaac and Reddick did not settle at Pleasant Creek (Mt. Pleasant), but at Spring City, a few miles to the south. Reddick claimed to have built one of the first cabins there in the fall of 1859 (though this was where his Uncle James had settled earlier only to be driven out by Indians. The settlers’ houses were burned.) He states that his father, Isaac, and a number of other Allred families, as well as others soon settled there.

Thus, Isaac, at age 72, was still extending the western frontier, building upon the ashes of home sites burned out by the Indians. Nor were the Indian problems over. One night they killed every pig and chicken in the settlement. But Indians were not the only predators. The wolves killed so many cattle that the settlers sharpened their horns that they might better protect themselves. There is indication that this measure lessened the losses, but did not stop them entirely.

In spite of Indians and wolves, Isaac remained at Spring City until his death on 13 Nov 1870.

He was 82.

Compiled by E. Morrell Allred, 1 ggson

Sources: Allred, Reddick N., autobiography, in Treasure of Pioneer Hist., K. Carter, ed. 5: 297-372 DUP. SLC.

Allred, Wm. M., autobiography, unpub. ms.

Biography of Wiley Payne Allred, unpub. ms., author unknown.

Munson, Eliza M.A., Early Pioneer History, 3 page unpub. ms.

THE FIRST CONVERTS

A History of James, Isaac, and William Allred

By Karla Monson

(Missouri Era)

"And also my servant John Murdock, and my servant Hyrum Smith, take their journey unto the same place by the way of Detroit." (Doc. and Cov. 52:8) Obeying this commandment, the missionary team of John Murdock and Hyrum Smith introduced the Allred Brothers, James, Isaac and William to the Gospel in the fall of 1831.1

Previous to his conversion in Missouri, Isaac had homesteaded with his parents in the Southern States. His birth on January 27, 1788, in Pendleton, South Carolina, occurred during the month when Georgia and Connecticut were convening to ratify the Constitution. When the family of William and Elizabeth Thresher Allred moved to Franklin Co., Georgia in 1790,

Congress held its second session in Philadelphia. As friction with France and England culminated in the War of 1812, they migrated westward to Bedford Co., Tennessee.2

In Tennessee Isaac married Mary Calvert February 14, 1811, two weeks after his twenty-second birthday and four weeks before her sixteenth birthday. They remained in Bedford Co., until Paulinus Harvey was a few months old, then joined their relatives in the Allred Settlement of Monroe Co., Missouri by the Salt River. Recalling the years in Tennessee, William Moore, the second son, wrote:

My parents were very religious. I believe they belonged to the Presbyterian Church. I never had much chance for an education and it was very old fashioned at that. I remember of going to Sabbath School a few times where I was born and went a few times to the Camp Meetings but yet I was too young to understand much about doctrine.3

This same son describes the novelty of the first winter in Missouri. The snow fell two feet deep and froze so that he could walk on the crust. The deer were plentiful and with his dogs to chase them, William killed his first deer when he was 10 or twelve years old. He frosted his feet that winter and was obliged to stay inside while his brother, John Calvert, supplied wood to the house. His twin brothers, Reddin and Reddick, having no shoes, were also confined to the house and William taught them to spell and read. Missouri was a new adventure for the family and Isaac purchased land close to the state road, "…the great highway from east to the west.”, three miles from one of the forks of the Salt River.4

Two years following their arrival in Monroe Co., Hyrum Smith and John Murdock preached to the A1lreds, testifying that a new prophet, Joseph Smith, had organized a new church or rather the old one restored. They arrived on August 4, 1831, and taught the next day. John Murdock became ill and they spent a week at Salt River. According to Reddick, his parents were exemplary Presbyterians and were taught that prophets and apostles were no longer needed. They thus regarded Elder Smith and Murdock suspiciously. The two Elders passed on to found the center stake of Zion, New Jerusalem, in Jackson Co., Missouri. Later, Isaac opened his home for meetings as other elders, bound for Jackson County stopped to teach. A year passed and the faith sown in 1831 took root as George Hinkle, Daniel Cathcart and James Johnson organized the Allreds, Ivies and others into the Salt River Branch. Nineteen converts, including Isaac and Mary, one or two daughters and William Moore were baptized on September 10, 1832.5

As the Saints were amassing in Jackson County, the Salt River increased in self-sufficiency. John Ivie baptized Reddin and Reddick in March of 1833. That year, Isaac, intent on founding Zion with the Saints, sold his farm to relocate westward. However, in the fall the Saints were expulsed from Jackson County. Their departure was marked by the falling of stars, which Reddick affirms, 'I.... was witnessed in our locality in all its splendour, and many believed the end of the world had come.” Awaiting the next gathering, Isaac rented the home of the buyer of his former property and stayed with the members of the Salt River Branch. At this time, Isaac observed that Paulinus Harvey's mouth would draw down to one side when he laughed. Isaac called on the healing power of the Elders and Paulinus's mouth was normalized.6

Isaac's family met the prophet as he recruited men for the army to reclaim the lost property of the Saints in the spring of 1834. William defined his first impressions of the Prophet of Zion's Camp as follows:

I thought he had a very noble appearance, very kind and affectionate. I visited the camp several times while they were stopping at my Uncle James Allred's farm. I know he was a true prophet of God, for I have lived to see many of his prophecies fulfilled and am willing for this testimony to go to all the world.

Joseph Smith specifies in the Journal History that the company arrived on June 7, 1834 and camped in a grove by the spring waters of the Salt River, by a branch of the Church called the Allred Settlement. They rested, washed clothes and prepared for their journey until June 12th. James Allred, Isaac's brother, Isaac and Martin Allred, James's sons, and Andrew Whitlock, James's son-in-law, joined the company formed to redeem Zion.7

Returning from his mission, Joseph stopped again in the Allred Settlement to urge the Saints to abandon their irretrievable farms in Jackson County and establish themselves in Clay County. Isaac hastened to Fishing River in Clay County in 1835 and harvested one crop before mob spirit resurged. Treated with more equanimity this time, the old settlers bought out the Saints’ farms and they moved to Caldwell County. This county was sparsely populated, and in 1836 was a refuge for outlaws. Nonethless, Isaac prospered and in 1837, the year ground was broken for a temple in Far West, purchased land on Long Creek, eight miles from Far West. On March 18, 1838, the Prophet and other Church leaders moved into Far West and the population swelled enough to cause the counties to split into Davis and Caldwell. As the Church expanded, the natives panicked and violence was triggered on election day at Gallatin, Davis County. Isaac had by that time three living daughters and nine sons. William declares that, “…we suffered considerable from persecution and exposure.”8

Both William and Reddick have vivid accounts of the turbulent months in 1838 when the prophet urged all outlying settlements to Far West for their protection. Preparing to withstand a siege, a company of men supervised by Captain Buchanan dragged a horse mill from Davis County into Far West. Reddick, sixteen years old at the time, took his father’s ox team and assisted the company. This is his recollection of the events on October 24th and 25th, 1838, as he returned to the city:

I put up at Father Morley’s, not having time to go home, eight miles out, before night. I had just fed my team and was eating supper when Father came to town with a report that the mob was making a raid upon the scattered settlements on the head of Long Creek. He told me to hitch up and go home as soon as possible to guard his family. It was pitch dark when I started and as I crossed the square, Apostle David Patten was in his saddle raising his men to go out to protect our people. Having had scarcely any sleep for two nights, I could not keep awake in the wagon, so I walked by the side of my oxen, and there I even slept as I walked, at the same time not knowing at what moment I might be in the hands of the mob. I got home at one o’clock and found all safe. Father kept on the alert, and at the break of day he heard the guns at the “Crooked River Battle,” it being only five miles from our home. That morning we moved into Far West, and witnessed the approach of the army, the capture of the Prophet and others, the surrender of arms, etc.etc.9

William was listed in George Hinkle's company (the man who baptized him) during the violence in Carroll and Davis County. The company marched to the town of DeWitt to aid a settlement besieged by the mob. Their opponents repulsed their aggresion and William mentions, “…they commenced shooting toward us but the bullets went over our heads (it being a lumbered country) but there were none of us hit." They struck a truce with the mob and moved on to the support of the Saints of Davis County. William saw the altar where Joseph revealed that Adam had offered sacrifice and built a breastwork with a detachment of fifty to defend the Saints from the Missouri militia of Generals Clark and Lucas. Capitulating to superior numbers, Colonel Hinkle agreed to surrender Joseph and Hyrum and his men's personal arms and property. As Joseph left for trial in Davis County, mob threats increased and William joined a self-appointed group to protect him.10

Acquiesing to the defeat of the Saints, Joseph and Hyrum entered the camp of the Missourians and William recalls, " …such a yelling and screaming and swearing I never heard, we could hear them up to Town." They held a court martial and condemned Joseph and Hyrum to death. William marched into the square in Far West with other Mormon defenders to sign away his property as compensation for damages to the Missourians and to relinquish his arms. General Lucas or Clark (William was not certain which one) advised them to leave the state in the spring and not to hope of mercy for their leaders, for "Their die is cast, their doom is sealed."11

William Allred, Isaac's younger brother, also took an active stand against the enemies of the Church. As a Captain over ten mounted men he went to intercept a wagon of guns and ammunition, destined for use against the Mormon forces, in September

1838. The wagon was hijacked and the guns scattered. Three men, issuing from the Missouri camp, were siezed by Captain Allred who had authority from a writ to arrest any man abetting the mob. The culprits and the munitions were taken to Far West.

The inhabitants exulted in having frustrated the machinations of the mob.12

In November, 1838, after the surrender of the Saints, General Clark brought William Allred, Martin C. Allred (James's son), and Andrew Whitlock (James's son-in-law) before Judge King and charged them with high treason against the state, murder, burglary, arson, robbery and larceny. They were incarcerated with Joseph, Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, Parley p. Pratt, and forty-eight other alleged war criminals at Richmond, Missouri. Having found no evidence to accuse Andrew, Martin C., or William of a drama, Judge King discharged them on November 18th.13

Two months after his release from prison, a public meeting was held in Far West. In attendance were the Saints from devastated Caldwell County. On a motion made by President Brigham Young, it was resolved to enter into a covenant to assist themselves and the worthy destitute Saints in leaving Missouri until all were out of danger of General Clark's extermination order.

William, Martin C. and two hundred and twelve other members signed the covenant. William was compelled to move to Pike County, Illinois where Hyrum ordained him a Bishop. He had left over 600 acres of land in Missouri.14

As William (Isaac's son) returned home, destroyed crops and property littered his path. His father had only one or two teams remaining. The family left Far West by foot in the snow. One of Isaac's daughters skirts were frozen up to her knees. In a petition to reimburse the Saints, sent in 1839 to Congress by Joseph Smith, Isaac is named with James (his brother), Martin C., and Reuben W. (his nephews) as plaintiffs for financial loss. Isaac estimated his property damage as $3,300. 00 and sued the government for redress.15

While his older brother was protecting the Saints in outlying districts, Reddick was organized by Joseph into a regiment of the fifty men and boys remaining in Far West. They attempted to shield the city from the threat of Governor Boggs' army of 4, 000. Their minimal army disconcerted stray Missourians forming battle lines for the oncoming conflict. Reddick writes that “…seeing our two companies charging into town on the east and west, they broke ranks and fled in confusion."16

Fearing recognition by the mobocrats, William left the state to spend a few months in hiding with his brother, John Calvert, in Quincy, Illinois. He returned to Missouri to help his parents evacuate. They rented a farm of a Mr. Stone in Adams County, Illinois, twenty miles south of Quincy.17

Despite the Missouri disasters, proselyting continued. At the October Conference of 1839, held in Commerce, Illinois, Reddin, Reddick, and William (no verification as to whether this is William Moore or Isaac's brother) were sustained as Elders. The twins left in November to share the Gospel with John Napoleon Calvert, Mary's younger brother, in Williamson County, Illinois. They spent a month preaching and leaving a favorable impression of Mormonism. Reddick states that "He said it was scriptural and reasonable, but he thought he could get all the salvation he needed where he was by being a strict Presbyterian." A year later, after Fall Conference, Reddick embarked by steamboat with Elders Daniel Garn and Jacob Foutz to proselyte in Cincinnati. He preached with Andrew Lamoreaux and eventually gravitated to Trenton, Indiana where he organized the branch.

While he was engaged in missionary endeavors, Isaac, sometime during 1840-41, departed from Adams County to Nauvoo, Hancock County.18

THE FIRST CONVERTS (Nauvoo Era)

Vis-a-vis fever-ridden Commerce, the Prophet reorganized his people and galvanized their energy for the building of Nauvoo. Anxious to own property in the city, Isaac places himself under bond to Hiram Kimball, a local land owner, in order to purchase land in November, 1841. He signs his name to three petitions regarding his lot. First, for the Kimball addition to be included in the boundaries of the city; second, for a well to stand at Durfee and Hibbard streets; and third, for Kimball street not to open from Hibbard to Barnett Street.1

An auspicious year for all the citizens of Nauvoo, the temple was begun and the Nauvoo Legion formed in 1841. William hauled into town the first load of stone quarried for the temple. Until the completion of the temple, he labored intermittently with joiners and carpenters in the workshops surrounding the temple foundations. Reddick describes working on the temple parttime as a mason. Many of the workers were poverty-stricken and survived on bread and water.2

In Examining the Temple Carpentry Shop Account Books, it proves that Isaac also worked as a carpenter. It is probable that he worked part-time as in the Temple Stone Cutting Shop. James Allred also assisted in constructing the Temple and giving endowments.3

Accompanying the building of the temple was the restoration of ordinances for dead ancestors. William expressed his feelings on baptism for the dead:

I was present when he (Joseph Smith) preached the first sermon on baptism for the dead. I remember my father said it was astonishing to him to think he had read the Bible all his life and never looked at it in that light before. I was present at the first baptism for the dead.

The records of Nauvoo show James Allred as a witness for John Murdock and Benjamin Andrews when they are baptized on behalf of deceased relatives on August 4, 1844. 4

Endowments for the living and the dead was the next step in the restoration of temple ordinances. At the time of that restoration, Joseph came to Elizabeth Warren (James's wife) with a sacred assignment:

It was while they were living in Nauvoo that the Prophet came to my grandmother, who was a seamstress by trade, and told her he had seen the Angel Moroni with the garments on, and asked her to assist him in cutting out the garments. They spread unbleached muslin out on the table and he told her how to cut it out. She had to cut the third pair, however, before he said it was satisfactory. She told the prophet that there would be sufficient cloth from the knee to the ankle to make a pair of sleeves, but he told her he wanted as few seams as possible and there would be sufficient whole cloth to cut the sleeve without piecing. The first pair were made of unbleached muslin and bound with turkey red, and without collars.5

To guard his city, Joseph created the Nauvoo Legion in 1841. William was commissioned as Captain of the 2nd Company, 2 Battalion, 2 Regiment, and 2 Cohort of the Legion.6

In March, 1841, James Allred was appointed as a supervisor of streets and as a high constable. In actuality, this was also a calling to be one of the Prophet's body guards. James was chosen again as a body guard to Joseph in the Nauvoo Legion. At April Conference he was sustained as a high councilor in the Nauvoo Stake. In addition to his priesthood duties, he would have shared with the other high councilors the task of guarding Joseph.7

William Allred (Isaac's brother) also had close contact with the Prophet. As Bishop in the Stake at Pleasant Vale, he came to Nauvoo in March desiring Joseph to inquire of the Lord concerning His will for William. The Lord revealed that he should sell stock in the Nauvoo House, assist in building it and own stock in it. William had only four months to comply with this revelation. He died in July, 1841.8

William Moore Allred had a warm relationship with Joseph. He and Emma attended William's marriage to Orissa Bates in January, 1842. He elaborated on his friendship with Joseph as follows:

I was with him in the troubles at DeWitt, Adam-ondi-Ahman and Far West. I have played ball with him many times in Nauvoo. He was preaching once, and he said it tried some of the pious folks to see him play ball with the boys. He then related a story of a certain prophet who was sitting under the shade of a tree amusing himself in some way, when a hunter came along with a bow and arrow, and reproved him. The prophet asked him if he kept his bow strung up all the time. The hunter answered that he did not. The prophet said it was just that way with his mind, he did not want it strung up all the time.9

A Hancock County tax assessment reveals William's Father, Isaac, as a substantial property holder in 1842. His cattle are valued at $68.00 (this represents ten or more cattle), his horses at $120.00 (this represents at least two horses), his vehicles at $50.00 (this represents wagons and possibly a carriage) and his clocks and watches at $15. 00. His other personal property is valued at $100.00 (this represents furniture and possibly includes tools). The assessment discloses that he has a store in his home, or that he sold products from his home. All totalled, his estate is appraised at $353.00. Statistical studies of the records rank Isaac Allred, Sr. as one of the nineteen wealthiest men in Nauvoo. He has more personal property than 98% of the townspeople.10

Officials of Nauvoo evaluated Isaac's possessions and conducted a Church census in 1842. The assessors valued Isaac's property at $273. 00 and affirmed that Isaac lived on Block 4 and owned the north quarter of Lot 50. The real property, the land was valued at only $70.00. This indicates that Isaac did not build a house on it or the property would have been worth more. The Church census, taken in the spring of 1842, lists Isaac and Mary as members of the Third Ward (there were four wards in Nauvoo at the time) with Nancy, Reddin A., Reddick N., James R., Paulinus H., Joseph A., Isaac M. and Sidney R.11

Persecution of Church leaders increased in 1842. James T. S. Allred remembers the harassment of Joseph and Hyrum:

The Prophet and his brother Hyrum were continuously being hunted and persecuted by the mobs. Grandmother (Elizabeth Warren) often used to put potatoes in the coals in the fireplace at night and leave bread and butter and fresh buttermilk (of which the prophet was very fond) out on the table so that they could come in during the night and eat.12

While living in Illinois, James Allred (James T. S. Allred's Father and Isaac's brother) was also harassed by enemies of the Church. An affidavit, made by James in July, 1840, testifies of an unlawful kidnapping of himself and Noah Rogers by Missourians without a warrant for arrest or extradition. James and Noah were forcibly taken to Tully, Missouri. They were bound by cords and left in a room for one night. The next night James was stripped, tied to a tree and threatened with a whipping.

However, he was not severely abused and was released after several days of detention.13

Another city assessment in 1843 shows that Isaac had moved off the north quarter of Lot 50 but still owned it. A legal document manifests that he purchased the north quarter from Allen Taylor (his son-in-law). This land was located beneath the rolling hills of Nauvoo and may have been difficult to drain for farming. Other municipal accounts show that Isaac, like most Americans before the introduction of gold specie as the economic basis, operated on a barter system. His name appears for goods transactions in both the Nauvoo House Ledger and the Provision Store Ledger.14

Nauvoo Ward Records indicate that tithing also operated on a barter system. An entry from the account of donations received by Bishop Hunter for the poor in the Nauvoo Fifth Ward attests that Reddin A. gave 17 pickles and 7 3/4 cups of flour totaling $0.20.15

Reddin is appointed to a Committee of Vigilance March 28, 1843, the day of the Young Ladies and Gentleman's Relief Society, a prototype of the MIA, was formed. In July, 1843, a plot to kidnap Joseph to Missouri while he is visiting Emma in Dixon, Illinois, is exposed. Reddin joins Hyrum and other Elders for a rescue expedition on the Steamboat, Maid of Iowa. Joseph is warned of the plot and his seizure is averted.16

Seven months pass and on February 12, 1844, Reddin A. and Reddick N. are confirmed as Seventies in the Fourth Quorum. Organized by Brigham Young, this quorum includes three of James's sons. In December of 1843, William is called as a Seventy in the Seventh Quorum.17

Emotions were tense as the Prophet and Patriarch left for Carthage in June, 1844. William Moore recounts the speech Joseph gave to the Nauvoo Legion before leaving:

I was present in the Nauvoo Legion when it was drawn up in front of the Mansion when Joseph was making his last speech as he stood on the little frame opposite the Mansion on the 18th of June when he called on the Legion to stand by him and drawing his sword and presenting it to Heaven said, "I call God and angels to witness that I have unsheathed my sword. This people shall be free or my blood shall be spilt on the ground."

The sword he unsheathed was given to James Allred at the Carthage jail with these words from Joseph, "Take this – you may need it to defend yourself."18

After the martyrdom, James arrived with a wagon and team to remove John Taylor from incarceration. A sleigh was attached to the wagon and President Taylor was dragged comfortably over the prairie grass while Sister Taylor applied ice water to his wounds. Returning to Carthage the next day with a small guard, he brought home the bodies of the Martyrs. At the funeral procession, James Allred and twelve other close friends of Joseph are honored in being his bodyguards.19

Two years following their deaths, the Saints prepare for the exodus to the Rocky Mountains. There is an increase in Temple activity, especially personal endowments, as the members plan for the migration to Iowa. On January 17, 1846, Isaac and Mary Allred are washed and anointed, endowed and sealed in the Nauvoo Temple. In the Nauvoo Temple Record, Isaac is listed as a High Priest. This is the only verification of any of his priesthood ordinations. In April of 1846, Isaac crosses the Mississippi River into Iowa.20

CROSSING THE PLAINS (Iowa Era)

Brigham Young evacuated Nauvoo in February 1846 and requested James Riley (Isaac's fifth son) to serve as a guard in his company. Reddick also rode in the first company leaving Nauvoo. He traveled as far as Garden Grove, Decatur County, with Bishop George Miller's group and returned two months later to Illinois to transport his family and Father across the river. William Moore, having no team or wagon, traveled with Isaac’s family.1

Enjoying favorable weather, clear roads and plentiful grass, they passed the settlements in Decatur County to put down roots for two years in Pigeon Creek, Pottawatomie County. President Young's organizing acumen caused the itinerant Saints to quickly form into branches. One of the forty L. D. S. branches in Pottawatomie County was the Allred Branch on Pigeon Creek.2

Previous to their arrival in Iowa, the U. S. Army captain, James Allen, had solicited for five hundred battalion volunteers to march to the Pacific Coast and seize California in the War against Mexico. James Riley and Reddick enlisted at Council Bluffs. James was commissioned as a private in Company A and Reddick was commissioned as quartermaster sargeant responsible for portioning rations and conveying baggage. He left his wife and daughter in Iowa and began the arduous seventeen month trek from Fort Leavenworth to Sutter's Fort and back to Iowa. They returned pitiably malnourished, having survived on rawhide, mule meat and mule brains during the trip home. However, as Brigham Young had promised, their effort was a blessing to the Saints. The wages they earned outfitted families for the journey west.3

Reddick returned home December 19, 1847 to find his spouse and child cared for by his Father, who is presiding over the Branch in Little Pigeon, the Allred Settlement. They remained in the settlement during 1848 to harvest crops of wheat, corn, buckwheat and turnips. By July, 1849, Isaac's family and Allen Taylor's family (his son-in-law) were celebrating the Fourth of July and their last week in Iowa. The Frontier Guardian, a paper published in Kanesvi1le by the Saints, reported on the festivities:

The committee which had been previously chosen found a shade under which a long table was soon constructed and our ladies (God bless them), soon had it covered with white linen and then the way the cakes, pies and chicken fixens was displayed along the table was enough to make a man's mouth water - in fact there was a splendid feast. Such as would vie with an old settled county, each family bringing with them enough for a half dozen or more. The cloth being removed, Col. Jesse Haven was called on for a speech; he soon mounted the sand and made a short but very eloquent address, at the close of which the Washington song was sung by Captain Wm. M. Allred and lady.4

Eight days later, Isaac, Reddick and Allen Taylor departed with their families for the Great Basin. Reddin stayed in the Allred Settlement as did William, who bought Isaac's land in Pottawatomie County. Allen Taylor is captain of the company with Absolom Perkins and Isaac Allred as his counselors and captains of fifty. A letter written September 31 1849 by Allen Taylor to President Young reveals the perils of the journey:

…we have got along so far with good success, our teams are in tolerable condition. We have, however, had two or three heavy stampedes and unfortunately considerable damage was sustained and one life lost, Sister Wm. Hawk, who was run over by cattle and lived only twenty four hours. The first stampede we had two wagons broken, six sheep killed and twenty horns knocked off cattle. The same morning, after we got them in the corral and yoked them up, they started again and nearly killed two men, but the brethren are nearly well now. We feel, however, as though we had got through our stampeding, having had none since we left Chimney Rock and many in our companies feel sanguine that they can go to the Valley without help, should they be so providential as to keep their cattle alive through the alkali regions.5

Reddick, with a yoke of oxen and cows, drove the lead wagon into the valley October 161 1849. The Allreds spent that winter in Salt Lake City. They left in the spring to make their first home in Utah at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon. Eventually, Reddick and Paulinus settled on one side of the stream with Reddin and Isaac on the opposite side.6

THE UTAH ERA

A census taken in 1851 shows Isaac, Mary, Isaac M. and Sidney as inhabitants of Salt Lake County living in the same dwelling. Isaac is registered as a farmer. Mary Calvert died later that year on September 16th. William heard of her demise as he passed Fort Bridger on his way to Salt Lake. He expressed his emotions about the news:

Soon after we passed Fort Bridger we met Br. Cooley (1851) who informed me of the death of my Mother which was quite a blow to me for I was looking forward to the time and only a few days at that till I would see my Parents and Brothers and Sisters and friends that had gone ahead.1

Isaac was remarried March 1, 1852 to Matilda Stewart Park, the widow of John Miller Park. With Matilda, his own sons, two stepdaughters and a stepson, he farmed one more year in Cottonwood. Utah Territory Membership Records show Isaac Allred, Sen., Isaac Allred, Jun., P. H. Allred and Reddick N. Allred as residing in the South Cottonwood Ward.2

Though the majority of the Saints were in penurious and unstable circumstances, Brigham Young promoted missionary work. At a Conference held in Salt Lake, on August 28, 1852, Reddick and Reddin were selected to proselyte in the Hawaiian Islands. They spent three years preaching and undoubtedly associated with Francis A. Hammond and Mary Jane Dilworth, who were missionaries there at the same time period.3

During Reddin and Reddick's absence, Isaac and Pau1inus abandoned their homesteads in Cottonwood. The site was not ideal for farming. There was a sufficient water supply but not sufficient land. There was also threat of Indian attacks in such an isolated area. In 1852, Isaac moved to the more populous settlement of Kaysville. Reddick returned in 1855 to discover his wife and children living near his Father and destitute as a result of crop failure.4

Grasshoppers had devastated the harvest throughout the territory. Tragedy occurred again in 1856 as the Willie and Martin handcart companies met an early winter on the plains. The Martin Company, two weeks behind the Willie Company, suffered the worst losses. They were halted by snow and starvation at a ravine between the Platte and Sweetwater Rivers. As the supplies of the rescue party ran low, some turned back, thinking the company had perished or wintered elsewhere. Reddick and others, including Ephraim Hanks, a well-reputed Mormon Scout, refused to turn back and brought the survivors into Salt Lake Valley at the end of November. More than one-fifth of the company had died en route.5

Two years later, anticipating a conflict with Johnston's Army, President Young advised the Saints to move south. In August, 1858, Isaac migrates to Ephraim, Sanpete Co. He is chosen, as are James and Richard Ivie, Benjamin Clapp, Joseph Clement, and Reuben Allred, as a member of an exploring committee to select a location for a settlement on Pleasant Creek (known later as Mount Pleasant). When they returned to Ephraim with their recommendations, a meeting was called to discuss the requisite procedures for founding a settlement. Finally, James Allred, who participated in colonizing efforts in Manti, Spring City and Ephraim, and James Ivie were elected to seek President Young's counsel and present him with the petition for establishing the town.6

Isaac did not colonize Mount Pleasant, but he purchased property in Spring City (known later as Springtown) where Reddick, Joseph, Sidney, Isaac M., and his brother, James, and his sons were located. The United States 1860 Census, taken in Springtown, Sanpete Co., lists Isaac, a farmer, and Matilda. His real estate is valued at $200.00 and his personal property at $500.00. The 1865 tax records show Isaac remitting a total of $2.62 in taxes to the territory and county for his estate.7

This year, 1865, also marks the beginning of the Black Hawk War. The Ute Indian chief, Black Hawk, and his marauders plundered and killed homesteaders from 1865-1868. In retaliation, the pioneers organized a Territorial Militia. For varying lengths of time, Isaac served as a private, William commanded a company of infantry, Reddick served as a colonel, Paulinus as a lieutenant colonel, James as a private, Joseph as a private, Isaac Morley as a second lieutenant, and Sidney as a private. Reddick was in command of the battle at Salina where Black Hawk had made a raid on stock and killed two white men. Isaac served from April 1 to November 1, 1865 under Captain John E. Chase, Company B, Fourth Platoon. He was seventy-seven years old at the time, and his elder brother James, given a position as an officer when he was eighty-one years old, also served in the militia.

In his declining years, Isaac was cared for by the sons that surrounded him in Spring City. Deceased on November 13, 1870, at eighty-two, the newspaper account capsulized his life and honored his personal qualities as follows:

He was a faithful saint and was highly esteemed by all who knew him. The people of this city turned out en masse to pay the last tribute of respect to his memory. President O. (Orson) Hyde officiated at the funeral obsequies and delivered a very comforting discourse to the friends of the deceased.9

James Lake and Philomela Smith

G-G-G-G-G-Grandparents to Keith M. Chandler

James LAKE 7 October 1788--7 October 1874

James LAKE Jr. was born 7 October 1788 in White Creek, Van Rensselaer County, New York. He was the 4th child of James LAKE Sr. and Margaret HAGERMAN. James Sr. had served in the Revolutionary War on the side of the British and had been a prisoner of war from 24 October 1777 until 1783.

Just four months before James LAKE Jr.’s birth, the newly independent country had ratified the new Constitution of the United States of America. They had just a few years earlier won their independence from England.

When James Jr. was about 5 years old, his parents and brother and sister moved from New York to Upper Canada. His father petitioned for land due to his service in the British Army. Because he was born before 1870, James Jr. was eligible for land under his father’s rights to receive land. He was granted that land but it was very poor land and it ended up being sold in a Sheriff’s sale.

In 1809, James Jr. married his cousin Mary LAKE. They had four children, George who died when he was 10 years old, Dennis and Cyrus who were among the early elders of the church; however, they fell away during the great apostasy in Kirkland even though they had helped to build the Temple there. Their daughter Mary stayed in Canada. Later James’s wife Mary died and James Jr. married Elizabeth STOVER. They had 3 children.

While clearing land for a home and crops, he, James Lake Jr., accidentally struck his shin with the ax, tearing the flesh and splintering the bone. With each beat of his heart the blood gushed from the wound. All his wife’s efforts to stop the flow of blood were futile. It appeared that he would not survive, when suddenly a handsome gray haired gentleman came into the room. “How do you do, my good friend? You seem to be in trouble!” he said. “Yes, it looks like my moments in this life are numbered” James answered. The old gentleman took from his pocket a small bottle and handed it to James saying, “Just apply this and the bleeding will stop.” He then turned and walked out of the room. James called his wife saying, “Follow that man quickly and see where he is going.” She hurried to the door but could not see the man anywhere. James leg stopped bleeding with the first application of the medicine. James always said that this man was sent to him to help save his life. After he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and read about the three Nephites in the Book of Mormon, he was convinced that the white haired gentleman who saved his life was one of them. James Lake Jr.’s life was spared but his leg had to be amputated. His wife died about this time leaving him with 2 broken families and in dire poverty.

On 3 September 1823, James married Philomela Smith. She was a widow with five children (one died in 1818). James Jr. and Philomela had 6 children while in Canada, the last being Lydia Ann LAKE. George LAKE, son of James Jr. and Philomela, said of his parents, “My mother was a weakly woman and my father was a cripple. Yet, they bore their trails without a murmur.”

James Jr. and Philomela joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in June of 1832, just two years after it was restored and just a month after their daughter Lydia Ann Lake was born. George writes, “In 1832 my parents, with most of their family received the Gospel as declared to them by old friends, Brigham, Joseph and Phineas Young.” Eleazer Miller baptized them. James Jr. and Philomela moved their family to Kirkland in July of 1833 with the help of Brigham Young. Brigham had stayed in their home sometime before.

James and his sons helped with the construction of the Kirtland Temple and he and Philomela were present at the dedication. When driven out of Kirtland, they intended to go to Missouri, but due to the trouble among the Saints and the Missourians. They stopped in Illinois. There they rented a farm near Springfield and remained there until the Saints assembled at Nauvoo. James and Philomela received their endowments on 31 December 1845 in the Nauvoo Temple. The temple was open around the clock with the Temple workers only getting to their homes once a week.

The Lake Family left Nauvoo in the month of February 1846. They crossed the Mississippi River on the bridge of ice with 600 wagons in their company. The family arrived in Council Bluffs, Pottawattamie, Iowa in the fall of 1846, after a very difficult trip from Nauvoo. They suffered many hardships and many trials as did other Saints. James built a log cabin for his family and they occupied it for nearly two years.

James was appointed as the Bishop of a ward in Council Bluffs Iowa to look after the wants of the widows and the fatherless. The first winter 1846-47 was the coldest and hardest winter for many years. The ice on the Missouri River was three feet thick.

In the spring of 1848, James Jr. and Philomela and 8 of their family moved to Missouri where they found work to help them get the necessary supplies for the trip to Salt Lake. James accumulated 40 cows and loose stock, over 100 sheep, 6 yoke of oxen, 3 brood mares, and 2 good wagons well laden with supplies. They were ready to move.

In 1850, James was appointed as Captain of Fifty. They were an independent company but they traveled the same route as the others. They were better prepared than most. They had 1 large wagon with 3 yoke of oxen and a small wagon with 2 yoke of oxen.

When they arrived at Ft. Laramie, Wyoming, they began to have sickness, with Barnabas and his wife Electra and George all getting the Mountain Fever. It spread from wagon to wagon and from company to company. They arrived in Salt Lake 5 September 1850. After resting for a few days and attending General Conference, they traveled the 35 miles north to Ogden in Weber County to make their home. On 26 January 1851, James Lake Jr. was called as a High Councilman of the first Weber Stake High Council. He was appointed to the City Council.

In October of 1853, James and Philomela traveled to Salt Lake to attend Conference. It was held the 6th through the 10th. During the morning session of conference on the 8th of October, James heard his name called from the pulpit to become a Patriarch. He was the first Patriarch of the Weber Stake in Ogden. Between 1855 and 1873 he recorded 264 blessings in his Patriarchal Blessing Book.

He also entered into plural marriage at this time when he married for time only the widow Ester Ann Pierce Green.

The summer and winter of 1855 was server. The people lived in Bingham’s Fort because of the Indians. They had to do their farming with their guns in their hands. The water was scare. Winter came early. It snowed in November and there were several feet on the ground for 4-5 months.

There was a special Conference in Ogden on the 7th and 8th of October in 1861. James, age 73, and Philomela age 67, were both very ill and were unable to attend these meetings. Brigham Young who attended their meeting and had Brother George Albert Smith give the closing prayer and he was asked to pray for Patriarch James Lake and his wife Philomela.

In the summer of 1872, James and Philomela moved to Oxford, Idaho so that they could be cared for by their son George and his family. James was 84 years old at the time and Philomela was 78. Philomela died on 20 March 1873 and James died on his 86th birthday, 7 October 1874.

Personal Data for James LAKE Jr. and Family

Born: October 7, 1788

Place: White Creek, Van Rensselaer County, New York

Died: October 7, 1874

Father: James LAKE Sr.

Mother: Margaret Hagerman LUCAS

Married: 1st Wife: Mary LAKE married 1801

2nd Wife: Elizabeth STOVER

3rd Wife: Philomela Smith-- 3 September 1823 (sealed in Nauvoo 31 December 1845)

4th Wife: Ester Ann Green (time only)

5th Wife: Mary McMurray (time only)

6th Wife: Polly Smith (sealed after her death)

Children:

1st Wife Mary Lake 2nd Wife Elizabeth Stover 3rd Wife Philomela Smith

(1) George Lake (5) Julie Lake (8) Sabra Lake

(2) Dennis Lake (6) Lawrence Lake (9) William Bailey Lake

(3) Cyrus Lake (7) James Madden Lake (10) Barnabas Lake

(4) Mary Lake (11) Clarissa (Clara) Lake

(12) Jane Lake

(13) Lydia Ann Lake

(14) Moroni Lake (died as infant)

(15) Samantha Lake married Noah BRIMHALL

(16) George Lake

(17) Sarah Amanda Lake (died age 2)

1850 James Lake Company

Departure: early June 1850

Arrival in Salt Lake Valley: 3-6 September 1850

Lakes:

Barnabas (23)

Fanny Electra Snyder (21)

George (12)

James (62)

Lydia Ann (18)

Philomela Smith (56)

Samantha (15)

Source: Mormon Overland Travel, 1847-1868

Source: Nauvoo Temple Register, December 31, 1845, Second Company, 5. James Lake, 6. Philomela Lake

Reference: LDS Biographical Encyclopedia. Jensen, Andrew. 1951 Volume: 2:287-388

Listed on Kirtland Zion’s Camp Record, pg. 43

William Allred and Elizabeth Thrasher

G-G-G-G-G-Grandparents to Keith M. Chandler

Much of their history is included with their son Isaac Allred but I thought this was interesting.

Allreds in the American Revolution 1776 - 1783

Revolutionary War Pay Vouchers

North Carolina Army Accounts (Treasurer's and Comptroller's Papers)

Revolutionary War Pension Records

To our knowledge, all of the American Allred families were living in or near Randolph County, NC during the Revolutionary War. Several of the men were American Patriots. Some served in the Militia, others provided goods or services to the American Cause. Two filed Pension Applications which are full of details. For the rest, we have found Military Pay Vouchers and listings in the North Carolina Treasurer's and Comptroller's Accounts.

Some of the Allred men are clearly identified on the documents. But, because there were several men / boys named William, Thomas, and John, it's hard to sort them all out or have definitive proof of which man is listed in each document. In most cases, all we can do is make an educated guess based on our knowledge of our family genealogy and the ages of the Allred men during the war years.

Per the 1779 Randolph County, NC, Tax List, and other records, the following Allred men were "of age" to serve in the American Revolution:

Thomas Allred (William’s grandfather) - one of the "original" men who first came to North Carolina in the 1750's

Thomas Allred, Jr. - thought to be the son of Thomas Allred, was born 1771. He would have been old enough to participate during the final years of the war. (Documentation shows some boys as young as 12 years participated in the American Revolution.)

Elias Allred - son of Thomas Allred, estimated to be 21 years old in 1779

William Allred - son of Thomas Allred, estimated to be 29 years old in 1779

James Allred - son of Thomas Allred, estimated to be about 34 years old in 1779

John Allred - one of the "original" men who first came to North Carolina in the 1750's

John Allred - son of John, 30 years old in 1779

William Allred - one of the "original" men who first came to North Carolina in the 1750's

William Allred - son of William, 15 years old in 1779

John Allred - son of William - 14 years old in 1779

A William Aldred is listed in a document dated October 1781 titled "Men Over the Age in Dobbs County, NC" on file in the NC Archives. This caught our eye and needs to be mentioned here. On a 1762 land grant for the "original" William, there is a notation that a "cc" or copy of the grant is to be given to William Alred Sr.. This notation leads us to believe that the father of the "original" William was in North Carolina at that time. We estimate that the "original" William was born about 1735, making him about 46 years old in 1781. If his father was about 20 years old or older when William was born, the father would have been 66 or older in 1781, too old to serve in the Continental Army, and the right age to be listed on this document. More research will have to be done on this to prove the connection, but it was a very interesting find.

James McDonald and Sarah Ferguson

G-G-G-G-Grandfather to Keith M. Chandler

A CONDENSED HISTORY OF JAMES MCDONALD and SARAH FERGESON

and their daughter, JANE MCDONALD CLYDE

By Lily Clyde Giles

This information was taken from the McDonald-Fergeson history by Ila Fisher Maughn, also from experiences told me by my father Edward D. Clyde

James McDonald was born June 1, 1802 in Crawfordsburn, County Down, Ireland. He, with his parents, Moses and Mary Glass McDonald (married Jan. 1, 1801), spent their early years in Greenock, Scotland. It is not known just when they moved back to Crawfordsburn. It was here James met and married Sarah Fergeson. She was born 13 of October, 1802 in County Down, Ireland. They were married in 1825.

Sarah was medium height, slender, with brown hair and hazel eyes. James was of medium height, brown hair and eyes, average height with a husky and strong stature. James learned the trade of a flax dresser at an early age. The factory there in County Down was noted for weaving the famous Irish linen for over a hundred years.

The spinning jenny was invented in 1788. Two factories were built in Bangor, just two miles from Crawfordsburn. The work in the linen factory paid only one schilling a day. The need for better pay caused him to look elsewhere, as his growing family consisted of Jane, born July 17, 1827, Eliza, John, William, Robert, Mary, and David. A baby, John, died in infancy before Eliza.

He went to work for a landlord by the name of Sherman Crawford. Peasants were not allowed to own land, but the thrifty and industriousness of James, Sarah, and the children, soon won his favor, as they increased the productivity of his farm land. He gave them permission to lease three acres of land to raise their own produce. There was a large rock house on the property that James was allowed to buy. They gained possession of a milk goat. They were considered quite well-fixed for peasants. Pictures taken before they left Ireland show prosperity. They were considered thrifty people, but when an L.D.S. missionary by the name of David Wilkie and his companion brought the new gospel to them, they were doubly so. James and Sarah and family were the first in that area to be baptized. They saved every penny they could to come to America and Zion. Produce was traded for a small pig. It soon brought more money to be added to their collection.

James and Sarah opened their home to all the town to meet in their home for regular cottage meetings. Many new converts were baptized by the L.D.S. missionaries. The new members called their home “M’Donald’s big hoose”.

They sold their home for $200.00. They finally saved enough money to buy passage on the sail boat “Fanny”, to come to America. It cost money to take the boat from Belfast Ireland, to Liverpool, England. It was only a short distance of ten miles across country. They loaded all of their possessions and sailed from Belfast. They had to stay in the sailboat “Fanny”, for four days before it was loaded ready to sail. The sailboat left for America on the 23rd of January, 1844. There were 210 Saints on board. This ship was the only known sailboat to sail across the Atlantic Ocean at that time of year, without facing a storm. The captain stated it was because there were 210 “Mormons” aboard. The sailboat, “Fanny”, reached the port of New Orleans on March 7, 1844. There was a wait there for the steamboat “Maid of Iowa” to Nauvoo. The steamboat needed to stop frequently for more wood and load provisions etc. on the way. The family of James and Sarah finally reached their destination of Nauvoo on the 13th of April, 1844.

They found an old log cabin without doors or windows on the outskirts of Nauvoo. The place was soon given repairs and was declared their new home in America. James soon found work at a flour mill 20 miles from Nauvoo. He gladly walked the distance back and forth each day, as it provided the family with food and some clothing. A vegetable garden soon furnished them with the necessary food to exist. Their youngest son, David, died of malaria fever before McDonald, James/Sarah 2 leaving Nauvoo. She had also delivered her tenth child the summer before leaving. It died not long after birth. They spent two winters and part of the following spring. The following early summer the mob drove them from their home. There was no time to take any of the vegetables from their garden. Sarah had many loaves of fresh baked bread on her table to cool. She snatched a loaf when the mob wasn’t looking and hid it under her apron.

They had to spend that night out in the cold storm with nothing but sheets and blankets stretched against bushes to shelter them. The family reached the home of an old man named George Holmes. They finally persuaded the old man to move what they could save of their possessions in an old cart drawn by a yoke of oxen that looked as old as the hills, to Bonaparte on the Des Moines River. It is not clear if they stayed there for the winter, or moved farther on. Brigham Young ordered the saints to make camps along the trail, and raise gardens to feed the following saints, even if they decided to move on. We know that they spent the following winter, and decided to spend three years in Kaynsville to prepare for the long, hard trek ahead.

They all worked long and hard to raise money to buy 2 yoke of oxen, 2 heavy wagons, and enough provisions to last them until they reached Salt Lake Valley. They endured many hardships, and much sickness and dying among the company. Cholera broke out among the saints. Many died along the wayside. They camped along the banks of the North Platte River long enough to bury their dead. James worked all day long digging graves and burying their dead. Sarah was so completely overcome with grief over James dropping dead that night, that Jane had to shoulder the responsibility of driving one ox team and 10 year old John the other team the next morning.

There is no place in their history that tells of Sarah being a cripple, and had to walk with a cane, but in later years when Jane’s mind had been impaired, she talked incessantly of shouldering all the responsibility after her father’s death, as her mother was a cripple.

Sarah Fergesen McDonald arrived in the Salt Lake Valley with her children September 12, 1850. Brigham Young advised the new immigrants to go on up to Alpine, as there were many lush acres of wild hay for their cattle. They stayed there that winter, but moved down into Springville the next spring, as the climate in Alpine was bitterly cold in winter.

The immigrants and saints in Springville built Sarah Fergesen McDonald a home for her and her children. Jane married George W. Clyde. Her sister, Eliza, married George’s brother, William. Sister, Mary, married John Hamilton. Her brother, William, married Sariah Shirts. They lived happy in Springville until they heard of immigrants talking of moving to the lush Provo Valley. Jane married George W. Clyde on Sept. 30, 1851. They had David, John, James William, Robert, and Jane. They learned of the lush valley of Provo in 1859. George W. and John Hamilton decided to go investigate the area, as the report was that the valley was a good place for cattle and other stock.

They were so favorably impressed with the beautiful valley; they both built log cabins inside the fort. So did Jane’s brother William. Both John and William stayed there all winter with their wives. George came back to Springville with plans to move his family up in the spring. George and Jane moved their family and stock up to the lush valley now called Heber, after Heber C. Kimball. It was the spring of 1860. The snow was still on the ground. The three boys, David, John, and James, drove the cattle, sheep, and pigs in front of the ox team. George, Jane and the children, Jane and baby Robert, rode in the wagon with their provisions and other possessions.

The young boys were barefoot, and would run and urge the cattle to get up from the ground where they had slept all night so they could find a warm sport to warm their cold feet before starting on the road again. It took five days to make the trip from Springville to Provo valley.

They lived in the log cabin in the fort until the Indian scare was over. They then moved it two blocks east of main street on the lot where the home of Charles Anderson now stands. They had homesteaded large tracts of land north on both sides of the main street. They moved their cabin down there. This is where they built the large sandstone home.

All of the McDonald boys moved to Heber. They moved their mother, and only one was left at home, Joseph. A log cabin was built across the road east of the home of Jane and George. Here the family cared for Sarah the rest of her life. The wealthy Kearns boys, she helped, visited often.

Jane was not completely satisfied with her new home in Heber. She wanted to go back to Springville to be with her sister, Eliza, and George’s brother, William. George promised her they would go back as soon as things looked more favorable. In the meantime, their oldest son, David, died at the age of 14. The canyon down to Provo was filled with deep snow, and was closed for the winter. David was buried in the Heber City Cemetery. Jane decided to stay there.

Brigham Young visited the city of Heber, and visited the now prosperous home of George and Jane Clyde. He could see prosperity in every nook and corner of the place. He could also see that Jane knew well how to run things. He called George to take him a younger wife and leave Jane to manage things at home. He was to go on to Nevada, and with his new wife, help colonize Nevada.

George was a kind, gently, God-fearing soul, and agreed to find him a new wife and go. When he told Jane of his new calling, she drew her mouth in a tight line and said, “Yee’ll not go George Clyde. Yee’ll stay here and help me raise these children.” He did.

Their family consisted of John, James William, Sarah Jane, Robert, Mary Lorintha, Edward D., Georgiana, and Cyntha Sophia. They were all educated in the highest degree of schools in the valley.

Their son, Edward, attended the Brigham Young University. He taught school in Heber City before going on an L.D.S. mission to the British Isles.

My mother, Clara Alexander Clyde, and her brother, Monroe Alexander, went to a private school above the old tithing office when they were children. It was taught by Mariah Luke. She made friends with a girl named Sophia Clyde and her brother, Eddie. She remembers coming home with Sophia after school to play in the big sandstone house. She saw a little old lady dressed all in black. She had a cane in her hand and was standing inside of a locked gate by a log cabin. She was screaming to the top of her voice. My mother was very frightened, for she thought she was a witch! Her little friend, Sophia (Fid), said, “Oh, don’t be afraid. That’s just Granny McDonald (Sarah). She’s just mad ‘cause the gate’s locked, and she can’t get out and run away.”

My husband, Reed and I lived with and cared for my mother, Clara, until she expired 19 years later. If I’d raise my voice to reprimand my children, she would say, “Now Granny McDonald, cool that temper!”

Jane and George were always very good financiers. It was said that Jane could stretch a dollar further than anyone else. They had accumulated large tracts of farmland, homesteaded large areas of lambing ground for their stock. They owned cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, and chickens. Jane would cord the wool, spin and weave many yards of material for all their own clothes. She had learned the art of weaving while helping her father, James, when he worked as a weaver of flax in Ireland. She wove fine woolen blankets, and even a finer weave of yarn that was used for sheets in the summer. Her home was surrounded by currant, raspberry, and gooseberry bushes, strawberries and grape vines. There was always a profusion of flowers, fruit and shade trees. There was a large red barn, wood house, pig pens, chicken coops, coal house, graineries, and a smoke house where she smoked both ham and bacon. The ham and bacon was very much in demand, as she had learned the art in the “Old Country.” She would make cheese, churn butter, make soap, and a special liquid soap, new to others and much in demand. Eggs were another produce she would sell. She would also take yards and yards of material she had woven. It was also very much called for that she would pack all of her produce in a white top buggy and hitch her fine team of horses, and off she would to Salt Lake City. It took two days to get there. She would stay overnight at Kimball’s junction. A “white top” is a two-seated buggy with a white canvas top and white canvas that could be rolled down from the inside to keep out the storm or thieves. Her homespun material was woven finer than most of the material on the market, as she had learned the art of fine weaving in the “Old Country.”

Jane was quick and accurate to figure out the amount due her for her produce. She could figure out in her head the amount as soon as the price per pound was stated, before the salesman could figure it out on paper. She always insisted that she be paid in $5, $10, and $20 gold pieces. Home she would come, singing Irish dittys, and with her gold tucked out of sight in case of robbers. No one every saw her gold or knew the amount of money she made each trip.

She had accumulated many gold pieces during her years of selling her produce. Her son, Robert, was the only one in the family who ever really saw her gold. He was just a little boy when he bolted into her bedroom to find his mother, Jane, emptying a large brass bucket full of $5, $10, and $20 gold pieces on her bed. She was counting her gold.

“Gee along oot wee yez,” she screamed. “Yee’ve noo beezness in here. I’m a savin’ this fer yes fer when es air big.” My father, Edward, was about to follow his brother, Robert, in when he heard his mother screetch. He knew he had better run fast -- in the opposite direction. He did. She had told all eight of her living children that she had saved $1000.00 for each one of them when they were big. Since she had her “spell,” as she called it, she could not find her gold. She had what is called a “stroke” before her children grew up. The blood clot on her brain had blotted out her memory of the later half of her life. All she could remember was when she was young and when her children were little

Jane asked the stake president if her son, Edward, could be sent to the British Isles when they had called him on a mission. She wanted him to look up as much genealogy as he could when he labored in Ireland. This was in 1885 to 1887. Her family had left Ireland in 1844. The only one he could find that remembered James McDonald and Sarah Fergeson was an old man. He said, “Oo yis. James McDonald was a good man, but when he married Sally Fergeson, he married one o’ the devil’s ain legs!”

Edward found a poor orphaned boy who followed him everywhere. He begged my father to please take him to America when he left for home. My father told him he would be glad to if he only had enough money for the fare, but he did not have the money. The ship had been traveling on the water for two days when a half-starved boy made his appearance on deck. My father took him under his care and brought him home. He was treated as one of the family. He was very anxious to please all, and he worked very hard and long each day. This pleased Jane, as she believed everyone should do their share of work. She rewarded him by buying him a storebought suit.

The lad was wild with delight. He put on his new suit Sunday morning and came strutting downstairs. Jane said, “Ha ye slopped the pigs?” He replied, “How can I slop the pigs? I’m all dressed up in my new suit!” Jane got a bucket of slop and threw it all over him and his new suit! “Noo, yee’ll go slop the pigs.” He did!

My father had found, to his surprise, that the peasants in Ireland in those days built two story houses. The cattle, pigs, and chickens lived in the first story, and the family lived up above them on the second story.

My father and a missionary companion were invited to eat the evening meal and spend the night with a family of peasants. They found a one-room cabin with a dirt floor. A large pile of cabbage hears was piled on the floor in the middle of the room. An old sow laid in one corner of the room with a little of little pigs. Chickens, geese, and ducks enjoyed the other corner of the room. The family lived in the other half of the cozy (?) room. The young missionaries held a short prayer meeting and excused themselves, as they remembered they were expected in the next town. When people at home asked Edward if he found any genealogy, he told them that he had traced his genealogy back to a pig pen and quit! A salesman came to Jane’s door when here children were small. She bought freely of his wares and then gave him a large sum of money besides. When he questioned her generosity, she told him she remembered him as the same man who was selling food to the immigrants that had just arrived in Nauvoo from Europe. Her parents were among that group. They had no more money, and there were many hungry mouths to feed. This same man saw their plight and gave them a sack of germade mush. He truly believed her when she quoted the words of Jesus, “Cast your bread upon the waters, and it will come back a hundred fold.” My father, Edward, built a brick home across the road from the old sandstone home of Jane and George W. Clyde. This was where the log cabin stood that Sarah Fergeson lived and died in.

My mother told me that Grandma Jane would come over many times a day asking her if she had seen her two little boys, Eddie and Bobbie. She was still living in the past. She loved all of her children and grandchildren. My sister said Grandma would bring all of them some “sweet tooth,” she called it. She always wore a black dress she would pull up revealing a black petticoat with ruffles from top to bottom. She had a long, wide pocket she would delve down into and pull out candy, cookies, etc, to give to all of them. Their eyes would open wide with wonder as to just what she would bring them next.

My grandfather, George, made all of his children promise they would always let their mother live in her own home until her death. The widow of John, the oldest of the family, moved into the home with Grandma. She and her children were always good to Grandma until she died September 9, 1903. She was buried in the Heber City Cemetery beside her husband, George Washington Clyde.

Many years later, when the old Clyde home was torn down, a man was hired from Salt Lake to bring his bulldozer and level off the ground. He stopped his machine to pick up $5, $10, and $20 gold pieces in the loose dirt. “The Clyde gold has been found!” was yelled in the town of Heber City. Many came from the town to grab what they could. It had been mortared into the first of the triple brick well under the old kitchen. Approximately $2,400.00 was found. Did the rest of the gold get pushed into the well?

IMPORTANT EVENTS IN

THE HISTORY OF THE JAMES MCDONALD FAMILY (1841-1850)

The following material is prepared to make the history of some of some of the important events in the lives of James McDonald and Sarah Ferguson available to their descendants. Statements from existing histories, which concern each event, are quoted in order to give all of the information available about each event.

Sources of information:

#1 – James McDonald-Sarah Ferguson, Their Progenitors and Their Posterity by Ila Fisher Maughan (A complete, researched history of this family.)

#2 - McDonald-Clyde Reunion, held March 17, 1908. Talks by John and William McDonald.

#3 - History of Sarah Ferguson McDonald by Mary L. Smart

#4 - Autobiography of William McDonald

These sources are referred to throughout the following pages by number.

THE FAMILY IN IRELAND

In 1841 James and Sarah Ferguson McDonald lived in Crawfordsburn in County Down, Ireland. Crawfordsburn was a small town with a population of 188 people. It was located about ten miles from Belfast. James had been born here and although he had spent some of his early years in Greenock, Scotland, where his parents had moved, he had returned to Ireland and was married in County Down. His bride, Sarah Ferguson, was also born in County Down. All of the children born to the couple before 1841 were born at Crawfordsburn. At that time there were 7 living children: Jane, Eliza, John, William, Robert, Mary, and David. David, born in 1840, was just over a year old. Jane, the oldest, was about fourteen years of age. The second child and oldest son (who had also been named John) had died in infancy.

In speaking of the early days in Ireland, John said:

(Source #2)

My father, at an early date, before he was married, had a trade which was called the “flax dressing trade.” He dressed flax and made it ready for the spinning wheel. He gave it up for some reason and hired out to Sherman Crawford. He worked for him for four years for the large sum of a shilling per day . . .

We lived very poor, but were blessed so far as health was concerned. My father’s wages were very small. We had three acres of land on which we raised a few potatoes and other things. We had a goat – something extra in that village.

The history of Sarah states:

(Source #3)

James was a flax dresser by trade (one who prepared flax for the spinning wheel) and though his wages were small, the family members were honest and hard working. They had three acres of ground upon which were raised vegetables and fruit. A goat provided milk.

THE FAMILY ACCEPTS THE GOSPEL

The gospel was introduced to the McDonald family in 1841. Although some of the family later stated the year was 1842, endowment and sealing records show that James, Sarah, and their oldest daughter, Jane, were baptized in Ireland in 1841. From statements made by his children, it is evident that James was immediately impressed with the gospel message and that he and his family accepted it whole-heartedly. Also for these accounts it is clear that the family enjoyed all of the great joys of hearing and knowing the truth and also the persecution by former friends and relatives, that was typical of early-day converts to the Church.

John said:

(Source #2)

About the year 1842, the Mormon Elders came there (to Crawfordsburn). David Welky (David Wilkie) was one, (I forget the other’s name) and preached the gospel to the people in that city, and they finally got a room in my father’s house without paying and our people joined the Church and four or five other families, and they gathered together in father’s house every Sunday morning for meetings.

They had a good time. The gift of tongues, the gift of interpretation, the gift of the spirit, the gift of prophecy were given them. There was a good feeling there. I think the best I have ever felt. They got up and bore testimony that the gospel was true and that it had been restored to the earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith. The saints met at our place right up to the time that we got ready to move to Zion some two years later.

From Sarah’s history we read:

(Source #3)

In 1842 the Mormon elders came to their village, and James was so interested he let them hold meetings in his home. The McDonalds, along with four other families, were the first to join the Church in Crawfordsburn. They met together every Sunday morning until the McDonalds left for America.

William said:

(Source #4)

They (the family) joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1841. I was baptized when 8 years of age. Elder David Wilken (Wilkie) organized a branch in Ireland and meetings were held in our house which was headquarters for the branch, it being about the first introduction of Mormonism in that country. Persecution at first was very bad.

Ila Maughan writes:

(Source #1)

An event that affected your life and mine and that of our children’s children occurred in Crawfordsburn, Ireland, in 1841 when Elder David Wilkie and his companion brought the message of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints to our progenitors. In this little village of Crawfordsburn, near Bangor on Belfast Bay, our James McDonald and his wife, Sarah Ferguson, were among the first to recognize and accept the gospel’s truth. Their home at once became the gathering place for the little Branch . . . The gospel became a beacon light to the McDonald family.

PLANNING TO COME TO AMERICA

It seems that as soon as they were converted to the Church, James and his family began to make plans to leave Ireland and join with the members of the Church in America. Headquarters of the Church was then in Nauvoo, Illinois. It must have seemed like a great undertaking, but the family set about raising the money with complete confidence that it could be done.

Sarah’s history states: (#3)

Since Sarah wanted to help her family get to America, she bought a little pig, which she carried home under her arm. She cared for the pig until it was grown, and sold it for pork. With the money, she bought a few articles and started a small store. It prospered, and by this means she helped her husband raise money to take them to Zion. In speaking of this time,

Ila Maughan writes: (#1)

Our McDonald family had been industrious before they heard the gospel, but they were doubly so afterward. The thought of gathering with the saints in Zion was a powerful incentive. The oldest daughter, Jane, always remembered that her mother traded some of their garden produce for a suckling pig and carried it home squealing under her arm. The family cared for it well and sold it at a good profit with which they purchased other items and more pigs to improve and sell.

Every member of the family bent his energies to help prepare for the great voyage, and only a year and a half after the first Conference of the saints in Ireland they were ready. James sold his house for 40 guineas (about $200.00). They sold all their worldly possessions save what was needed for their travels.

LEAVING IRELAND

It seems that the timing of the family’s departure from Drawfordsburn was influenced by the fact that their goat, which had supplied milk for the family, died. Likely they decided that rather than buy another goat, they would immediately carry out their plans to come to Zion.

Sarah’s history makes this statement: (#3)

When the little animal died, the family grieved for it, but later, John was heard to say, “I am glad the goat died. Had it lived, we might be in Ireland yet.”

John also speaks of the goat in connection with their leaving, and tells some of the details of saying goodbye to the other saints in Ireland. (#2)

When the goat died, father got a chance to sell the house we live in -- the ground upon which it stood did not belong to us; it belonged to the landlord. We dold the house, not the ground, and got the amount of 40 guineas for it. A guinea is equal to five dollars – about $200.00 We fitted up with that to come to Zion and the branch that we were leaving felt very badly, and there was great mourning about our coming away.

They had no place to meet, but we came just the same. . . One young man felt so bad he wanted to write a piece of poetry and he asked permission to go into the closet to write it. He said he had the spirit of it. When he came out of the closet, this is what he had, or part of it. I don’t remember all of it.

Long will you in my memory stand

Ye saints who dwelt in Crawfordsburn,

But now you are going to the promised land;

You are going, never to return;

And when you on Mr. Zion stand

I hope you will remember me Until I reach the “promised land.”

The McDonald family left their home in Crawfordsburn in early January in 1844. The baby of the family was then only about fifteen months old. (This was Joseph Smith McDonald who was born Oct. 15, 1842). The first step of the journey was from Ireland to Liverpool, England, where they boarded the ship to come to America. Ila Maughan writes these interesting facts: (#1)

The first step of the long journey was taken in early January, 1844, when the family went to Belfast. They could have gone by boat, but if they went by land it was only a distance of ten miles down the road that followed along the bay. Whatever their method of departure, it was a permanent farewell to home and friends and relatives. It was a very large adventure to embark for a new country with their family of eight children, ranging in age from Jane who was past sixteen to Joseph who was scarcely fifteen months old. They entered a ship at Belfast and sailed across to Liverpool where they established themselves in the oceangoing sailboat, and waiting three or four days for everything to be pronounced ready.

John said: (#2)

We went to Belfast. That was the next move and there we entered the ship and left for Liverpool. A young man came on the ship for the purpose of shaking hands with us and he was too late getting off and the boat moved out with him on. Father said to never mind, he would pay his fare to Nauvoo. (He was liberal in those days.) The young man said “Alright” . . . We landed in Liverpool and stopped there for three or four days for the boat to get ready.

THE OCEAN VOYAGE

The McDonald family sailed from Liverpool on January 24, 1844 on the ship Fanny under Captain Patterson with 210 saints aboard. (Facts researched by Ila F. Maughan from Documentary History of the Church.)

She also states: (#1)

An idea of preparations involved is obtained from Church historical records which state of this voyage: “Passage costs three pounds fifteen shillings to four pounds, including provisions. Passengers find their own bedding and cooking utensils; and all their luggage goes free. On arriving at New Orleans a passage can be obtained up the Mississippi River 1,500 miles by steamer for fifteen shillings, and freight free.

John vividly recalls the voyage: (2) He was about ten years old when this occurred.

We finally got off. There were about 250 saints on this ship – just a small ship – and we started out for America. We had fine weather for quite a while. A week or two weeks the weather was beautiful, but one morning I saw the captain out with a spy-glass and when he came back he told the sailors to go up and roll the sails up – so steamship in those days. It wasn’t long after they went up and rolled up the sails until the storm came – just a few moments. I never saw such a storm in my life. They ordered us in the bottom of the ship, and they put the hatch-ways down. The waves rolled mountain high. There wasn’t one on the ship that wasn’t sea-sick. Some that would just about so soon die as live. We were kept down there for three days. I got a glimpse out and saw the sailors were lashed to the posts to keep them from being washed overboard.

We had a calm after that and then went over without any more storm and landed at New Orleans.

The story of this voyage is recorded in Church emigration Records and is told in detail in the history by Ila Maughan. (#1) She quotes the following from a letter written to Reuben Hedlock by Elder William Kay, who was in charge of the saints on the ship Fanny.

The letter is dated May 9, 1844: We came into New Orleans on Mar 7, 1844, at 7 o’clock in the morning. We should have been in sooner but for having to stop at the bar for a considerable time to wait for a steamer, and we also had a calm in the bay; but I believe no people that ever crossed the Atlantic had a more prosperous journey than the Lord favored us with. The Captain and crew declared that they had never experience such a passage before; and such a Captain and crew for kindness could scarcely be met with. His liberality exceeds all that every came under out notice. (Note that provisions were included in the price of the passage.)

The Cabin and its provisions have been at the services of all who stood in need of them, and the Captain has with his own hand ministered to the necessities of all who required it.

THE TRIP UP THE MISSISSIPPI

John tells about the trip from New Orleans to Nauvoo. (#2)

We had to have a tug tow us into New Orleans. We got there all right. There was a steamboat there waiting for us to come in. Her name was the “Maid of Iowa.” She belonged to the Prophet Joseph Smith. She was brought down there by Captain Dan Jones, and was sent for us. We were five weeks after leaving New Orleans until we reached Nauvoo. It took ten days to go right up the river.

We were hailed by mobocrats all the way up the river. They would come on boat when we pulled to the shore to get wood and supplies. One of them put a lighted cigar into a feather bed and set the boat on fire, and Captain Dan Jones ran three or four of them right off into the river.

William also tells of the trip up the Mississippi River. (#2)

It is interesting to note that James had been entrusted with the tithing money from the little branch in Ireland and he handed this to the Prophet Joseph Smith when he reached Nauvoo.

Father . . . started with his family together with the saints for Nauvoo; sailed from Liverpool England; landed in New Orleans, America. The Prophet Joseph Smith had a steamboat there to take the passengers off the ship up the river to Nauvoo and as the boat belonged to the prophet the whole ship’s crew wanted to go on it and overloaded the steamer so it broke down very often. So we were six weeks making the trip which other steamers made in one week. People knew the boat belonged to the Prophet Joseph and that we were Mormons and they came on board when we were getting repairs and abused us with all the mean things they could think of calling us; “Old Joe’s rats,” and set fire to the boat. It was steel and no damage done. We were met by the prophet and he blessed the people and spoke words of encouragement to them. My father was entrusted with some money sent to the prophet by our Branch and in presenting it to him he got personally acquainted with him.

The McDonalds in Nauvoo

The early days in Nauvoo are described in Sarah’s history. (#3) . . .

After landing in New Orleans, they boarded the Maid of Iowa, which took them up the Mississippi River to Nauvoo, Ill.

Hyrum Smith met them and offered them an old home to live in. It was very small, and had no windows or doors, but James and the older boys prepared it for occupancy. When the McDonalds arrived in Nauvoo, they had only 75 cents in cash, which they promptly used to buy an axe. The older boys and their father found work with a farmer who lived just outside Nauvoo. The soil was rich and raised good crops. Since the farmer paid in produce, they earned two cows, two wagons, and enough vegetables, flour and cornmeal to last them through the winter. The family stayed in Nauvoo about two years and James helped in building the temple.

John also tells of his recollections of the early days in Nauvoo. (#2)

We got up there alright though. (to Nauvoo) There were a great many came to see us land and to meet the “Maid of Iowa.” Hyrum Smith was there and said that he had a house but it was a poor one, but he didn’t want a better one until the saints who came on the “Maid of Iowa” got places to live.

We got a little house and we lived in that for quite a while. We were out of money. Father had 75 cents when we got there; and he bought an axe with that. We looked for work but couldn’t find any. Thomas Jenkins, father of B. P. Jenkins of Salt Lake City, walked out with father to a place called Queen’s Hill, 23 miles and they got work there. Got chickens and two cows each and plenty of flour and cornmeal and everything that was needful to us at that time.

We boys who were large enough herded cows. The country was all vacant. We could take a homestead up anywhere. The grass was kneehigh. The country was new and rich and even the city of Chicago was only a little village. The rich soil raised good crops. We lived there two years and one half and in that time my father and brother William here were good grabbers.

The prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were martyred on June 27, 1844, only a short time after the McDonald family arrived in Nauvoo. The time they spent in Nauvoo was, therefore, a sad and troubled time for the saints. There was much bitterness and persecution from the mob. It was also a time that brought some sad events to the McDonald family. Sometime during this period young David died and was buried in Nauvoo. In 1845 Sarah gave birth to her tenth child. He was name Hyrum. He died in infancy and was also buried in Nauvoo.

However, the McDonald family had reason to be grateful that they had left Ireland. That country was suffering from a great potato famine. This famine lasted six years, from 1845 until 1851. There was great suffering and peasants died by the thousands.

During their time in Nauvoo, the family also experienced some happy times and some choice blessings. James, Sarah, and the oldest daughter, Jane, all received Patriarchal blessings from William Smith, brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith and then patriarch of the Church. These blessings were given in August in 1845. The blessings given to James and Sarah are included in this history. James also worked on the Nauvoo temple (#3) and was one of the volunteers who guarded the temple in shifts throughout the nights to prevent the mob from carrying out their threats to burn the temple to the ground. (#1) There were also happy times in the newly completed Masonic Hall where the saints gave concerts and put on dramas. In addition to this, each ward held social gatherings every Friday night where community singing was enjoyed along with other phases of home talent.

Driven From Nauvoo

After the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Church leaders began to make plans to vacate Nauvoo and move the saints west to the Rocky Mountains. This exodus began in February of 1846 when Brigham Young and other Church leaders left Nauvoo. From then on, Nauvoo became a battleground as members of the mob doubled their efforts to drive all of the saints from the city. In speaking of this period, E. Cecil McGavin in his book, Nauvoo, The Beautiful, tells of saints being kidnapped and flogged for crimes they had not committed, of thefts and plunderings, and of saints being forced from their homes with only an hour or two notice.

Speaking of the experiences of the McDonald family during this time, Ila Maughan says: (#1)

James and family planted their spring garden and crops in 1846 with the hope of reaping a harvest before starting west, but they were not privileged to enjoy the fruit of that toil. The mob appeared at their door and without permitting them to take anything but their personal belongings with them, escorted them across the Mississippi River. Family tradition tells the poignant story of how Sarah had just finished baking bread, and realizing that her children would be hungry, she snatched a loaf and hid it under her apron.

The history of Sarah records this about the move from Nauvoo: (#3)

The mob finally ordered them (the family) to leave Nauvoo, and took them across the river where they were left to sleep where they could. Joseph Young came along the next morning and seeing their plight, gave them some cornmeal to eat. William said, “We crossed the Mississippi River on a Flat Boat among a lot of cattle.” (#4)

The history of Joseph Smith McDonald records: (#1)

He was nearing his fourth birthday when a mob drove them from their home. To make sure they gone the mob ferried them across the Mississippi River. Left without their belongings and huddled together to sleep on the bare ground, little Joseph understood full well that all was not as it should be.

In recalling this move John said: (#2)

We next moved out from Nauvoo, out to Bonaparte on the Des Moines River. We had to get out of there or have our heads taken off. We finally got an old brother, George Holmes, who had a yoke of oxen that looked like they were twenty-five years old to move us. We were three days moving thirty miles. At the end of three days we reached the village.

The Period Between 1846 and 1850

The next four years were spent getting together the necessary equipment and provisions to bring the family to the valley of the Great Salt Lake where the Church had established a new headquarters. Sarah’s history states, “The family moved to Bonaparte, Iowa, and lived there three years, working diligently to obtain money to buy equipment to carry them to Utah.” (#3) William said, “We stayed there (in Bonaparte 3 years and worked hard and made a fitout to come to Salt Lake Valley.” (#4)

It is not certain where the family was at all times during this period as Ila Maughan reports that some of the family later said that they had been in Kanesville in December 1847.

She said, (#1)

We know the family was at Kanesville the following winter, for some of the older children testified that they beheld the “mantle of Joseph fall upon Brigham Young.” This referred to his selection as president of the Church. This event took place at a conference of saints which occurred on Dec. 27, 1847, in the log tabernacle that had been erected in Kanesville. This two-day general conference was called when Brigham Young had returned east after having led the first contingent of pioneers into the Great Salt Lake Valley.

No matter where they were during this period it is certain that they had only one thing in mind – to prepare themselves for the journey west. William speaks of the family being in the area of Council Bluffs and Kanesville in the fall of 1849.

He said: (#4)

We got there early in the fall and cut hay to winter our stock. We ived that winter in an old log cabin. After getting located for the winter my father and my brother John, two years older than me, and myself fixed up one of our wagons with one yoke of oxen and went down into Missouri among the worst enemies of our Church to try to get work with a man that owned many slaves, to break hemp among the negroes. He gave us a log cabin to camp in near to the negro quarters and as it was our first experience with those people we enjoyed their performance very much. Didn’t matter how hard they worked they always got together in the evening with their women and danced and played the banjo and the way they handled the banjo was new and entertaining to us.

In his autobiography, William tells at length of the month he spent with his father and brother John working in Missouri. He tells of how his father joined one night in singing and dancing. William said, “Father was a good step dancer and the negroes had him dance very night. He sang some comic Irish songs.” The owners of the plantation heard about his singing and dancing and invited James and his two boys to spend an evening with them to sing and dance for them. It was a pleasant evening for James and his sons as well as their host and hostess. At the end of a month, they loaded their wagon with provisions which they took as pay for their work.

William said: (#4)

We took most our pay in provisions: flour, bacon, corn, dried apples, sugar and after making up our pay in such things he took us into his smoke house and gave us a lot of fine smoked hams and side meat, in fact finished loading our wagon with good things . . . We parted with him as good friends and Father thanked him for his kindness to us. That load of provisions lasted us across the plains and the winter after we got into the valley.

James, William, and John returned to the family to find that all was well with them. Sarah, who had been ill for two years, had improved.

William said of her illness: (#4)

Mother had been sick in Bonaparte for two years and seemed to improve with camping out. The doctor said it was nervous prostration and medicine would do her no good but she had to have some and to please her he had to prescribe something for her to take, so he told Jane, my sister, to et some oak bark and make some weak tea and tell her that was what I told you to give her. Jane waited on Mother and tended her like a helpless child for two years. In fact, Jane was a mother to all of us children.

Starting West

The McDonald family left with the Aaron Johnson Company to come west in the spring of 1850. The beginning of their journey is described by Ila Maughan. (#1)

The McDonald’s six oxen had been yoked and driven for weeks in training for the long haul, and their two sturdy wagons were loaded with clothing, bedding, and food supplies along with seed for planting. Their chickens would be crated, but their sheep and cattle would be driven.

The trail was hot and dry and dusty, but without murmuring, without discord, with songs of Zion resounding from wagon to wagon, the Aaron Johnson Company moved out toward the west. Their train of 100 wagons had been reported as being at Council Grove which was twelve miles beyond Bethlehem, east of the Missouri River on June 12, 1850.

William speaks of the journey from the viewpoint of a teenage boy: (#4)

Us boys enjoyed the wild country and the wild game which were abundant on the plains. The buffalo were so thick and went in such large herds we had to stop the train and corrall the wagons until some of the large herds passed. In traveling we were strung out on the trail half a mile long. I was 16 years old when we crossed the plains and was numbered with the guard and took my turn with the older men. I remember we had to call out “All is well” every hour. When it came to that part of it I think there never was a young rooster learning to crow felt prouder than I did.

The Death of James

The company was making good time when cholera struck them. Many died, among them the husband and father of the McDonald family. James McDonald died on the plains and was buried there. His children told of this sad time.

John said: (#2)

We got out – I don’t know how far – but after we got started the cholera was very bad, some dying nearly every night with the cholera. When we got to the Platte River, my father took the cramp. He had just buried a man who had died with it and he got the cramp and died.

This was just after we crossed the Platte River. I remember wading across the Platte. The water was right up to my neck. When we got to the other side, he died. We buried him there on the banks of the Platte River, without a coffin. We broke up a large chest that we had and made a kind of vault in the bottom of the grave and laid this over the vault. We had to go on.

Family tradition tells that the man whom James buried the morning before he died was his close friend. James had sat up with him all night. He died toward morning. James helped to dig his grave and preached the funeral service that was given at his graveside.

William wrote of the death of his father as follows: (#4)

My father helped to bury a man one morning and took sick after the train started and died that night. We came to the Platte River that day in the afternoon and part of the train had crossed the river. Father being very bad, we asked him if we should cross the river with him. He said “yes,” so he died that night on this side of the Platte River. That was the greatest trial we ever had in our family – so sudden on the dreary plains of American and buried without a coffin. But we had some large boxes along which we broke up and dug a deep grave, with a vault at the bottom large enough for the body and covered it securely with the lumber of those boxes which we thought would prevent wolves from digging up the body for we had passed some graves that had been buried in haste that the wolves had dug up

Sarah’s granddaughter, Mary McDonald Young, recalled that when she was a young girl she had heard her grandmother tell many times of this sad time on the plains. Sarah had spoken of how sad and shocked she had felt at the sudden passing of her husband. It was night time when he died. After the family had been settled down, her feet hurt and so she went and sat on the banks of the Platte River and took off her shoes and stockings and put her feet into the cool water. She said that she could feel the strong current of the river and the thought came to her, in her grief, of how easy it would be to slide into the water and be engulfed in this current and be with her beloved husband in death. But as she sat there she heard one of the younger children call out to her and knew that she must carry on. Her family needed her. She must now be father and mother and lead the family on to Zion and fulfill the dream that she and James had dreamed so long ago in Ireland – to have their children and grandchildren grow up as members of the main body of the Church. She pulled her feet from the water and went back to the wagon that held her grieving children.

The following morning, after James had been buried, the family continued their journey. They little realized that sad morning as they left their father’s grave and turned toward the west that they were to become part of one of the great miracles of history – that their hard work would help to make the barren desert blossom as the rose. They could not have known how numerous their posterity would become and how they would prosper in the new land they would find in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.

Peter Schertz and Margaret Cameron

G-G-G-G-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Peter was a special missionary to the Lamanites. He was an explorer and true pioneer. He was one of the leaders of the Nauvoo Legion. He helped to build the Nauvoo and Kirtland Temples. On the 21st of January 1846 Peter Shirts and Margaret Cameron were endowed in the Nauvoo Temple.

He was closely associated with Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and others leaders of the church. He was appointed by Brigham Young to locate different parts of the county suitable for settlement and agriculture pursuits.

He came to Utah in 1849 and settled in Parowan. A fort was built there in 1852 and was named "Shirts Fort." In 1855 he and Rufus Allen assisted in surveying what is now Las Vegas. The surveying was done without instruments.

In 1857 he was appointed to work among the Indians. In 1859 he brought his family to Mill Creek and in 1860 they settled on the Upper Snake Creek in Provo Valley. Here he built a saw mill in order to get timber to build a road into the mountains. Part of the road up Snake Creek Canyon is still called "Shirts' Dugway."

He was a man with a restless, eager spirit, a true Latter-day Saint who was also a lonely trailblazer. He penetrated into many remote, hidden valleys and mountain passes.

One famous story concerning Peter and the Indians occurred during the winter of 1865-66. Peter, his wife, two daughters and a son had been pioneering the lonely valley of the Pahreah river, east of Kanab. Their friends had been expecting them back in southern Utah, but when the snow fell, Peter didn't arrive. The winter was hard and the Indians were hungry, so they had raided many small settlements, even killing some people. It was reported that Peter and his family had been killed also.

The next spring, as soon as the snow melted, twenty men from the Iron Military District went in to find them. They were surprised to see him tilling his fields with a group of men pulling his plow.

It seems that as he had been making preparations to leave the valley in the fall, the Indians had stolen all his stock but one cow, so he couldn't move. He walled up his windows and barricaded his door and kept his double-barreled shotgun with plenty of buckshot. He also kept his pitchfork, pick and other tools ready for action, if needed.

Although the Indians planned all winter to kill Peter, he gave them food to keep them from starving. When the Indian chief was severely afflicted with boils, Peter was able to cure him.

The following spring, Peter told the Indians, "You have eaten my food. I must raise more for another winter. Because you ate my oxen, you must pull my plow."

He left Provo Valley in 1868 and settled about 35 miles east of Kanab. Here he built a grist mill. He later took his family to the Rio Virgin Country. He is said to have discovered Iron Mountain. In 1879 he assisted at "Hole in the Rock" helping to feed the starving emigrants.

In the spring of 1882, Peter packed his donkey and headed out into the wilderness as he had done many other times. This time he hadn't come back and no one heard from him again. In 1958, the family discovered that a man answering Peter's description, who called himself, had been in Fruitland, San Juan, New Mexico in 1882 and had become ill and died in the late summer of 1882. He was buried there. Whether the "Old Daniel Boone" in the one buried there, or not, the family has since put a tombstone there for him.

John Lothropp (Father of Prophets and Presidents)

Forbear of Prophets, Presidents, and Others

Keith W. Perkins

11^th g-grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

On 20 December 1584 a child was born at Etton, Yorkshire, England that would become the forebear of prophets, presidents, and of a mighty posterity-John Lothropp.1 Prominent among these world leaders was the Prophet Joseph Smith. It had been predicted for thousands of years that this great prophet of the dispensation of the fulness of times would come from a rich ancestral heritage. Father Lehi in blessing his son Joseph, told him what Joseph of Egypt had predicted:

Yea, Joseph truly said: Thus saith the Lord unto me: A choice seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins; and he shall be esteemed highly among the fruit of thy loins. And unto him will I give commandment that he shall do a work for the fruit of thy loins, his brethren, which shall be of great worth unto them, even to the bringing of them to the knowledge of the covenants which I have made with thy fathers. (2 Nephi 3:7)

Brigham Young put it even more plainly:

It was decreed in the counsels of eternity, long before the foundations of the earth were laid, that [Joseph Smith] should be the man, in the last dispensation of this world, to bring forth the word of God to the people, and receive the fulness of the keys and power of the Priesthood of the Son of God. The Lord had his eye upon him, and upon his father, and upon his father's father, and upon their progenitors, clear back to Abraham, and from Abraham to the flood, and from the flood [p.34] to Enoch and from Enoch to Adam. He had watched that family and that blood as it has circulated from its fountain to the birth of that man.2

One of these ancestors selected to be the forebear of the Prophet Joseph Smith was John Lothropp, the sixth great-grandfather of Joseph Smith. He, like his illustrious descendant, would also suffer great persecution, spending not just months in a foul prison, but two years. Who was this great forebear of the Prophet Joseph Smith and other great leaders of this nation?

Not much is known of his early life until he entered Christ Church College, Oxford University as a plebeian at age eighteen. He transferred to Queens College at Cambridge, England, received his B.A. degree at age twenty-one and his Master's of Arts degree at age twenty-five.3 Since he was eighteen when he entered college, he would have been required to take the Oath of Supremacy. This oath, originally required under Henry VIII in his quarrel with Pope Clement VII, was restored under Elizabeth I in 1559. The Act of Supremacy abolished all papal power in favor of the monarch of the British Empire and established the king as the head of the church. Another important law at the time was the Act of Uniformity, which established the Anglican Prayer Book as the only legal form of worship. This would be the act used to suppress those who broke away from the Church of England and became Independents. It was this act that Lothropp, along with others, would be asked to sign at their court hearings.

The cause of John's transfer from Oxford to Cambridge may have been the religious climate at both universities. Although Oxford had at one time taken a more liberal view toward the Puritans, by the time Lothropp arrived, the wind had shifted to a more conservative view against the Puritans. Cambridge, on the other hand, was moving forward with a more liberal view toward dissenters against the Church of England. It had become the intellectual seat of this dissension. Although he was an Anglican [p.35] minister, it may have been at Cambridge that John developed his Puritan leanings and disposition.4

When he was twenty-three, he began his church service as a deacon in the Church of England at Bennington, Hertfordshire. By age twenty-five, after receiving his master's degree, he moved his residence to Kent, where he became curate, or minister, over the parish Church at Egerton, forty-eight miles southeast of London. The record of his assignment at Egerton is documented in an original manuscript written in Latin on parchment and housed at Canterbury Cathedral: "15 August 1610-license issued to John Lathrop, Clerk, M.A. to serve the cure of Souls at Egerton, Canterbury Diocese."5 His life also took on new meaning when he married Hannah Howse, the daughter of John and Alice Howse. Hannah not only married a clergyman in the Anglican Church, but she was the daughter of one as well. John Howse was the rector of the church at Eastwell. Egerton was a curacy to Eastwell, only a few miles away.

He served eleven years as clergyman at the Church of St. James in Egerton, where he baptized over two-hundred children, married the youth, and presided over the burials. It was here he also recorded the births of four of his own children: Jane, born 29 September 1614; Anne, born 12 May 1616; John, born 22 February 1617, and Barbara, born 31 October 1619. (Another son, Thomas, was born at Eastwell 21 February 1612/3.) According to William Urry, one-time archivist at Canterbury, this part of Kent may have been a hotbed of radical Separatism and dissent. It is known that Henry Jacob, the pastor of the Independent Church in London whom John Lothropp replaced as pastor, was from Kent.

Whatever the circumstances surrounding his break with the church of his youth, he had decided to make the break by age thirty-nine, with the resulting trial and persecution. In the Church of England he had security and status, both financial as well as emotional. There is no indication he was forced out of the Church; his decision [p.36] to leave was apparently his own. We are not certain when he left Egerton for London, but by 1624 he had replaced Henry Jacob as the pastor of the first Independent congregation in the Southwark part of London. Henry Jacob had previously left England for a home in Virginia.

Southwark, located across the Thames River from the city of London, attracted groups of people whose ways and thoughts were not in favor within the walls of the city of London. "No wonder…it became a center of religious dissent and the birthplace of an Independent Church," states Charles Leonard Lathrop.6

Henry Jacobs laid the foundation for the Independent Church that John Lothropp built on. Jacobs was probably the first person to use the term "Congregational." 7 We can gain a feeling for what John believed and taught at this stage of his life by reviewing some of the teachings of Henry Jacobs:

This church…[is] a number of faithful people joined, by their willing consent, in a spiritual outward society or body politic, ordinarily coming together in one place; instituted by Christ in the New Testament, and having the power to exercise ecclesiastical government, and all God's other spiritual ordinances, the means of salvation, in and for itself immediately from Christ.

The distinction of the Independents [is] that "each congregation is an entire and Independent body politic, and endued with power immediately under and from Christ, as every proper church is and ought to be."8

A minister who later succeeded Henry Jacobs and John Lothropp described the first organization of this little band of Independents:

Joining together they joined both hands each with [an]other Brother and stood in a Ringwise; their intent being declared, Henry Jacob and each of the Rest made some confessions or profession of their Faith and Repentance, (some were longer, some were briefer). Then they Covenanted together to walk in God's way as he had revealed or should make known to them.9

Having organized, the Independents hoped to avoid persecution by gaining permission from the King of England for the privilege of holding worship service with government sanction. Reverend Henry Jacobs had already felt the cruel hand of persecution earlier, which caused him to flee to Holland; but having returned to England in 1616, he hoped to avoid future persecution by making the following petition to King James I:

To meet for worship in the public places with peace and protection would be in this world the greatest blessing which our hearts desire, or which could come to us. But we dare not expect, neither do we ask so great a favor at your Majesty's hand; only that in private, peaceable, we might serve God with clear and quiet consciences…we in all lowliness crave but your toleration.10

We also gain from unfriendly authors some insight into the manner of their worship and appearance. Many things were published at the time to ridicule the dissenters as a people. Certainly they were considered the peculiar people of their day. Although these descriptions were written to defame, we can gain some insight into their worship from these sources.

To show their manner of assembling or dissembling…in that house were they intend to meet, there is one appointed to keep the door for the intent to give notice if there should be an insurrection, warning may be given them. They do not flock together, but come two or three in a company; and man may be admitted thither; and all being gathered together, the man appointed to teach stands in the midst of the room and his audience gather about him. He prayeth about the space of a half hour; and part of his prayer is that those which came thither to scoff and laugh, God would be pleased to turn their hearts; by which means they think to escape undiscovered. His sermon is about the space of an hour, and then doth another stand up to make the text plain; and at the latter end he entreats them to go home severally, lest the next meeting they should be interrupted by those who are of the opinion of the wicked. They seem very steadfast in their opinions, and say rather than they will turn, they will burn.11

This simple form of worship in contrast to the pomp and ceremony of the Church of England must have seemed ridiculous to these writers. Some went beyond ridicule to physical persecution. One of Reverend John Lothropp's followers gives us a description of this persecution as he left one of their meetings:

In the heat of the bishops severities we were forced to meet very early in the morning and continue together until night…. Meeting one Lord's day on Tower Hill, as I was coming out of the meeting, several rude fellows were about the door, and many stones were flung at me which did me no hurt.12

William Kifton, an early leader of the English Baptists, was a member of the church in Southwark during the pastorate of John Lothropp; he describes some of the persecution they faced and adds details about their meetings.

I joined myself to an independent congregation, being about twenty-two years of age, with a resolution as soon as it pleased God to open a way to New England, but the Providence of God prevented me; and in a better time it pleased God to provide for me a suitable yokefellow who was with me in judgment and who was joined to the same congregation with me. Being then in the heat of the Bishop's severities we were forced to meet very early in the morning and continue together till night, and amongst them, at their desire, I improved those small abilities God was pleased to give me, and although many times our meetings were disturbed yet I was kept out of the hands of the persecutor.13

Regional Studies, British Isles, Perkins-John Lothropp, p.38-39

One of the leaders against John Lothropp and the rest of the Puritans was William Laud, the Bishop of London. Bishop Laud became one of the most zealous attackers of the Puritans and their form of worship. He did much to restore to the Anglican Church a more formal and strict form of worship. He enforced a form of worship that was in strict accord with the Book of Common Prayer and other more ritualistic forms of worship. To the rest of the Protestants, these reforms imposed by Laud were a return [p.39] to popery. Daniel Neal has given this evaluation of Bishop Laud:

He was of low stature, ruddy countenance; his natural temper was severe and uncourtly, his spirit active and restless…. His conduct was rash and precipitate, for according to Dr. Heylin, he attempted more alterations in the Church in one year, than a prudent man would have done in many….

His maxims in the church were no less severe, for he sharpened the spiritual sword, and drew it against all sorts of offenders, intending…that the discipline of the church should be felt as well as spoken of. There has not been such a crowd of business in the high commission court since the reformation, nor so many large fines imposed, as under this prelates administration….

But with all his accomplishments, he was a cruel persecutor, as long as he was in power, and the chief incendiary in the war between the king and parliament, the calamities of which are in a great measure chargeable to him.14

Thus the scene was set for a dramatic confrontation between two strong men with equally strong religious beliefs-a confrontation that would end in very unpredictable consequences. Bishop Laud had Reverend John Lothropp arrested for his religious beliefs and confined him in prison; during Lothropp's prison stay, Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury, but was later arrested and finally beheaded for high treason.15 On the other hand, John Lothropp, imprisoned for his religious beliefs, would later be freed and go to America, where he became a great defender of his religious convictions and died of old age. But we are getting ahead of our story.

Back in the Southwark part of London, Lothropp was beginning his life as the head of the newly organized congregation of Independents. It is difficult for us this far removed from the day and time of Lothropp to determine how John and his family fared financially in London, compared to the comfortable life he enjoyed in Egerton. However, many of the Independents were of the "monied class, and others even members of the aristocracy who had Independent leanings"; thus he and his family's means [p.40] may have been adequate.16 From the High Commission proceedings when the Independents were brought to trial, members of Lothropp's congregation were identified as button makers, brewers, clerks, mariners, cobblers, weavers, grocers, joiners, tanners, upholsterers, hatters, butchers, millers, wheelwrights, and servants of the Queen.

We can best get a view of the belief and teachings of this group of Separatists from a book on the genealogy of the early Barnstable families:

They denounced Popery as the great harlot of Babylon; but they never denounced the doctrines of the church of England as anti-christian, or asserted that the parish churches were not true churches, and that the members thereof were not true christians-they warred against the forms and ceremonies that the English Church had borrowed from Rome, against its Bishops and Archbishops, its prelatical rule, and claim to bind men's consciences. They contented that the gospel should be preached in its purity, as it was in the apostolic times, before councils and synods and forged creeds, and that christians should "covenant with each other in the presence of Almighty God, to walk together in all God's ways and ordinances, according as He had already revealed, or should further make known unto them, and to forsake all false ways"; that man was not responsible to his fellow man in matters of conscience, but to God alone, and that the life is the evidence of faith, as the fruit is of the goodness of the tree."17

John was installed as the second pastor of the Independent Church in 1624. Early writers have left us no record of how he was installed. However, we may assume that he was installed as he later was at Scituate, Massachusetts, and as had been his predecessor Henry Jacob-by the election of his brethren, fasting and prayer, and by the laying on of hands.18 For eight years Reverend Lothropp served faithfully this congregation of believers. They met in various private homes in an attempt to avoid arrest and persecution. However, they were constantly under the threat of arrest, banishment, or death, as E. B. Huntington describes:

At that date the congregation of dissenters to which he ministered had no place of public worship, their worship itself being illegal. Only such as could meet the obloquy and risk the danger of worshiping God in violation of human statute, were likely to be found in that secret gathering. Yet in goodly numbers, in such places in Southwark as they could stealthily occupy, they held together and were comforted and instructed by the minister of their choice. For not less than eight years they worshiped. No threats of vengeance deterred, and no vigilance of officious ministers of the violated law detected them. More watchful grew the minions of [Bishop William] Laud. Keen-scented Church hounds traversed all the narrow ways of the city whose most secret nooks could by any possibility admit even a small company of the outlaws.19

After eight years of avoiding arrest, that fateful day arrived on 22 April, 1632. As this group of about sixty Separatists met in reverent worship of their Heavenly Father, the quiet was interrupted by a band under the leadership of Tomlinson, "the Pursuant of the Bishop of London." William Laud, becoming very concerned about the problems in his Diocese, had begun a vigorous search to ferret out their secret meetings. In 1634, in a letter to a friend, Laud describes his concern and dedication to this task.

I found in my own Diocese…divers professed Separatists, with whom I shall take the best and most present Order that I can, some of them, and some of Mainstone (where much inconformity hath of late years spread) being already called into the High Commission, where, if they be proved as guilty as they are voiced to be, I shall not fail to do justice upon them.20

John Lothropp's Independents were meeting at the home of Humphery Barnet, a brewer's clerk in Blackfriars, just across the Thames River from Southwark, now on the London side of the Blackfriars Bridge. Quickly the "ruffian band" moved in, and seized and arrested forty-two of Lothropp's congregation. Only eighteen escaped. Thus 22 April 1632 was made "forever memorable to those suffering Christians, by handing them over in fetters to the [p.42] executioners of a law which was made for godly men to break."21

The arrested Separatists were taken to three prisons-Clink, Newgate, and Gatehouse-where they remained until their trial. The charge against them was holding an illegal conventicle. Thirty-two years later the Conventicle Act of 1664 became law. The provisions of that law give us some idea of what the law must have been in this earlier time:

If any person of the age of sixteen or upwards, being a subject of the realm…shall be present at any assembly, conventicle, or meeting, under colour or pretence of any exercise of religion, in other manner than is allowed by the liturgy or practice of the church of England, in any place within the kingdom of England, dominion of Wales,…at which conventicle, meeting, or assembly, there shall be five persons or more assembled together, over and above those of the same household; it shall and may be lawful to, and for any two justices of the peace of the county,…shall commit every such offender, so convicted as aforesaid, to the gaol or house of correction, there to remain without bail or mainprize, for any time not exceeding the space of three months, unless such offender shall pay down to the said justices or chief magistrates, such sum of money, not exceeding five pounds.22

On 3 May 1632, the following were brought to trial by the Anglican Church High Commission Court, a high ecclesiastical court established to deal with dissenters: John Lothropp, Humphrey Barnet, Henry Dod, Samuel Easton, William Graner, Sara Jones, Sara Jacob, Pennina Howse, Sara Barbon, and Susan Wilson. The others arrested were not brought to trial until later. It appears that the court had intended to question Reverend John Lothropp first, but "Mr. Lothropp, the Minister did not appear at the first, but kept himself out of the way awhile." Humphrey Barnet, the first questioned, was asked when he last attended an Anglican Church service. He replied he was at his parish church when the rest of Lothropp's congregation was arrested. He remarked that he used to attend church regularly, but his wife would not go with him. The Bishop of York asked, "Will you suffer that in [p.43] your wife?" Without waiting for a response, the King's Advocate put forth the charges. Those arrested were in an unlawful Conventicle (church service); "I pray that they may be put to answer upon their oaths to the Articles, and that they set forth what exercises they used, and what were the words spoken by them." He then turned to Henry Dod, reminding him that he had been warned before and was released upon the promise that he would no longer engage in such seditious activity. Dod replied, "Good Mr. Advocate, spare that." Dod was asked if he attended regularly his parish church, to which he replied that he used to go, but now preferred to hear the "most powerful ministry." Bishop William Laud interceded, "And therefore you hear Mr. Lothropp. What ordination hath he?" Dod replied that he was a minister. "Did you hear him preach and pray?" asked Bishop Laud, and then continued, "Nay you yourself and the rest take upon you to preach and to be ministers." Dod gave a simple no to Laud's question. "Yes you do, and you were heard [to] preach and pray," responded William Laud. Henry Dod seemed to get more bold as Laud became more direct. "I shall be ready in this particular to confess my fault, if I am convinced to be in any." Two of the prisoners then were asked to take the oath of allegiance, but they asked to be excused at that time so that they might have more time to "consider and be informed of the oath."

The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, spoke next:

You shew yourselves most unthankful to God, to the King and to the Church of England, that when (God be prayed) through his Majesty's care and ours you have been preaching in every church, and men have liberty to join in prayer and participation of the Sacraments and have catechizings and all to enlighten you, and which may serve you in the way of salvation; you in an unthankful manner cast off all this yoke, and in private unlawfully assemble yourselves together, making rents and divisions in the Church. If anything be amiss, let it be known, if anything be not agreeable to the word of God, we shall be as ready to redress it as you, but whereas it is nothing but your own imaginations, and you are unlearned men that seek to make up a religion of [p.44] your own heads! I doubt no persuasion will serve [to] turn [you]. We must take this course. You are called here. Let them stand upon their bonds, and let us see what they will answer, it may be they will answer what will please us.23

Bishop Laud was quick to point out that this group of Separatists was only a small portion of those who were meeting in the city of London. In addition, he named the other areas where illegal meetings were being held. "Let these be imprisoned," he demanded. He felt they should make an example of the four standing before them. This ended the proceedings temporarily, since the rest had not been brought into the courtroom.

Reverend Lothropp, their minister, was brought in. He was asked by what authority he preached and held religious meetings. The Bishop of London, William Laud, made a far more slanderous remark against John. "How many women sat crossed-legged upon the bed, whilest you sat on one side and preached and prayed most devotedly?" John Lothropp was angered: "I keep no such evil company, they were no such women." The Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury asked him the same question, "Are you a Minister?" The Bishop of St. David's interrupted with a question about Lothropp's past involvement in the Church of England, which must have caused Rev. Lothropp some pang of conscience: "Were you not Doctor King's, the Bishop of London's Sizer in Oxford? I take it you were; and you shew your thankfulness by this."

John's response to these two questions was that he was a minister, to which Laud asked, "How and by whom qualified?" John Lothropp responded pointedly in return, "I am a Minister of the gospel of Christ, and the Lord hath qualified me." He, like the others, was asked if he would lay his hand on the Bible and take the oath, but he refused.24

After the court dealt with other cases, Samuel Eaton and three women, Sara Jones, Pennina Howes, and Sara [p.45] Barbone, also members of the Independents, were questioned. The court demanded to know why they were at the forbidden church service when they should have been at approved Anglican meetings. "We were not assembled in contempt of the Magistrate," responded Eaton. "No, it was in contempt of the church of England," Bishop Laud thundered back. The bold Samuel Eaton responded, "It was in conscience to God, (May it please this Honorable Court) and, we were kept from Church for we were confined in the house together by those that beset the house, else divers would have gone to Church and many came in after the sermons were done." William Laud then brought up new charges against the group, pointing out that they had first been discovered at Lambert and then other places, until they were captured at Blackfriars. Not only were they meeting illegally, but they had in their possession books printed against the Church of England.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, continued the examination: "Where were you in the morning before you came hither to this house?" They responded that they had been with their families. Archbishop Abbot wanted to know what they did with their families that morning. Eaton responded, "We read the Scriptures and catechized our families…and may it please this honorable Court to hear us speak the truth, we will shew you what was done, and free us of the contempt of authority. We did nothing but what you will allow us to do." At this response Bishop Laud was incredulous: "Who can free you? These are dangerous men, they are scattered company sown in all the city, and about St. Michaell of The Queen, St. Austins, Old Jury, Redriff, and other remoter places. Hold them the book." But Eaton responded that he dared not swear or take the oath; "though I will not refuse it, I will consider it." Sir Henry Martin interjected, "Hear, hear, you shall swear but to answer what you know, and as far as you are bound by law. You shall have time to consider of it, and have it read over till you can say it without book if you will, when you have [p.46] first taken your oath that you will make a true answer." Still Samuel Eaton protested: "I dare not, I know not what I shall swear to." The King's Advocate tried to explain why it was necessary that he take the oath, since the charges against them were so serious. "It is to give a true answer to articles put into the Court against you, or that shall be put in touching this conventicle of yours, and divers heretical tenants, and what words, and exercises you used, and things of this nature." Once again Eaton responded, "I dare not."25

Having no more success with these individuals than all the others, William Laud turned his wrath on the three principal leaders of the group, Henry Dod, Humphrey Barnet, and the Reverend John Lothropp. "Henry Dod, you are the obstinate and perverse ringleader of these folks, you had a fair admonition the last Court day, and we have this day assigned you to answer upon your oath." "I hope we are not so impious, we stand for the truth; for taking the oath I crave your patience, I am not resolved upon it," Dod responded. Barnett reminded Bishop Laud again that he was at church when the group was arrested at his home on 22 April, "but for taking the oath I desire to be resolved." Still failing in his attempt, the determined William Laud turned to his greatest antagonist, John Lothropp. "Mr. Lothropp, hath the Lord qualified you? What authority; what order have you? The Lord hath qualified you, is that a sufficient answer? You must give a better answer before you and I part." "I do not know that I have done anything which might cause me justly to be brought before the judgment seat of man, and for this oath I do not know the nature of it," Lothropp responded.26

Those in charge of the court now get to the heart of the matter: "The manner of the oath is that you shall answer to that you are accused of, for schism," the King's Advocate charged. Their impatience at the whole proceeding became clear when the Archbishop of York threatened, "If he will not take his oath, away with him." To which Lothropp retorted, "I desire that other passage may be [p.47] remembered; I dare not take this oath." At this the court ordered that they be kept "in straight custody, especially Lothropp, for the Bishop of London said he had more to answer for that he knew of."

When it was again demanded of Samuel Eaton that he take the oath, he responded as others before, "I do not refuse it, though I do not take it, it is not out of abstinence, but as I shall answer it at the Last day, I am not satisfied whether I may take it."

Samuel Howe was called to take the oath and answer to the articles, to which he replied, "I have served the King both by sea and by land, and I [would] have been at sea if this restraint had been made upon me and do not know what this oath is." The King's Advocate replied that the king desired his service in obeying his laws.27

Then quickly in succession, twelve of those arrested at Blackfriars were brought in again to testify and take their oath. Pennian Howes, after again refusing to take the oath, was asked by Bishop Laud, "Will you trust Mr. Lothropp and believe him rather than the Church of England?" "I refer myself to the word of God, whether I may take this oath or not," she stated. The others each in turn refused to take the oath, and each remarked why they would not take the oath. Elizabeth Melborne's remark is interesting: "I do not know any such thing as a Conventicle, we did meet to pray and talk of the word of God, which is according to the law of the land." To this remark the Archbishop of York addressed the issue directly, "God will be served publicly, not in your private house."

William Granger, from St. Margarett's in Westminster and apparently one of the more affluent members of the group, was asked by Bishop Laud, "Granger! You look like a man of fashion, will you take your oath to answer to the articles according to your knowledge, and as far as you are bound by law?" Like many of the others, he begged for time. This was the second time most has been required to take their oath, and they still asked for more time. "I would not have any of the standers-by think that [p.48] you or any of these have not had time to consider of this, you rent and tear the Church and will not submit yourself to the trial of law. You must know the justice of this Court is limited and you may be driven to adjure the Realm [driven into exile] for your offense," Bishop William Laud responded impatiently.

Robert Reignolds, when asked to take the oath, expressed his concern for others besides himself. "If I have done anything against the law, let me be accused by the course of the law, if I thought this oath might be taken with a good conscience, I would take it, and I do for the present desire you, though you do not pity me, yet to pity my poor wife and small children." "Pity your wife and children yourself, and lay your obstinacy to your conscience," replied the Archbishop of York.28

Abigail Delemar, the wife of a Frenchman, "proved to be a spirited, fractious and sharp tongued witness, giving the Court in lip as much as she got in the form of admonishment, argument, and lectures in doctrine."29 When required to take the oath, she asked if it was the oath of allegiance. When informed by the King's Advocate that it was to answer the truth of the charges against her, she responded, "I neither dare nor will take this oath till I am informed of it, that I may with a good conscience."

Bishop Laud informed the court that this was no ordinary, rebellious Separatist, since her husband was the Queen's servant and a strict Roman Catholic, but "she is a deep Familist and Brownist, and one of the Conventiclers taken at Blackfriars." He complained to the court that just last week the group had held a fast in prison "that they might be delivered out of prison." Because Abigail was expecting she was carried to a tavern, and her husband was sent for, but thought they were joking when he was told she was in prison.

Abigail was asked if she would go next Sunday to church, "No, but I will go in the afternoon," she replied. When asked why she would not attend in the forenoon she [p.49] expressed her true feeling about certain Anglican doctrine. "Because then I shall hear popish doctrine. I was once in the Whore's bosom, and these horns thrust me in, but God hath delivered me." "What horns?" the Archbishop of Canterbury asked. "The horns of the beast," Abigail notified him. "Whores do make horns indeed," Bishop Laud pointedly remarked.

Archbishop Abbott asked Abigail if she had ever been a "papist." "Yes, I was once in the whore's lap, and seeing that I am escaped out of it I shall, God willing, take heed how I am thrust in again." "I see you are an obstinate woman," the Archbishop of Canterbury complained, "as all the rest of your company are."

"You persecute us without a cause. You have sent 26 of us to prison, but since we were imprisoned what course have you taken to inform us? Which of you have sent any man to us, or taken any pains to inform us?" Abigail protested. Bishop Laud explained to her that they had set aside a day for the accused to be heard at the Consistory of St. Paul's, "but they have the last Sunday petitioned his Majesty, shewing that it is not out of obstinacy, but they decline the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction altogether."30

"No," Abigail objected, "this oath is condemned by the law of the land, and I refuse it as an accursed oath, and appeal to the King." Perhaps because of her husband's relationship with the Queen she was able to take certain legal actions that others could not, for one of the justices of the court explained.

I heard that the Sabbath day after this Court she delivered a petition to the King, in the name of all the rest, shewing that they refused not this oath obstinately, but that they were afraid it was against the subjects just liberty, to be compelled to take this oath, and shewed they would willingly be tried by his Majesty's laws, or by his Majesty or any of his Lords and Nobles.31

The Court of High Commission continued with the hearing, declaring that several of Lothropp's congregation were no longer in custody. Sara Barbone, it was reported, [p.50] had escaped and was in hiding, so her bond was to be forfeited. In addition, it was related that seven or eight others "of those that were best able to bear it" had been let out of prison in error or by friendly jail keepers. The recommendation was that no more be put in the new prison until those who were gone were recaptured. The keeper of the prison apologized and promised that he would endeavor to find them again, but Bishop Laud would not take any chances. "Let these women therefore for the honor of the Court be sent to other prisons, and the rest to be removed some to one prison and some to another."32

Another group had also been arrested at a Conventicle in the woods near Newington in Surrey and were also asked to take their oath with the same results-refusal. Remarks at their trial shows again the concern of the leaders of the Church of England over the spreading of the Separatists doctrine.

Archbishop Abbott was just as displeased with the response of this group of Separatists as he had been with those arrested at Blackfriars, so he lectured them just as strongly:

You do shew yourselves the most ungrateful to God and to his Majesty the King and to us the Fathers of the Church. If you have any knowledge of God, it hath come through and by us, or some of our predecessors. We have taken care, under God, to give milk to the babes and younglings and strong meat for the men of understanding. You have the word of God to feed you, the Sacrament to strengthen you, and we support you by prayer. For all this what despite do you return us. You call us abominable men, to be hated of all, that we carry the mark of the beast, that we are his members. We do bear this patiently, not because we have no law to right us, but because of your abstinence. But for your dishonoring of God and disobeying the King, it is not to be endured. When you have reading, preaching, singing, teaching, you are your own ministers, the blind lead the blind, whereas his Majesty is God's vicegerent in the Church, the Church is nothing with you, and his ministers not to be regarded, and you run into woods, as if you lived in persecution, such an one you make the King, to whom we are so much bond for his great care for the truth to be preserved among us, and you would have men believe that he is a tyrant. This [p.51] besides your wickedness, unthankfulness, and ungraciousness towards the Fathers of the Church. Therefore let these men be put 2 and 2 in several prisons.33

This concluded the hearings before the Court of High Commission as they are recorded in this remarkable document. However, we find in other sources a little more concerning the hearings. One of the most valuable sources is the George Gould manuscript, which states that the prisoners were held in several prisons, "ye space of some two years, some only under Bail, some in Hold."34 It is difficult to determine these many years later the suffering of all of Lothropp's followers. It appears that some of the jailers were sympathetic, and some were even converted. The Gould manuscript states that some of the Separists were allowed to hold religious services in jail "by their Keepers…to come to them and they edified and comforted one another on the Lord's Days, breaking bread, etc." Their jailers also "found them so sure in their promises that they had freedom to go home or about their trades, or businesses when soever they desired."35 Some of the prisoners were even allowed to write. Most prominent among them was Sara Jones, who wrote The Answers of Mrs. Sara Jones and Some others before the Court of High Commission, Petitions to the King, Mrs. Jones Chronicle of God's remarkable Judgments that Year (1632), and Mrs. Jones' Grievances.36 From these documents we learn that the women in John Lothropp's congregation played a major and aggressive role, not only in the court proceedings but in the development of the Separatist's doctrine.

This favorable treatment received by some of the Blackfriars group was not received by John Lothropp. E. B. Huntington informs us of the tragic events surrounding the death of John's wife, Hannah. While John was confined to prison, "a fatal sickness was preying upon his wife, and bringing her fast toward her end." Huntington continues this sad tell by quoting the New England Memorial, by Nathaniel Morton, published in 1669; "and [p.52] then near enough the date of the incidents given to be a credible witness, gives us these touching incidents of that imprisonment":

His wife fell sick…of which sickness she died. He procured liberty of the bishop [William Laud] (who was the Archbishop) to visit his wife before her death, and commended her to God by prayer, who soon gave up the ghost. At his return to prison, his poor children, being many, repaired to the bishop at Lambeth, and made known unto him their miserable condition, by reason of their good father's being continued in close durance, who commiserated their condition so far as to grant him liberty, who soon after came over to New England.37

By the spring of 1634 all the prisoners taken in the 23 April 1632 raid at Blackfriars, with the exception of John Lothropp, were released from prison. It is hard for us to imagine conditions inside the jail as we view our modern places of confinement, but we do have some vivid descriptions of conditions in prisons of the time. The following is a contemporary narrative of a Jesuit priest, F. Laithwaite, being confined in prison in 1604 when he refused to take the oath of supremacy:

Eighty men and women were huddled together in one filthy dungeon, where they were all chained by the feet to an iron ring in such a manner that they could only just change their position by sitting standing or lying down. They were eaten up by vermin, and surrounded by filth, which they had no means of removing, and the Jesuit's hands feet and face were so much swollen that he could not sleep for pain, whilst the stench made food loathsome.38

Conditions were no better in other jails. Another description is of Robert Southwell, whose father, a favorite of the Court, visited his son in the Gatehouse Prison at Westminster. He found his son "covered with filth, swarming with vermin, with maggots crawling in his sores, his face blistered, and his bones almost protruding through his skin from want of food and nourishment."39

Not only the prisoners suffered the results of gaol (jail) fever, but sometimes even those present in courts which [p.53] were held over jails. One account describes how when a prisoner was removed from the courtroom, "a blast of fetid air from the dungeons beneath poisoned the Court, and infected all who were present." The narrative claims that in one day 600 persons became ill and 510 had died within the next five weeks, including two judges, five magistrates, and most of the jury.40 Jury duty was very dangerous in those days. This same account describes that adjoining the Old Bailey Court were two small rooms about twelve feet square and seven feet high. In these rooms more than one hundred prisoners were crammed together awaiting their trials.41

Finally, the hard heart of Bishop William Laud, now the Archbishop of Canterbury, was softened with the pleadings of John Lothropp's almost orphaned children, ages twenty to eight. At their pleadings John Lothropp was allowed to be released from jail on 24 April 1634 on his giving bond. From the Public Record Office in London the following is recorded under the date 24 April 1634:

The Lord's Court (that is, the Lord Archbishops and Bishops) against John Lathropp. This day the said Lathropp was ordered to be enlarged (set free) upon entering Bond to appear Premmum Trinitatem prox (next Trinity term) and not to be present at any private Conventicle.42

It appears that he delayed his departure long enough to reorganize the meetings of his congregation and try to settle a crisis over the form and age of baptism. From the Henry Jessey Memoranda, as copied in the Gould manuscript, we obtain a contemporary account (from the pastor who succeeded John as the minister of this Separatist congregation) of the final days of John Lothropp with his congregation.

At last…there being no hopes that Mr. Lathrop should do them any further Services in ye Church, he having many motives to go to new England if it might be granted after the death of his wife, he earnestly [p.54] desiring ye Church would release him of that office which (to his grief) he could in no way perform & that he might have their consent to go to new England, after serious consideration had about it, it was freely granted to him.43

This delay in reorganizing his congregation became a serious threat to his being arrested again, since he was in violation of his parole. The following quotes come from the "Calendary of State Papers, Domestic, Charles I, Volumes covering 1633-34 and 1634-35." We find this entry on 12 June 1634.

The Lord's Court against John Lathrop of Lambeth Marsh in County Surrey, Dr. Ryves (Dr. Thomas Rives, the King's Advocate): He (Lathrop) is to appear by bond. Preconizatus. (The matter was proclaimed) Noncomparuit. (He did not appear) Where upon his bond was ordered to be certified and he attached, unless he appear here the next Court Day.44

The same note appeared on 19 June 1634. The court met again on 9 October 1634, not only on John Lothropp but also Samuel Eaton.45 Once more they were "proclaimed" and did not appear so the court decision was Unde domini decreverunt eos attachiand et Carceri committend. (Wherefore the Lords decreed them to be attached and committed to prison) And their bonds were decreed to be certified."46

The final entry pertaining to John Lothropp is dated 19 February 1635, when it is noted that the defendants failed to appear, and therefore they should be committed again to prison. However, all their searching for John Lothropp and demanding that he be committed to prison again was in vain, for he had set sail for the American colonies, where there was "A Church without a bishop And a State without a King."47 He arrived in Boston on 18 September 1634 on the ship Griffin.

He, like the Puritans before and after him, had come to a land of promise, one that had been promised by the Book of Mormon Prophets for many generations. These Puritans felt they were under the direction and hand of [p.55] God, but little did they know how involved the Lord was in there immigration to the New World. About 600 years before the coming of Christ, the Prophet Nephi, in a great vision of the future of this nation, had predicted the coming of people like John Lothropp and his followers.

And it came to pass that I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles; and they went forth out of captivity, upon the many waters.

And it came to pass that I beheld many multitudes of the Gentiles upon the land of promise; and I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren; and they were scattered before the Gentiles and were smitten.

And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles, and they did prosper and obtain the land for their inheritance; and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful, like unto my people before they were slain.

And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that the Gentiles who had gone forth out of captivity did humble themselves before the Lord; and the power of the Lord was with them. (1 Nephi 13:13-16)

It was on the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean that, according to one account, John Lothropp was reading his Bible and fell asleep when a spark from his candle fell upon the open page and burned a hole through several leaves. He patched the damaged pages and then, according to family tradition, supplied the missing texts from memory, since no other Bible was accessible to him. Today, that same Bible is proudly on display in the Sturgis Library in Barnstable, Massachusetts.48

Thirty of John's original congregation in London immigrated with him to America. They first settled at Scituate, Massachusetts and then moved to Barnstable on Cape Cod. Here John Lothropp married his second wife, Ana. Some of Lothropp's biographers give her last name was Hammond. Charles Lathrop speculates that this was the Mrs. Hammond who came from England on the ship Griffin with John.49 One author pays this high tribute to Lothropp:

The remarkable thing about Lothrop-and the highest tribute to his character as a pastor-is the way in which his church followed him from point to point throughout his wanderings. Many of his original London congregation had sat under him in Scituate, and with him left Scituate for Barnstable. History can show few more perfect examples of the Shepherd and his flock. It is not without reason that the present Congregational Church in West Barnstable, which is the same organization that Lothrop brought down with him three hundred years ago, assert that their church has the longest uninterrupted history of any church of that denomination in the world.50

John Lothropp became a highly regarded religious and community leader in New England. [Expand this] Many prominent leaders in the United States and in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claim him as their forebear. It is significant that Orson Pratt, in a letter to his brother Parley, stated, "You will recollect that Joseph [Smith] had a vision and saw that our families and his all sprang from the same man a few generations ago."51 Truly, "The Lord had his eye upon him, and upon his father, and upon their progenitors, clear back to Abraham, and from Abraham to the flood, and from the flood to Enoch and from Enoch to Adam." It appears John Lothropp was included within that group.

John Howland & Elizabeth Tilley
(Mayflower Pilgrims)

(c. 1591 – February 23, 1672/3)

11^th Great-Grandparents to Keith M. Chandler

John Howland (c. 1591 – February 23, 1672/3) was a passenger on the Mayflower. He was an indentured servant and in later years, the executive assistant and personal secretary to Governor John Carver and accompanied the Separatists and other passengers when they left England to settle in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

He signed the Mayflower Compact and helped found Plymouth Colony. After the passengers came ashore John Howland became assistant to the governor over the new independent state created under the compact. The act of Governor Carver in making a treaty with the great Indian Sachem Massasoit was an exercise of sovereign power that John Howland assisted in."

John Carver, the first governor of the Plymouth Colony, died in April 1621. In 1626, Howland was a freeman and one of eight settlers who agreed to assume the colony's debt to its investors in England in exchange for a monopoly of the fur trade. He was elected deputy to the General Court in consecutive years from 1641–1655 and again in 1658.

English Origins

John Howland was born in Fenstanton, Huntingdonshire, England around 1592. He was the son of Margaret and Henry Howland, and the brother of Henry and Arthur Howland, who emigrated later from England to Marshfield, Massachusetts. Although Henry and Arthur Howland were Quakers, John himself held to the original faith of the Puritans.

Speedwell and Mayflower

William Bradford, who was the governor of Plymouth Colony for many years, wrote in Of Plymouth Plantation, that Howland was a man-servant of John Carver. Carver was the deacon of the Separatists church while the group resided in Leiden, Netherlands. At the time the Leiden congregation left the Netherlands, on the Speedwell, Carver was in England securing investments, gathering other potential passengers, and chartering the Mayflower for the journey to North America. John Howland may have accompanied Carver's household from Leiden when the Speedwell left Delfshaven for Southampton, England, July, 1620. Ansel Ames in Mayflower and Her Log, said that Howland was probably kin of Carver's and that he was more likely a steward or a secretary than a servant.

The Separatists planned to travel to the New World, on the Speedwell and the Mayflower. The Speedwell proved to be unseaworthy and thus most of the passengers crowded onto the Mayflower.

In order to finance the voyage to the New World, the Separatists had investors in England. They also had accepted non-separatists to join them on the journey. These passengers, whom the Separatists referred to as "strangers", made up half of those on the Mayflower.

The Voyage

William Bradford's transcription of the Mayflower Compact

“The Mayflower departed Plymouth, England on September 6/16, 1620. The small, 100-foot ship had 102 passengers and a crew of about 30-40 in extremely cramped conditions. By the second month out, the ship was being buffeted by strong westerly gales, causing the ship's timbers to be badly shaken with caulking failing to keep out sea water, and with passengers, even in their berths, lying wet and ill. This, combined with a lack of proper rations and unsanitary conditions for several months, attributed to what would be fatal for many, especially the majority of women and children. On the way there were two deaths, a crew member and a passenger, but the worst was yet to come after arriving at their destination when, in the space of several months, almost half the passengers perished in cold, harsh, unfamiliar New England winter. During the voyage there was a turbulent storm during which John Howland fell overboard. He managed to grab a topsail halyard that was trailing in the water and was hauled back aboard safely. There is a painting depicting this called "Howland Overboard" by maritime artist Mike Hayward.”

"Howland Overboard," a painting by maritime artist Mike Haywood. Giclee canvas prints are available from the MayflowerHistory.com Store.

"Howland Overboard," a painting by maritime artist Mike Haywood.
Giclee canvas prints are available from the MayflowerHistory.com Store

On November 9/19, 1620, after about three months at sea, including a month of delays in England, they spotted land, which was the Cape Cod Hook, now called Provincetown Harbor. And after several days of trying to get south to their planned destination of the Colony of Virginia, strong winter seas forced them to return to the harbor at Cape Cod hook, where they anchored on November 11/21. On November 11, 1620, the Mayflower Compact was signed. John Howland was the thirteenth of the 41 "principal" men to sign.

William Bradford's transcription of the Mayflower Compact.

In Plymouth Colony

The first winter in North America proved deadly for the Pilgrims as half their number perished. The Carver family with whom John lived, survived the winter of 1620-21. However, the following spring, on an unusually hot day in April, Governor Carver, according to William Bradford, came out of his cornfield feeling ill. He passed into a coma and "never spake more". His wife, Kathrine, died soon after her husband. The Carvers' only children died while they lived in Leiden and it is possible that Howland inherited their estate. In 1621, after Carver's death, Howland became a freeman. In 1624 he was considered the head of what was once the Carver household when he was granted an acre for each member of the household including himself, Elizabeth Tilley, Desire Minter, and a boy named William Latham.

In the several years after becoming a freeman, he served at various times as selectman, assistant and deputy governor, surveyor of highways, and as member of the fur committee. In 1626, he was asked to participate in assuming the colony's debt to its investors to enable the colony to pursue its own goals without the pressure to remit profits back to England. The "undertakers" paid the investors £1,800 to relinquish their claims on the land, and £2,400 for other debt. In return the group acquired a monopoly on the colony's fur trade for six years.

Howland accompanied Edward Winslow in the exploration of Kennebec River (in current day Maine), looking for possible fur trading sites and natural resources that the colony could exploit. He also led a team of men that built and operated a fur trading post there. While Howland was in charge of the colony's northerly trading post, an incident occurred there that Bradford described as "one of the saddest things that befell them." A group of traders from Piscataqua (present day Portsmouth, New Hampshire) led by a man named John Hocking, encroached on the trading ground granted to Plymouth by a patent, by sailing their bark up the river beyond their post. Howland warned Hocking to depart, but Hocking, brandishing a pistol and using foul language, refused. Howland ordered his men to approach the bark in a canoe and cut its cables setting it adrift. The Plymouth men managed to cut one cable when Hocking put his pistol to the head of Moses Talbot, one of Howland's men, and shot and killed him. Another of the Howland group shot Hocking to death in response.

In Plymouth the Howlands lived on the north side of Leyden Street. They lived for a short time in Duxbury and then moved to Kingston where they had a farm on a piece of land referred to as Rocky Nook. The farm burned down in 1675 during King Philip's War.[18] By that time, John had died and Elizabeth moved in with her son, Jabez.

Before moving to Rhode Island, Jabez Howland owned a home in Plymouth at 33 Sandwich Street. The house was built by Jacob Mitchell about 1667 and was sold to Jabez Howland. John and Elizabeth had wintered in the house, and Elizabeth lived there from 1675, when the Rocky Nook farm was burned down, until Jabez sold it in 1680. It is the only house standing in Plymouth in which Mayflower passengers lived.

Elizabeth Tilley

Until Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation was discovered in 1856, it was presumed that John Howland's wife, formerly Elizabeth Tilley, was the adopted daughter of the Carvers. (Her parents, uncle and aunt who came to the New World died of sickness during the first winter.) This mistake was even recorded on a gravestone that was erected for Howland on Burial Hill, in 1836. However, the Bradford journal revealed that she was, in fact, the daughter of John Tilley and his wife, Joan (Hurst). Elizabeth Tilley Howland was born in Henlow, Bedfordshire, England where she was baptized in August, 1607. She and her parents were passengers on the Mayflower. John Tilley and his wife Joan both died the first winter as did his brother Edward Tilley and wife Ann. This left Elizabeth an orphan and so she was taken in by the Carver family. The Carvers died about a year later, and part of their estate was inherited by their servant, John Howland, and Elizabeth became his ward. In 1623/24, she married John Howland.

Children

Desire was born about 1624 and died in Barnstable October 13, 1683. She married John Gorham in Plymouth by 1644 and had eleven children. She was buried at Cobb's Hill Cemetery, Barnstable, Mass.

John was born in Plymouth on February 24, 1626/7 and died in Barnstable after June 18, 1699. He married Mary Lee in Plymouth on October 26, 1651 and had ten children.

Hope was born in Plymouth about 1629 and died in Barnstable on January 8, 1683. She married John Chipman about 1647 and had twelve children. She was buried at Lothrop Hill Cemetery, Barnstable, Mass.

Elizabeth was born about 1631 and died in Oyster Bay, New York in October 1683.

Lydia was born about 1633 and died in Swansea January, 1710/11. She married James Brown(e) about 1655 and had four children.

Hannah was born about 1637. She married Jonathan Bosworth in Swansea on July 6, 1661 and had nine children.

Joseph was born about 1640 and died in Plymouth in January 1703/04. He married Elizabeth Southworth in Plymouth on December 7, 1664 and had nine children.

Jabez was born about 1644 and died before February 21, 1711/12. He married Bethiah Thatcher by 1669 and had eleven children.

The Jabez Howland House in Plymouth, Massachusetts, built c. 1667.
Elizabeth (Tilley) Howland lived there for five years.

Ruth was born about 1646 and died before October 1679. She married Thomas Cushman in Plymouth on November 17, 1664 and had three children.

Isaac was born in Plymouth on November 15, 1649 and died in Middleboro on March 9, 1723/4. He married Elizabeth Vaughn by 1677 and had eight children. He was buried at Cemetery At The Green, Middleboro, Mass.

Death and burial of John Howland and his wife Elizabeth

John Howland died February 23, 1672/3 at the age of 80, having outlived all other male Mayflower passengers except John Cooke, son of Mayflower passenger Francis Cooke (John Cooke died in 1695). He is presumed to be buried on Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Elizabeth Tilley outlived her husband by 15 years. She died December 21 or 22, 1687, in the home of her daughter, Lydia Brown, in Swansea, Massachusetts, and is buried in a section of that town which is now in East Providence, Rhode Island.

References

Philbrick, Nathaniel (2006). Mayflower: a story of courage, community, and war. pp. 32–37.

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647, ed. by Samuel Eliot Morison, The Modern Library, (New York: Random House, 1967),pp. 59, 68, 195, 263, 400-3, 415-417

Howland, Charles Roscoe (1946). Hawley, Emma Boutelle, ed. A brief genealogical and biographical record of Charles Roscoe Howland, brothers, and forebears of Roscoe Howland. Rutland, VT: Tuttle Publishing Company. p. 14. Retrieved October 2014.

Philbrick. Pg. 102

Philbrick, Pg. 168

Hurd, Duane (1884). History of Plymouth County, Massachusetts. J. W. Lewis & Co. p. 103.

Roser, Susan E. (1997). Mayflower Increasing. Genealogical Publishing Company. p. 68.

Pilgrim Hall Museum

Pilgrim John Howland Society (1911).

The Howland Homestead.

Society of the Descendants of Pilgrim John Howland, of the Ship Mayflower. pp. 7–8.

Ames, Ansel (2008). Mayflower and Her Log. BiblioBazaar. p. 36.

Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, p. 413

George Ernest Bowman, The Mayflower Compact and its signers, (Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1920). Photocopies of the 1622, 1646 and 1669 versions of the document

Marble, Anne Russell (1920). The women who came in the Mayflower. Pilgrim Press. pp. 85–88.

Stone. Pg. 7

Bradford, William, Of Plymouth Plantation, Edited by Harold Paget. (E.P. Dutton & Company. 1920), Pg. 253-256

Stone. Pgs. 7-9

Hurd. Pg. 357

Beaudry, Mary C. (1993). Documentary Archeology in the New World. Cambridge University Press. p. 86.

"The Jabez Howland house". The Pilgrim John Howland Society. Retrieved October 4, 2010.

Caleb H. Johnson, The Mayflower and Her Passengers, (Indiana: Xlibris Corp., 2006), pp. 237-238

Charles Edward Banks, The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers p. 87

A genealogical profile of John Howland, (a collaboration of Plimoth Plantation and New England Historic Genealogical Society accessed 2013) /

Robert Anderson, Pilgrim Village Families Sketch: John Howland (a collaboration between American Ancestors and New England Historic Genealogical Society)/

Memorial of John Howland /

Memorial for Elizabeth Tilley

"Elizabeth Tilley Howland". The Pilgrim John Howland Society.

William Stocking and Gordon K. Miller. The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, Volume 5, pg 562-563. Google Books.

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=glencoe&id=I607

Elizabeth Tilley (Mayflower Pilgrim)

(c. Aug 1607 - December 21, 1687)

11^th Great-Grandmother to Keith M. Chandler

Elizabeth Tilley was one of the passengers on the historic 1620 voyage of the Mayflower. She was the daughter of Mayflower passenger John Tilley and his wife Joan Hurst. and, although she was their youngest child, appears to be the only one who survived until the voyage. She went on to marry fellow Mayflower passenger John Howland, with whom she had ten children. Because of their great progeny, she and her husband have millions of living descendants today.

Early life

Elizabeth Tilley was born in Henlow, Bedfordshire, England where she was baptized in August, 1607. According to parish records, she was the youngest of five children born to her parents. She also had an older step-sister, Joan, from her mother's first marriage to Thomas Rogers (no relation to the Mayflower passenger of the same name).

It is likely that when she was a small girl, she moved with her parents to the Netherlands, where her parents are documented as a member of the Leiden Separatist congregation as well as her uncle Edward. Edward’s ward Henry Samson may also have been a member.

On the Mayflower and in the New World

Signing the Mayflower Compact 1620, a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris 1899

William Bradford, in his memoirs, later listed the Tilley family on the Mayflower as: “John Tillie, and his wife; and Elizabeth, their daughter.”

The Mayflower departed Plymouth, England on September 6/16, 1620. The small, 100-foot ship had 102 passengers and a crew of about 30-40 in extremely cramped conditions. By the second month out, the ship was being buffeted by strong westerly gales, causing the ship‘s timbers to be badly shaken with caulking failing to keep out sea water, and with passengers, even in their berths, lying wet and ill. This, combined with a lack of proper rations and unsanitary conditions for several months, attributed to what would be fatal for many, especially the majority of women and children. On the way there were two deaths, a crew member and a passenger, but the worst was yet to come after arriving at their destination when, in the space of several months, almost half the passengers perished in cold, harsh, unfamiliar New England winter.

On November 9/19, 1620, after about 3 months at sea, including a month of delays in England, they spotted land, which was the Cape Cod Hook, now called Provincetown Harbor. After several days of trying to get south to their planned destination of the Colony of Virginia, strong winter seas forced them to return to the harbor at Cape Cod hook, where they anchored on November 11/21. The Mayflower Compact was signed that day. John Tilley was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact, signing as “John Tilly.”

In the New World

Upon arriving in the New World, Elizabeth's father, John took part in early expeditions of exploration around their new home and was present at the first meeting between the Pilgrims and Native Americans, later known as the First Encounter.

John Tilley and his wife Joan both died the first winter as did his brother Edward Tilley and wife Ann. This left Elizabeth an orphan and so she was taken in by the Carver family. The Carvers died about a year later, and part of their estate was inherited by their servant, John Howland, and Elizabeth became his ward.[6][7][8]

Family and children

Although the date of their marriage is not recorded, a few years after their arrival in the New World, Elizabeth married John Howland c. 1623/4. She and John would go on to have ten children, all of whom would live to adulthood, and well over seventy grandchildren. Elizabeth herself outlived her husband by fifteen years, being one of the few original Pilgrims to live to see King Philip's War.

Children

1) Desire was born about 1624 and died in Barnstable October 13, 1683. She married John Gorham in Plymouth by 1644 and had eleven children. She was buried at Cobb’s Hill Cemetery, Barnstable, Mass.

2) John was born in Plymouth on February 24, 1626/7 and died in Barnstable after June 18, 1699. He married Mary Lee in Plymouth on October 26, 1651 and had ten children.

3) Hope was born in Plymouth about 1629 and died in Barnstable on January 8, 1683. She married John Chipman about 1647 and had twelve children. She was buried at Lothrop Hill Cemetery, Barnstable, Mass.

4) Elizabeth was born about 1631 and died in Oyster Bay, New York in October 1683.

Elizabeth married: Ephraim Hicks on September 13, 1649. He died on December 12, 1649.

John Dickerson in Plymouth on July 10, 1651 and had nine children.

5) Lydia was born about 1633 and died in Swansea January, 1710/11. She married James Brown(e) about 1655 and had four children.

6) Hannah was born about 1637. She married Jonathan Bosworth in Swansea on July 6, 1661 and had nine children.

7) Joseph was born about 1640 and died in Plymouth in January 1703/04. He married Elizabeth Southworth in Plymouth on December 7, 1664 and had nine children.

8) Jabez was born about 1644 and died before February 21, 1711/12. He married Bethiah Thatcher by 1669 and had eleven children.

9) Ruth was born about 1646 and died before October 1679. She married Thomas Cushman in Plymouth on November 17, 1664 and had three children.

10) Isaac was born in Plymouth on November 15, 1649 and died in Middleboro on March 9, 1723/4. He married Elizabeth Vaughn by 1677 and had eight children. He was buried at Cemetery At The Green, Middleboro, Mass.[8][9]

Notable descendants

Howland and wife, fellow Mayflower passenger Elizabeth Tilley and ten children and 88 grandchildren. The couple founded one of the three largest Mayflower progenies and their descendants have been "associated largely with both the 'Boston Brahmins' and Harvard's 'intellectual aristocracy' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."[10]

John and Elizabeth Howland's direct descendants include notable figures such as:

U.S. presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

U.S. first ladies Edith Roosevelt and Barbara Bush

Continental Congress President Nathaniel Gorham

Former Governors Sarah Palin (Alaska) and Jeb Bush (Florida)

Poets Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, an Florence Earle Coates (a 9th generation descendant and a founding member (1896) of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (SMDPA))

Actors/actresses Christopher Lloyd, Humphrey Bogart, Maude Adams, Anthony Perkins, Lillian Russell, and the Baldwin brothers (Alec, Daniel, William and Stephen). and Chevy Chase.

President and founder of the Latter Day Saint movement Joseph Smith, his wife Emma Hale, and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young

Opera singer and music educator William Howland

Conductor and pianist Robert Spano

Colin Tilley, American music video director for Riveting Entertainment

Canada diplomat Warwick Fielding Chipman

Howland's descendants also include the wife of Theodore Roosevelt Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, George H.W. Bush, his wife Barbara Bush and their son George W. Bush.

References

Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), p. 406

Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), p. 413

George Ernest Bowman, The Mayflower Compact and its signers, (Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1920), Photocopies of the 1622, 1646 and 1669 versions of the document, pp. 7-19.

Caleb H. Johnson, The Mayflower and Her Passengers, (Indiana: Xlibris Corp., 2006), p. 235

Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: A story of Courage, Community and War, (New York: Viking 2006), pp. 70-73

Caleb H. Johnson, The Mayflower and Her Passengers, (Indiana: Xlibris Corp., 2006), pp. 237-238

Charles Edward Banks, The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers (New York: Grafton Press, 1929), p. 87

A genealogical profile of John Howland, (a collaboration of Plimoth Plantation and New England Historic Genealogical Society accessed 2013) /

Robert Anderson, Pilgrim Village Families Sketch: John Howland (a collaboration between American Ancestors and New England Historic Genealogical Society)/

Roberts, Gary Boyd. "#55 Royal Descents, Notable Kin, and Printed Sources: Notable Descendants of Henry and Margaret (----) Howland of Fenstanton, Huntingdonshire, Parents of John Howland of the Mayflower". New England Historic Genealogical Society. Retrieved October 3, 2010.

William Stocking and Gordon K. Miller. The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, Volume 5, pg 562-563. Google Books.

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=glencoe&id=I607

Descendant of Hope Howland Chipman, daughter of John and Elizabeth:born 1880, Montreal, Quebec. Lawyer, Judge, Canadian Ambassador to Chile, 1944-45; Senior Delegate to the Premier, United Nations Conference in San Francisco, CA in 1945; Past President of The League of Nations, Geneva, Switzerland (disbanded, 1946); Canadian Ambassador to Argentina, 1946-49; High Commissioner to India, 1949-52.

The Pilgrim John Howland Society: Famous Descendents

John Tilley & Joan Hurst
(Mayflower Pilgrims)

12^th Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

John Tilley (19 Dec 1571 – 11 Jan 1621) and his family were passengers on the historic 1620 voyage of the Mayflower. He was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact, and died with his wife in the first Pilgrim winter in the New World. Both he and his brother Edward signed the Mayflower Compact.

Life in England

John Tilley was baptized on December 19, 1571 at Henlow, co. Bedford, England. He was the eldest child of Robert Tilley and his wife Elizabeth. John had a younger brother, Edward, who also came on the Mayflower with his wife. Both John Tilley, his brother Edward and their wives all perished that first winter in the New World.

There are few records of John Tilley’s life in England. His name appears in the will of George Clarke of Henlow, dated September 22, 1607 which notes that Thomas Kirke, then residing with Tilley, owed money to him. There is a record of a John Tilley, yeoman, residing at Wooton, Bedfordshire, who made a disposition on April 7, 1613 with his age stated as 40 years, which would probably make him the Mayflower passenger of that name. There is little information about the lives of John Tilley and his wife Joan. John Tilley was documented as a member of the Leiden Separatist congregation as well as his brother Edward. Edward’s ward Henry Samson may also have been a member.

On the Mayflower and in the New World[edit]

Signing the Mayflower Compact 1620, a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris 1899

Per William Bradford’s later recollection of this family on the Mayflower: “John Tillie, and his wife; and Elizabeth, their daughter.”

On November 9/19, 1620, after about three months at sea, including a month of delays in England, they spotted land, which was the Cape Cod Hook, now called Provincetown Harbor. After several days of trying to get south to their planned destination of the Colony of Virginia, strong winter seas forced them to return to the harbor at Cape Cod hook, where they anchored on November 11/21. The Mayflower Compact was signed that day. John Tilley was a signatory to the Mayflower Compact.

In the New World

Both John Tilley and his brother Edward were involved in the early exploring expeditions of the Cape Cod area in November and December 1620, with both suffering the effects of being ill-clad and wet in freezing temperatures. Edward, and it may be that John also died from the effects of the exploration weather.

One such extensive exploration in which the John and Edward Tilley are named as having taken part began on Wednesday, December 6, 1620 in freezing weather using the ship’s shallop – a light, shallow-water boat with oars and sails navigated by two pilots and crewed by a master gunner and two sailors. The Pilgrims on board for this expedition, in addition to John Tilley and his brother Edward, were John Howland, Stephen Hopkins and his servant Edward Doty. Senior members on the expedition included John Carver, William Bradford, militia captain Myles Standish and Edward Winslow. The number of persons on this exploration was less than half of a prior expedition due to many having been felled by illness, the English facing freezing weather wearing unsuitable clothing due to not planning for the severity of the New England winter. As recorded – “..very cold and hard weather..in which time two were sick.. the gunner also sick unto death..” This exploration would not turn out well for the English in their first encounter with Indians as they found that slow-firing muskets were no match for rapid-fire arrows. This Indian challenge to the Pilgrims was later known as the First Encounter.

John Tilley and his wife Joan both died the first winter as did his brother Edward Tilley and wife Ann. The only Tilley surviving from the Mayflower was John’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.

Family and children

John Tilley married Joan (Hurst) Rogers, widow of Thomas Rogers (no relation to the Mayflower passenger of that name) on September 20, 1596 at Henlow in Bedfordshire. Joan Hurst was the younger daughter of William Hurst, and was baptized on March 13, 1567/8 at Henlow making her a little older than John. Joan came to the marriage with a daughter Joan, born of her marriage to Thomas Rogers, whom she married on June 18, 1593. Joan was baptized May 26, 1594, and Rogers seems to have died shortly afterwards.

Child of Joan (Hurst) and Thomas Rogers

Joan Rogers was baptized on May 26, 1594. There is no further record and she may have died young, likely sometime after her mother’s 1596 marriage to John Tilley.

Children of John and Joan Tilley – all baptized in Henlow, Bedfordshire

They had five children baptized in the parish of Henlow between 1597 and 1607. Of their children, only Elizabeth, baptized August 30, 1607, and who accompanied them on the Mayflower, is a known survivor of all their children. The fate of the others is unknown.[10]

Rose Tilley (1) was baptized on October 23, 1597 and may have died young. No further record.

John Tilley was baptized on August 26, 1599 and may have died young. No further record.

Rose Tilley (2) was baptized on February 28, 1601/2 and may have died young. No further record.

Robert Tilley was baptized on November 25, 1604 and may have died young. No further record.

Elizabeth Tilley was baptized on August 30, 1607 and died in Swansea on December 22, 1687. She married John Howland in Plymouth Colony about 1624 and had ten children.[2]

The Howland family in the later recollection of William Bradford: (Gov. Carver’s)”.. servant John Howland, married the doughter of John Tillie, Elizabeth, and they are both now living, and have *10* children, now all living; and their eldest daughter hath *4* children. And ther *2* daughter, one, all living; and other of their children mariagable. So *15* are come of them.”

Death, burial and memorial of John Tilley and wife Joan

This family in the later recollection of William Bradford: “John Tillie and his wife both dyed a little after they came ashore; and their daughter Elizabeth married with John Howland, and had issue as is before noted.”

John Tilley died 11 Jan 1621 and his wife Joan died sometime in the winter of a820/21 possibly after coming ashore, per Bradford, to the new Plymouth settlement. They were buried in Coles Hill Burial Ground in Plymouth, most likely in unmarked graves as with so many who died in that first winter. Their names, along with many others who died that winter, are memorialized on the Pilgrim Memorial Tomb on Coles Hill as “John Tilley and his wife.”

References

Caleb H. Johnson, The Mayflower and Her Passengers, (Indiana:XlibrisCorp.,2006) p. 237

A genealogical profile of John Tilley, (a collaboration of Plimoth Plantation and New England Historic Genealogical Society accessed 2013) [1]

Charles Edward Banks, The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers (New York: Grafton Press, 1929), p. 88

Pilgrim Hall Museum for

Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), p. 406

Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), p. 413

George Ernest Bowman, The Mayflower Compact and its signers, (Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1920), Photocopies of the 1622, 1646 and 1669 versions of the document, pp. 7-19.

Caleb H. Johnson, The Mayflower and Her Passengers, (Indiana: Xlibris Corp., 2006), p. 235

Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: A story of Courage, Community and War, (New York: Viking 2006), pp. 70-73

Caleb H. Johnson, The Mayflower and Her Passengers, (Indiana: Xlibris Corp., 2006), pp. 237-238

Charles Edward Banks, The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers (New York: Grafton Press, 1929), p. 87

Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), p. 407

Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing 1986), p. 409

Memorial for John Tilley

William Bradford. History of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, the second Governor of Plymouth (Boston: 1856), p. 453

Histories of other extended family members
not direct ancestors.

The Life Sketch of

William Thomas Chandler Jr.

Brother of Ivan Morton Chandler

Written by His Wife and Children

He was born on May 22, 1930, in Randlett^{^[1]}, which is near Vernal^{^[2]} in Uintah county Utah, on the old homestead^{^[a]} of William Thomas Chandler and Beatrice Ivy Turner Chandler^{^[b]}^{^[3]}. His parents were farmers and he soon learned the meaning of hard work and hard times. The house he grew up in, had a dirt floor in most of the house, no running water, no electricity, and no indoor plumbing.

When still young, around six or seven, his parents had gone to California to find work. He really hated it there so, he came back to Utah from California, before his family, on the bus by himself. He arrived in North Salt Lake where the old stock yards used to be. He went from there to his Uncles house in Sugarhouse. He walked there with only an address to guide him.

One of the main farming chores was to do the irrigating. For one field he had to get across the river. In spring during high water he would swim the horse across instead of riding around. At 19 he had a real nice bay horse and a new saddle for graduating from high school. And Tom was swimming this horse across the river to change the water each day. One day he got within about twenty or thirty feet of the other side, when his horse lunges and comes over backward and goes under. Tom slides off and grabs a stirrup, but the horse goes down again and he has to turn loose of his stirrup. Tom was washed down stream. The horse never come up again. This could have been a real tragedy, but Tom didn’t fight the raging river. He just fought to stay on top and float down stream. He was a good swimmer, but he knew he could never make it across current to the bank. A quarter of a mile down stream the current he was in hit the bank and he made it out. He was pretty sick for a half hour or so. Then he went down stream looking for his horse. A mile or more down he found the horse caught on some drift wood by a tree that had caved in. He got out to him, cut his new saddle off him and got the saddle out.

The one thing he always talked about, about his growing up, especially whenever we camped in the Uintah’s, was when he would go with his friends on horseback into the high Uintah mountains and stay for a couple of weeks, at the lakes, with nothing more than what they carried in their saddle bags and a bed roll. They lived on that and the fish they caught. He tells of coming home one time with one can of pork and beans between 4 or 5 of them. Maybe that’s where he acquired his dislike to eating fish. That didn’t stop him from loving to go fishing, which he loved his whole life. He taught all his kids and grand‑kids to fish. One of his biggest fishing, little fans, was his grandson little Eric.

There were hard times in the Uintah Basin. During the winter, it was very cold, and there was no antifreeze. When he would go to socials, by car, at night he would drain the radiator and take the water inside. Then refill it when it was over. He has told of more than once when he had to heat the oil for a car to get it to start.

He attended elementary school at Avalon^{^[4]}, near Randlett. He walked or rode horse to get there. There were no shoes during the summer but did have a pair for school. Later he Graduated from Alterra High school in 1949 with a class of only twenty five graduates. Alterra^{^[5]} was near Roosevelt^{^[6]}, but then there was a bus to ride, if you didn’t get kicked off it.

On December 6, 1950 he married Leah Mae Pickup, in the Salt Lake temple^{^[7]}. She was still in her senior year of High school. They went with their parents to Salt Lake in a dodge car. Thora made Leah’s wedding dress. Most everyone was happy about the marriage. The best wedding card came from Leah’s brother Grant, it read; “With sympathy, may the thoughts of others who understand your sorrow, give you strength today and bring you new comfort for tomorrow”. The big night was going to the Capri restaurant after the wedding. Their first home was a trailer house in the yard of the Pickup’s. Then later they bought a house in Randlett by the store.

He worked hard. Working in the Gilsonite^{^[c]} mines, coal mines and also in the oil field as rough neck and driller. Then he got a “good job”. He worked for mountain fuel supply on the gas line. His responsibility was taking care of the gas wells out in the field, on the book cliffs of Utah. It meant driving a loop of about a hundred miles of dirt road a day and doing maintenance on all the wells in the loop. He would say when he got down to two spare tires it was time to head home. After this “easy” day job he tried to run the farm at night.

He moved to Salt Lake city in 1963 where he began working in the El Paso Natural Gas, (later Northwest Pipeline/ then Williams Corp), building in Salt Lake. They said they weren’t hiring but he applied anyway. He went back so many times, and was there so much, that they decided they might as well hire him. He began as laborer, and worked up to a supervisor over the building. He took care of all the heating and Air conditioning, as well as all the needed remodeling and repairs of equipment.

Here he met Dick Williams who became a life long friend. They were together on many hunting trips (deer, rabbit, pheasant), and fishing trips, as well as lots of work together there and extra work elsewhere.

The home where he raised his five children^{^[8]} was only a block from where Cottonwood High school is now^{^[d]}. In the sixteen years he lived there, everyone came to know him, and everyone called on him for help. Nearly every swamp cooler in the whole neighborhood was installed by Tom and his sons.

During this time he often worked extra jobs. One lady on Walker lane paid him a dollar an hour to take care of her horse. He worked at all kinds of odd jobs, remodeling and fixing houses. He always had some unique ways of fixing things. Such as using propane to pump up flat tires, gum to fix gas tanks, or tobacco to seal a radiator. Duct tape and bailing wire were the main ingredients of his repair kit.

Although there was hard work, it was also broken up with fun vacations and trips. Many summers at Disneyland, others to Yellowstone, Redwoods, San Francisco, Ghost towns, or visiting out of town relatives.

Tom always had great patience. It was shown by him always fixing things no one else would worry about. He could fix things you were sure were broke forever. A broken toy, or untangling a necklace chain, or fixing a link.

Patti recalls of a time when dad built a special sewing room out back. Just after it was finished, the ceiling was still drying, and it seemed like it was a great place to have a water fight. Her brother Chris disavows any knowledge of this incident. It did require patience as he fixed the ceiling.

He could always be found helping someone. Laying or fixing carpet, motors for cars or mowers, furnaces, doors, or whatever. He also loved serving and cooking on his grill on outings. Whether for scouts, ward, or family reunions. He loved to cook for everyone and never did he eat till everyone else was full. He loved teaching, especially the scouts, new things. He loved getting kids out on his boat and teaching them to water ski. There was some patience!

In the fall of 1979 he moved into the house which he had completely built Himself in Sandy^{^[e]}. That is something he had always wanted to do. He said he knew where every wire went. That is where he lived when he retired in 1985. A month later, a heart attack slowed him down. Complications from a bypass surgery extended over a year.

After he recovered, he expanded his interests and knowledge in mining, as he focused his attention on his involvement in some gold mines^{^[9]} on the Nevada border. It required different things to learn and he always enjoyed getting new understanding. He learned to smelt and assay.

He was always proud of the help he could give to his Mom and Dad. He had helped them to build their house in the early seventies. Many trips were made there to do work for them during the construction. He was also a constant help to his mother after she was disabled by complications from a brain tumor.

He Passed away while serving his family. He had gone to his favorite location for Elk Hunting, and was serving by setting up the camp. He had set up a tent down in the canyon where he loved. He also was involved in taking his fifth wheel trailer to the camp, then he went and got a horse, then he went and got another trailer for Patti and Erik to stay in. He had hunted the day before and his family was to arrive on October 11, 1996. The night of the tenth he had felt a little ill and had gone to bed in the tent down in the canyon. It is a beautiful location and one such as he would have picked. The doctors said his heart had lost it’s timing and was simply not pumping blood as it should. There was no way for him to have known the trouble he was in. They also said it could have happened in his own bed at home the same way, or someplace else that would not have been so nice.

These are just a few of the experiences of his life.

The following are memories of His Grandchildren

Heather; I remember when I was about nine years old we went to Gold Hill with grandpa and grandma. Grandpa decided to teach me to shoot a 22 rifle. I didn’t do to well at holding it steady. If fact grandpa was either ducking or trying to catch the barrel when it went over him.

Elsha; I remember about two weeks before my grandpa passed away we were sitting in the living room with grandma. Grandpa came out with an old picture of his basket ball team when he was a child. Well he started telling the story of how they took first place. The whole time his face was glowing with excitement for the memory.

Eric; I now drive a big moving van, and one night a few weeks ago, I was backing it up in the dark. The front wheel fell into a ditch. As always if you get in a pinch, you call grandpa and he’ll know what to do. He came, and brought about four jacks, and showed me how to get it out. He and I also spent lots of hours, hunting and fishing, and just shooting on Grandpa’s farm.

Nikolas; Grandpa helped me catch my very first fish. We were at a reunion in the mountains and he was as happy as I was. Once when I was about seven we went out in his back yard and shot his pellet gun. One time he setup a hay bale in his back yard for me and Erik to shoot our bows. Other times we would watch football games together.

Amberly; I remember going with Grandpa and Grandma to my schools grandparents day. Eating lunch with grandpa at school was way fun. He always came to my Piano recitals, he loved to hear me play the piano. Once grandpa made us a hut in his backyard made of sticks, I loved it, and always wondered how he did it.

Nathan; and Grandpa were watching TV about a solar furnace. Then Grandpa helped me build one out of an old oatmeal box, saran wrap and aluminum foil. We roasted marshmallows.

Jason; Remembers helping Grandpa carry in wood for the fire. He would ride jaws (the horse) with Grandpa. He remembers Grandpa helping him get the milk from the fridge when he was little. Grandpa used to call him Joe. Nathan was Henry, and Zach was curly. He always wrestled with the kids when they were little.

Zachary; remembers I was shooting my BB gun in grandpa’s back yard and the BB went off course. It hit the windshield of grandpa’s truck. I thought it would be bullet proof but it wasn’t. Grandpa wasn’t even mad.

Kyle; Grandpa went with us to sea world and helped us feed some fish to the dolphins. Grandpa had to hide the fish because the seagulls would dive down and grab them right out of your hand.

Jake; There will be stories I’ll be told, because I’m only five months old. Grandpa and I share a special day, for I was born on his birthday.

Patriarchal Blessing

Patriarchal blessing given at Randlett, Utah, July 23, 1944, by David Elmer Manwaring on the head of William Thomas Chandler [age 14], son of William Chandler and Ivy Turner. Born May 22, 1930 at Randlett, Utah.

Brother William Thomas Chandler, by the authority of the Holy Priesthood I hold, I lay my hands upon your head and give you a Patriarchal Blessing. You are a son of Israel through the linage of Ephraim. The Lord desires of you that you will come to Him and ask His assistance with your problems though life. Now, if you will do this, you will be able to solve them.

Keep yourself clean and unspotted form the sins of the world; obey the Gospel as you understand it, every bit of it; keep the Word of Wisdom; remember the Sabbath Day, and refrain from taking the name of the Lord in vain; control your temper, and do not be stubborn and contrary to the sweet counsels of the Holy Spirit. Listen to the Spirit of the Lord, and when you are prompted to do anything, do it. No matter how much pride it seems to take out of you, swallow your pride, and listen unto the Spirit of the Lord. Listen unto those in authority over you. If you will follow this advice, you will grow and develop in this Church and you will become a leader of men. And they will come to you for counsel and advice and you shall be able to feed them, but, if you feel sufficient of yourself, if you fell too big for your parents, or too big for the authorities over you and will not heed their counsel and advice, even the light that you do have will be taken away, and you will fall into habits that will cause you much suffering and many heartaches. Therefore, in order that you may be happy, in order that you may fill the measure of your creation in the way or Heavenly Father has outlined it for you, choose ye to serve the Lord with all your mind, and with all your might, and with all your strength.

In due time, you will be granted a companion, and, if you live right, if your habits are of such a nature that you can walk right up to your bishop and ask him for a recommend, you will have the privilege of going to the temple of the Lord, and be married right. But, if you fail to magnify the Priesthood, and degree of it that is bestowed upon you, if you fail to listen to the counsel of those in authority over you and fail to keep the word of wisdom, then you will fail in this great blessing of having a companion sealed to you. Therefore, as a warning, dear brother, live now that you may gain the blessings for those that are faithful, and that your posterity can grow up to honor and respect you and bear your name in honor before the Lord. Live so that you can rightly be a leader of men; live so that you can be esteemed highly by the good men and women of the earth.

I bless you with health and strength, that you may be able to bear the responsibilities of fatherhood, for it is a great responsibility to be a father. Most anyone can have children born unto them, but to be a real father is a real responsibility and a real job.

Now, my dear brother, I beseech of you to be diligent, while you are young. Control every evil temper and passion, and draw close to the Lord. Then He will be close to thee, and bless thee with the riches of those that serve Him. If you will follow this, you will be blessed with the good things of the earth, all that is necessary for you to do His work and to perform it nobly and well.

And, eventually, the greatest gift He has to bestow, even the gift of Eternal Life, will be yours. I seal you up against the power of the destroyer to come forth in the morning of the Resurrection, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Signed; D. Elmer Manwaring: Patriarch, Roosevelt Stake

Cottonwood Third Ward Honors Tom Chandler

[Prior to moving to the home at 11129 South 2125 East, in Sandy, which he built, the ward members honored him with a this is your life type program. The following is some of the things written for him then.]

Tonight we would like to take the opportunity to honor a special leader who has all of these attributes. Tom Chandler we would like to honor you tonight. Tom will you please stand up. We would like you to sit back now and enjoy this evening with us and allow a few of us to express our gratitude to you.

Tom is, as everyone knows, a quiet, unassuming, dependable, talented, fix anything, salt of the earth type person.

He was born on May 22, 1930 in Randlett Utah. It was in this little farming town situated between Roosevelt and Vernal that he spent most of his growing up years.

Tom is the oldest of six children. The depression was still very much a fact of life and he remembers some very hard times.

At one time his parents went to California and Oregon to try to make a living for their family any way they could. Tom hated Los Angeles. So when he was eleven years old he came by bus, by himself, back to Randlett to live with and uncle until his parents were able to come back home.

While he was staying at his Uncle’s he was expected to “earn his keep.” He had several cow to milk and lots of chores to do each morning and night, along with going to school.

Farmwork was not foreign to Tom however. He had always worked on the farm with his dad and brothers. They raised cane, onions, hay, and anything else that would grow. His family also made molasses form the cane which everyone in the area enjoyed eating. He helped bale hay, combine and thresh grain, harvest alfalfa seed, and onions and most important, he learned to fix any piece of machinery with a piece of bailing wire and a lot of determination.

Tom and Leah both graduated from Alterra High School. It was a small school near Roosevelt with an enrollment of about a hundred and fifty students. Although there were only thirty seven in his graduating class, Alterra took both State and Region in football and basketball during Tom’s junior and senior year. There was hardly enough boys for a team and they had very few substitutions so most of the team played the entire game.

At twenty years old Tom finally “took the big step” and married Leah in the Salt Lake Temple. He supported his new bride by running a farm and working in a gilsonite mine in Bonanza Utah. His ability to do almost anything probably stems from the fact that he did almost everything in order to earn a living. He has worked in the oil fields as a “rough neck” and a driller. He has worked in the coal mines at Price; as a rock crusher for a road company; as a helper in a lumber yard; as a car salesman; and now as Building Supervisor at Northwest Pipeline.

Tom has been a good father to his five children and is now a grandfather to two little girls. The words out, however that he is hoping for a grandson to make the scene in April. We suspect Tom could have him a full fledged scout by the time he’s three.

Tom has always loved hunting, camping, and fishing. He has always loved the Lord and held many positions in the church. But working in the scouting program has seemed his special calling. Up to this point and time he has spent a total of ?? in the scouting program. With his scouts he has shared his talent of cooking, fishing, hiking, storytelling, and relating other outdoor experiences.

By following Tom’s expert instructions, many a third warder has thrilled at conquering the skill of waterskiing. All this was done behind Tom’s boat only to face total annihilation behind Bishop Christensen’s boat.

In short Tom has influenced many lives and made a host of friends. As you are aware, many of them are here tonight and we have asked a few of them to speak to you.

O’Brian Garrett; Earl Hollingshead; Joe Sanborn; Bill Moeller; Bishop Christensen;

No matter what your problem is—whether it’s needing advice on new construction or repair work on old—or just a good gentle friend to spend sometime with—Tom has expertise to share, and generally does.

The word “no”—or the phrase, “some other time”—are just not in his vocabulary.

He can tell you how to wire a house or where to catch the biggest fish. He can laugh harder at a joke, show more simple humility, be generous to a fault, and put away more of Leah’s generous home cooking than just about anyone I know.

The ward and his neighbors will be the poorer for his leaving, but knowing Tom, if any of them need his help, just send up a flare and he’ll be there. I know, I’ve done it. Signed O’Brian Garrett

Obituary and Funeral Services

Monday October 14, 1996 Salt Lake Tribune: William Thomas Chandler Jr. age 66, passed away October 11, 1996, at Pipe Creek, Daggett county, Utah of heart failure while elk hunting.

He was born May 22, 1930 in Randlett, Utah to William Thomas and Ivy Tuner Chandler. He married Leah Mae Pickup Dec 6 1950 , in the Salt Lake LDS Temple.

As a member of the LDS Church he served in many positions. He particularly enjoyed Scouting. He loved spending time with his family and friends. He enjoyed hunting, fishing, and camping. He was master of all trades, helping all who knew him. He touched many lives and will be greatly missed.

Survived by his wife of Sandy: children, Paulette (Jay) Olsen, Rod (Patsy) Chandler, Chris (Lynn) Chandler, Patti (Erik) Vanamen; 10 Grand children and tow great‑grandsons; two sisters Elva M^CKee and Beatrice Davis; One brother, Ernest Chandler.

Preceded in death by a daughter, Renee Bennett; two brothers, Morton and Jim.

Funeral services will be held at 12 noon, Wednesday, October 16, 1996, in the Dimple Dale Ward 10945 South 1700 East. Friends may call Tuesday evening from 6-8 p.m. at Goff Mortuary 8090 South State, and at the church, one hour prior to services. Burial, Larkin Sunset Gardens, Sandy, Utah.

Funeral Services Wednesday October 16, 1996; Family Prayer, Quint Pickup; Invocation, Bishop Walt Christensen; Obituary reading, Craig M^CKee; Piano Solo, Amberly Chandler; Speaker, Doug Ovard; Musical Number, Paul Beard; Remarks, Bishop Stringham; Benediction, Grant Pickup; Pallbearers, Eric Bennett, Nik Chandler, Dave Buist, Jay Olsen, Phillip Medley, Court M^CKee, Lynn Chandler, Dick Williams; Honorary Pallbearers, Nathan Vanamen, Jason Chandler, Zachary Vanamen, Kyle Vanamen, Jake Vanamen, Michael Buist, Marc Bennett; Dedication of grave, Rod Chandler^{^[f]}

Notes for William Thomas (Tom) Chandler Jr.

Out With the Truth

Iva Chandler Newman

Signed and Sealed by Iva C. Newman

Sister of William Thomas Chandler, Sr.

Great-Aunt of Keith M. Chandler

Iva Chandler, fifth in line of the dozen children¹ by Elbert and Mamie Chandler². I spent most of my time being tended or tending the next seven in line.

Hazel had just her senior year there, while I had the privilege of finishing my high school. I ventured home during the blazing hot days of summer vacations.

After graduating from high school, I made up my mind to become a teacher. I had no idea how I would accomplish this with no financial backing—What, no government loans? Believe me, there were no frills or fun on campus for me.

After two years, I received a Normal Degree, which at that time allowed you to teach school. I got a contract with the public school system in Salt Lake City. I taught school here until I married John Newman.

We were married in Randlett³, Utah, at the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. Marriage ended my career teaching because at that time married women could not teach.

I didn’t work again until the beginning of World War II. I was hired by Pembroke Company, a stationary store. I later became a buyer for the store. Most of my buying trips were to the west coast, but I did venture east a few times. This proved to be a very interesting time in my life only to be interrupted by the beginning of my family.

I was expecting my first child, which arrived as twin boys, John David and Paul Eugene. Here life took an about face with us. After having wanted children for so many years, we were very thrilled at last to hove our own children. I don’t know what I would have done during these years without my dear Mother [Mamie]. When the boys were 21 months old, Nancy Lee arrived on the scene. Yes! It was practically like having triplets. Did we ever appreciate our mom. Bless her heart.

When Nancy was in fifth grade, I needed a release as did the children. I started to substitute in Granite District. I continued with this through the children’s high school and college years.

John and Paul were both very active in Boy Scouts of America. Both received their Eagle Award and Country Award. Nancy was active in Girl’s Friendly Society at St. Paul’s Church and joined Job’s Daughters with Bill Stevens as her sponsor.

John continued his education at the University of Utah until 1971. At this time he joined the Utah National Guard. He married Christine Rentfro in June 1971. He spent the next year in active duty, returning to his wife and baby daughter, Amy.

He then returned to the University of Utah to complete his college. He majored in Civil Engineering. He graduated in 1975 with a B.S. Degree. he began his first job with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Interior in the water resources operations. He continues with this work and is a Registered Professional Engineer of the State of Utah.

He is still active in the National Guard after six years in the 19^th Special Forces Group. He has re‑enlisted three times. His activities in the Green Berets include parachuting, scuba diving, mountain climbing and survival training. He also enjoys our Utah ski slopes. He enjoys all these adventurous things while receiving pay for services rendered. To keep in shape physically, he runs about ten miles a day. The last two years he has completed three twenty-six mile marathons.

Paul, after graduation from high school, said “That’s it, no more school for me.” He worked when he had to, wandered around the country, sowed his wild oats. A lot like his grandfather [E.M.] Chandler. He joined American Optical Company. He enjoyed his profession and is lab supervisor. He married Lonna Wight in June 19__. They are recently divorced. Paul is quite a sportsman and loves fishing, hunting and sports in general.

Nancy attended the University of Utah for four years, graduating Magna Cum Laude in community health. The day after graduation, she married Gary Nelson. They have one daughter, Steffanie. She has been associated with Blue Cross and Blue Shield Health Insurance Group for seven years. She is divorced.

My teaching days ceased with the arrival of Steffanie. “Mom, would you like to tend Steffanie while I continue to Work?” Steffanie is five years old, and I am still tending. I have invited several children in to play with her—with pay. It’s sort of a nursery-preschool setup. I enjoy it, and it does keep me out of mischief.

I still live in the same old house, the first and only one John and I bought. It serves well for our family dinners and good times. Our complete family, John and Chris, with children Amy now ten years old, Lisa seven years old, Jimmy four years old; Paul, batting zero and Nancy with Steffanie. The eight of us are close and have fine times together.

Notes for Iva Chandler Newman

History of The

Elbert Martin Chandler Family

Written by Elaine C. Meyer

Brother of William Thomas Chandler Sr.

Great-Uncle of Keith M. Chandler

Elbert Martin Chandler was born¹ the second day of April, 1911, to Elbert Morton Chandler and Mary May (Mamie) Murphy² in Pawnee, Pawnee County, Oklahoma. Elbert [E.M.] was born in Burden, Cowley County, Kansas, on 28^th of February, 1878, and died on the 7^th of October, 1951, in Blanding, San Juan County, Utah. Mary May [Mammie] was born in Winfield, Cowley County, Kansas, on the 8^th of August, 1881. She died on the 7^th of November, 1957, in Salt Lake city, Utah. Elbert Morton and Mary May are both Buried in Avalon Cemetery in Uintah County, Utah.

Elbert married Ruth Colton on the 19^th of September 1935, in the Salt Lake city Temple. Ruth was born on the 17^th of May 1911, in Maeser, Uintah County, Utah, and died on the 4^th of November 1973, in Provo, Utah County, Utah. Helen was born on the 9^th of April, in Vernal³, Uintah County, Utah, and died on 22 of October 1961, in Roosevelt, Duchesne County, Utah. Byron Owen and Helen are buried in the Maeser Cemetery in Uintah County, Utah.

Elbert moved from Oklahoma to Oregon at the age of two. He moved from Oregon to the Uintah Basin at the age of six. When they moved to the Basin, his family settled in Leota⁴. At that time the children rode horses to school. He was baptized a member of the LDS Church in 1933.

Ruth lived in Maeser, Moffett, Avalon⁵, and Roosevelt while she was growing up. She attended school in the Vernal area and went to Brigham Young University for two years. After their marriage, Elbert and Ruth settled on a Farm in Avalon. They rented this farm from Byron Owen Colton and started their family there.

Merrill Ray was born on the 31^st of July in Roosevelt at the Colton’s residence there. He married Neadra LaVerne Hancock from Roosevelt on June 1, 1959. They have four children; Merrill Ray Jr., Juanita, Marie and Wade Allen. Merrill and LaVerne are now living in Modesto, California.

On the 14^th of November 1938, Elaine was born at the Colton Residence in Roosevelt. She Married Frank Fredrick Meyer Jr., of Bridgeland, Utah on the 3^rd of June 1957. They have six children and two grandchildren. Ruth Ann, married to Calvin Michael Lujan, Lygia Rae, Jannette, Gregory Frank, Douglas Allen, and Letta Sue. They now live in Hanford, California.

Jean was born on the 16^th of March 1940 at the Colton residence in Roosevelt. She married Lorence Lee Merrick on the 17^th of September 1960 in Price, Utah. He died the 6^th of September 1961 in Price, Utah. Jean married Fredie Louis King on the 26^th of October 1964. She has five boys, Dexter, Darren, Steven, Elbert, and Darrell. They live in Rangely, Colorado.

David was born the 15^th of January 1945 in the Roosevelt Hospital. He married Elanora Christensen on the 17^th of November 1967. They have two children, Bobby and Penny.

Mary Ann was born on the 10^th of September 1950 in Salt Lake city. She married Vaughn Elbert Parrish on the 21^st of November 1973. They have two children, JoAnn and Yvonne. They live in Roosevelt, Utah.

The school and church were just half a mile from our home. As children, we walked carrying heated rocks in our gloves to keep our hands warm. We had new year’s eve programs and good times to celebrate the organization of the Avalon Ward.

Water was not plentiful in Avalon, but through many years of hard work and planning, there was more water made available. On real hard drought years, it is still difficult. Grandfather Colton put many hours into organizing the water.

The fires that burned homes, barns and other buildings made it hard for farmers to have to start all over. The month I was baptized a member of the [LDS] church, our barn caught on fire and burned to the ground. With only buckets and pails, it was had to put out a fire.

We had to haul ice [for summer] and firewood for the winter. It was much easier when electricity came to Avalon. With it, of course, came electric lights and refrigerators.

After Mamma died in 1951, we talked of moving to Los Angeles where some of Daddy’s sisters lived. Instead, that fall Daddy married Sadie Bywater from Myton⁶. She had a daughter, LaRee, who was twelve years old. We moved to Myton. Mary Ann had been with Aunt Lula Dudley who lived next door to us in Avalon. She stayed with Aunt Lula and was raised by the Dudley’s. We missed having her with us, but she filled a spot in the Dudley family also.

Daddy started driving mail truck for the Link’s trucking. He drove for them until his death in 1973. He was Marshall for many years in Myton. He was also an active member in the Lyons Club and served as President the last few years.

Notes for Elbert Martin Chandler

Life Story of

Stella Chandler Nielsen

Sister of William Thomas Chandler Sr.

Great-Aunt of Keith M. Chandler

My Father, Elbert Morton Chandler¹, was born 28 Feb 1879 at Burden Kansas. He died 7 October 1951 at Monticello, Utah. My Father was tall and thin. He had black hair and blue eyes. He wore a long, droopy moustache. He was a farmer and a blacksmith by trade.

As did all farmers, he worked very hard. His pastime was playing the banjo and fiddle. He rigged up a contraption so he could play the harmonica while playing the banjo. He and my mother played for all the dances in our area, most of the time for nothing or a very few dollars.

My Mother, Mamie May Murphy Chandler^{See End Note 1}, was born 8 August 1881 in Winfield, Kansas. She died 7 November 1957, six years after my Father died. She died in Salt Lake city after a month of intensive suffering. Mother had a mild and kind disposition. She could be very firm however. Her role as a Mother was very trying. She had twelve children². I was the 8^th down the line. Her life was very hard, cooking, sewing, and washing for her family. She also took her place at the haying and planting, plowing and other farm chores. Her relaxation in the evening was playing the piano with my Father.

Later on, I tried to pet her, and when I got in the sheep pen with her, she would butt me out of the pen. Some pet.

I can also faintly remember it was raining hard and my Mother said “It’s raining cats and dogs,” and later after it had quit raining I went out and found some little toads hopping about, and I took some in to my Mother.

I was born on October 29, 1916 in a lovely big home in Keno Oregon. I visited the old home several years ago, and I really loved that place. Back of the house was a forest of pine and out in front was a large meadow. I keep wondering why my folks left such a lovely place to go to a homestead of cobble rocks and mire.

However, my folks left Oregon when I was nine months old [spring 1917]. Papa went first by train taking with him wagons, horses, and heavy equipment. Mom came along later by train with eight children. They arrived one evening in Price³, Utah, with no one to meet them and no place to sleep. No one would take them in.

When Father came to pick us up, we had to travel a hundred twenty miles by team and wagon on very rough roads and over a huge mountain pass in rain and cold. I doubt they could make more than fifteen or twenty miles a day, so it was a long and tiresome journey with a squally, colicky baby, Stella.

You can imagine the disappointment of Mom and family coming to a farm covered with stones and the growing field about half a mile from the house across a black, muddy slough. My father had taken the land sight unseen and sorta got took.

However, we were of pioneer stock, I guess, because they built a house and barns and started a garden and eventually prospered fairly well.

At the age of six years I started to the first grade in Randlett⁴, Utah. My teachers name was Miss Harris. I must have been small and immature because I didn’t pass the first year and had to take the first grade over. But after that, I seemed to catch the picture and I did fairly well. We had a school principal who was Mr. Panter, and he was very handy with the belt and many boys felt the sting of it.

The schools I attended were Randlett, form the age of 6 to 10; Leota⁵, from the age of 10 to 16. I did not graduate from high school, but went to work doing housekeeping for a family of seven for $3 a week.

Special teachers I loved were Miss Pickup who was very kind to me. At Easter time, she had little baskets for us. She was young and pretty and fell in love with the eighth grade teacher and they married after school was out.

My special friend was Marvel Walker. She and I were hugging friends. We went everywhere with our arms around each other. We are still good friends. Another friend was Audery Foster. We had a lot of fun together.

One of our pastimes was climbing the old red hill. It was quite high, and had lots of rocks and caves, and we spent many days exploring. Another favorite was riding horseback. That was fun.

The only relative I ever met was Uncle Tom [Murphy] from Oklahoma, and we dearly loved him. It was such a thrill one year when he came out to see us.

We always had horses and cows and sometimes goats. But I remember an old dog named Bob. Once in a while he would go out and find a dead cow and come home stinking like spoiled meat. Then we had a cat who had kittens on the head by my bed.

I lived in bib overalls and barefoot in the summer, but on the last day of school, fourth of July and starting of school. When I was about six years old, my older sisters cut off my pigtails and from then on I had a Dutch haircut.

I loved to read anything I could find to read. I also took piano lessons one year and learned how to read music, but my dad would corner me and have me chord while he played banjo or fiddle.

Most of my growing life our mode of transportation was a horse and wagon. I could ride a horse from an early age, with a saddle and bridle, or without, Indian style. My sisters used to tell me I was like a wild Indian with hair flying and riding like the wind.

We lived in a very small town of not more than 200 people. It was necessary to ride several miles to the post office, church, and schools. Winters are a horrible memory for me. It was so cold in that part of the country, we had to wear long underwear. They felt fine when you were out of doors, but when we got in the schoolhouse and got it warmed up, you would feel like there was mice running over your whole body.

Our home was a log house and Papa always built them up in a hurry, so they weren’t too well made, and we were a large family in close quarters, but the old piano, banjos and fiddle were a source of entertainment. Then there was always a big dish pan of popcorn in the evening.

But for all of these hardships and miseries, we were a healthy lot. Winter colds and childhood disease were the only outstanding illness.

My father belonged to the Odd Fellow Lodge. My Mother, as far as I know, had never been baptized, although she played the organ in the Presbyterian Church before she married. But we had no religious teachings in our home. We were raised in a Mormon town and were allowed to go to Primary and Sunday School with our friends once in a while. My sisters belonged to the Episcopal Church, and when I was older, my oldest sister saw to it that I was baptized. I never did like or enjoy going to church there. They had so many rituals that were boring to a child.

I was shy and had a bad inferiority complex. It was torture for me to answer questions in school, mostly because I was afraid I might be wrong and someone would laugh at me.

I guess because of the lack of luxuries I dreamed of new dresses, beautiful things, a Knight in shining armor. My goal was to find someone to love marry and have children. I was what is called boy struck.

I attended the 10^th grade at Vernal⁶ High School. We rode 30 miles by bus to get to school. I walked a mile to catch the bus. In the winter it was really miserable. The buses in those days were very hard to ride. They had very little heat and broke down a lot. That year I took sewing, algebra, history, and gym which was my favorite class. In the 11^th grade I went to a new school nearer home, Alterra High. We still rode the bus for 10 miles, but that was a fun year for me. I loved the sports and played on the softball team and basketball team. I also took glee that year, and we had fun there. We put on an operetta called Madam Butterfly. I was a geisha girl in the chorus. That was real enjoyable.

I made some very special friends at Alterra High. They are real special memories. That was the year I became a little more daring and once some girlfriends and I played Hookie. I was scared half to death to go home or to school, but we both got away with a reprimand.

As I have said, my Father and Mother played for all the dances, so I started early to get a dancing education. I had a special girlfriend who loved to dance, and we really cut a rug. We hated to have boys ask us to dance because we enjoyed dancing together.

My Father was very strict as far as boyfriends were concerned. If I had a date, it would be a stolen one and hope my Father would not find out.

I learned to play the piano, but I enjoyed most playing “by ear” and became fairly well at it. That is, enough for my own enjoyment. I also played the guitar and sang ballads for my own pleasure. I became quite talented early in making bread. My sister would always chose to make the cakes,, and I had to make the bread, but I learned my job real well and still like to make it.

My first job was in housekeeping. I cooked, sewed, washed, and cleaned house for a family of seven and got $3 per week. That is the only paying job I had until after my six children were born.

My first boyfriend was in the sixth grade, Lawrence Cooper. We really loved each other. We had to leave school early to go herd sheep. I was heartbroken because he seldom came to town, and I didn’t live near town, so we got the idea of writing notes and he put a tin can by a fence near the post office and when he came to town he would leave one and take mine. This worked super until his sister found out about it and told his Mother and that ended that.

I went with Cort Hancock for several years, and we planned to get married, but I met James D. Nielsen and that ended that romance. He was a nice guy, though, and at the time I was really in love. He had a fault that I was intolerant of and that was getting roaring drunk every dance night. I never did like to drink or have others drink. I hated it when I was young and still do.

So when I met Darwin and fell in love, that problem was solved. We met at a mutual friends house, Olive Batchhlos.

I had gone to Price to a Doctor and then went to visit Mrs. B and there met Darwin. We dated while I visited in Castlegate, then when I returned home Darwin had to travel 100 miles to court me. It was a sticky situation bringing a new love to our town and breaking off with Cort.

Darwin and I were married after a short engagement on April 19, 1935. We were married by our Bishop Walquist. Then I left my little hometown and all my friends and relatives and went to live in the mining town of Castlegate. There I had to get acquainted with my new in‑laws. I had only met Dad Nielsen, so I had a big family to get acquainted with.

Our first son, Delyle, was born the following year, February 16, 1936. We lived in this mining town for another year then went to California and lived one summer. When we went back to Utah, we located in Price. We lived in the basement of a home built by Annabel Long. Darwin helped to finish off the basement for rent. Later on we moved into an apartment owned by Sister Winters. I learned to love that woman as she helped me to have more confidence in myself.

Our son Cliff was born in Price on June 9 [1938?]. The next summer, we moved to two and a half acres we had bought. Papa loaned us a tent and we lived in that and built two rooms. It was a struggle to see if the house would get done or winter would come. We won with the house and moved in as it was getting cold.

Esta was born the following February 22, [1940?] a wee little girl that was born at home and we had to put warm bricks around her to keep her warm. We were so happy to have a dear little girl, though.

Life on our two and a half acres was hard. We planted a large garden. I did a lot of canning. Even at that, we had scarce eating times.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed, Darwin went to Slat Lake and found work there. We moved up and lived for some time in a motel as housing was very scarce. Darwin worked at Hill Field. During this time, our son Laurence was born March 29, [1942?].

We decided to go back to Price to our home, so Darwin went down alone to find work and he started adding on two more rooms as our family was growing. We worked many long, hard hours on those rooms. They were finally completed, and we moved our kitchen in one and the children’s bedroom in the other room. We also had a bathroom.

Terry was born 12 months later on April 26, 19__[1944?]. By this time, our home was getting pretty nice. Darwin dug under the house and made a basement. We grew all our food, had chickens, pigs and a cow. Money was hard to come by and as Darwin was a carpenter and work was almost nil from November until spring—March or April.

Sandra was born on May 16, 19__[1946?]. Such a pretty, tiny baby. Just like a little doll. She was our last one and much loved by her brothers and sisters.

We moved to California in March of 1951. Darwin came down ahead of us to find work and a house. Then he called and told me to sell all I could for money to travel on. I asked our very dear friends Mabel and Ward Garlick if they would bring us to California if I would pay the expenses, so we did that. That was a fun trip even though we were crowded in the car.

Raising our family in California has been such a blessing to us. We were able to move into a nice four bedroom house next to the church. There we did the janitor work for the rent. We lived in that house for 15 years. We saw all our boys go on missions while there and three of them get married. Then the house and the church were sold, so we moved into a smaller house.

About this time I started working for Doctor Bucheim. I worked four years for her. When she died, her niece, Ruth Helmeison, inherited the apartments Doctor B had, and as she lived in Riverside area she was unable to keep the apartments up, so she put the apartment up for sale.

She and her father finally talked Darwin and I into buying them. So we bought them for $33,000, $150 down and $250 a month. This was the first home we owned in California, 8019 Puritan, Downey.

I went to work at Rancho Los Amigos as a nurse. I spent five years there and learned a lot. I finally quit after five years as I had a back injury from there and decided not to make it any worse.

We lived in Downey ten years and almost had the apartments paid for when we decided to sell and get a house. We found an acre in Sun City with all the things we wanted so sold and moved into our present home.

While here we were called to serve a mission for the church, so [we] left our home December 29,1979, entered the mission home January 15, 1980 and went to Sask Canada in February and lived there for 15 months. From there we were on to Ontario for the final two months of our mission.

At this time I will not cover the experiences of our mission, but will say we tried working with the Indian people there. Some of the experiences were happy ones and some very trying and sad.

We left Ontario on Jul 3, 1981, and got back into the good old USA on the fourth of July in Michigan. We then went to Kentucky and visited Laurence for a month. Then we traveled to Texas to see friends, then on to Oklahoma to see relatives and then home.

Notes for Stella Chandler Nielsen

My Journal

Blanche Chandler Rasmussen

Sister to William Thomas Chandler, Sr,

Great-Aunt of Keith M. Chandler

By Herself; dated January 14, 1993

I was born December 3, 1917 the ninth child in the large family of Elbert Morton and Mamie May Chandler¹. Little did I know there would be three more little Chandlers after me², but our family would not be complete without them.

When Clifford was a baby the main game we played was steal the bottle. Roxie would steal the bottle from baby Clifford then Grace would steal it from Roxie.

Our house was a two story and Grace would hide upstairs in a dark corner. The upstairs attic was always sort of scary to me. Iva used to hide up there and make weird noises and scare us half to death, like Wah, Wah, Wah. Good job Iva.

Since I was ninth in line, I didn’t know much about the families life before me, but Mom used to tell us of some of the things that happened. Like when they lived in Klamath Falls, Oregon. She said they had a large house and lots of acres of grain. One time they made quite a bit of money and Pa had it put in a bank. At this time she said she heard this knocking, just three knocks, and in a little while the same thing. It kept up for a couple of days, happening both day and night, it had her so nervous. They looked everywhere to see what it could be, but didn’t find anything. Pa had gone to town on a hunch, took his money out of the bank. The next day the bank closed it’s doors and the knocking stopped.

There was a large hill out of Randlett³. We used to take outings and go climb that hill. Lots of times we would carry our lunch. Sometimes we would build a fire and cook potatoes and eggs. I always thought it was the biggest hill in the world until I left there. Parts of the hill had cliffs that went straight up and they had Indian writings and painted pictures. I often wondered how they got there. We had some good times there on that hill.

Indian Women would just keep putting on one dress on top of another [to keep warm], and did some of them smell. But they had the most beautiful shawls and beaded moccasins and purses.

Every spring the Indians had the Bear‑Dance in Ouray⁴. I was always told it was where the men choose their mate. We used to go in this big corral and dance. The men were in one line and ladies in another. One old Indian had a long switch and if you got out of step he would switch your legs. One try was enough for me. They also had the Sun‑Dance at Whiterocks. This was the town that had the New Indian school.

We used to sell cream to a creamery in Roosevelt⁵, so twice a week they would come to pick up the cream. One time the man picked me up and asked Pa if he could buy me, and from that time on when the day arrived for the man to come and pick up cream, I stood up at the window and watched all the time he was there because I was so afraid of him.

It was at this place we had a large strawberry patch, and Mom used to put a huge white bowl filled with berries covered with sugar and a big pitcher of real cream and we could eat all we wanted.

This place [our farm] sat up on a hill, down below were the barns and corrals, for the cattle, horses, and chickens. Then our fields were across this swamp area. The only bridge to walk across were some stones and side poles. As a child I was terrified of this. There were so many snakes you would never believe how many and still to this day I can not stand the sight of a snake.

It was here that Robert Moore was courting Ella. Stella, Grace and me used to sing “Ella and Robert went courting on a summer night.” The rest of the lyrics I can not remember, But she used to get so mad at us.

I think we were living here when I started first grade. I can remember walking to school and my teacher was Hannah Wall. I didn’t like going to school and cried a lot about it. I can remember I had to sit by this Indian boy, Warren Wero and he was so dirty and smelled so bad. I can remember being so scared I wet my pants and had to go home. The principal was Mr. Panter and was a very heavy set man. I can remember boys being sent to his office, and he used a leather belt to whip them.

About this time we moved to a big red building near the school house. It was here I remember Mom and Pa crying because our grandmother had passed away, however we never knew our grandparents, at least the young children in the family never met them.

Our school was two stories with stairs going up inside the building and we had assembly programs. I can still remember Stella and I singing at one. While we were living in this house there was a flu epidemic, and we were all sick. Mom had her hands full. A lady that lived across the square from us, Mrs. Harris came one day and she was eating a pickle and we all started crying for one. Mom was very firm (unusual for her) and told her to go home and get some for these kids and she brought several back. They were a life saver to us. Sometimes these were considered unnecessary and Pa did not allow any of them in the house, only the necessary items were what we had.

My youngest brother Clifford was born at this house. I can remember once with him as a baby. Stella was holding him and dropped him, we were all so upset, especially Stella, as he was her pride and joy. It was at this time I can remember Willie Stevens, my older sister Muriel’s husband, coming to our house one morning. He was quite a large and husky man, he put both arms out on the door frame and said “we have a great big baby boy at our house.” That was Moms first grandchild, however, time wise he was born before my youngest brother Clifford. Moms children were mostly delivered by midwives. I remember Mrs. Burgie and Mrs. Werrin but I don’t know who did what. However, my birth certificate says I was delivered by Doctor Whitmore and this same Doctor delivered my first child twenty two years later.

Sunday was always a day when Mom really fixed a special dinner and usually there was company. I can remember a family named Simmons, they had the biggest family of little kids, all with bright red hair. I want to say, that although Sunday dinner was special, like lots of fried chicken and Mom’s five gallon freezer full of ice cream, my Mother had to be the best cook in the world. She left each of the girls a great inheritance because we are all classified as good cooks.

We girls all had long hair and we would scream and cry the minute our older sisters started for the brush because Mom kept our hair in braids. She got so tired of hearing us cry, so one day, she took the scissors and cut our hair short. There was a big fuss when Pa got home, he was roaring mad.

Stella, Grace and I had a play house in a bunch of willows across the road from our house. The willow grew all around and left a perfect room. We were so proud of it. This is where we spent all of our idle time.

Our family had goats. I really couldn’t understand why. They smelled awful and were really quite mischievous. One time we had all gone fishing on a Sunday (our main recreation) and when we arrived home just before dark, we found the goats had bunted the door open and had broken sacks of flour and anything else they could reach was all over the house. Also they chewed Moms piano music and last but not least they enjoyed jumping on the beds and using it as a bathroom, can you imagine the smell? Also they chewed up clothes on the line until we learned to guard them. Orval said he believed the darn things would eat tin cans.

On Saturday afternoons our community had what we called half holiday. Usually there were baseball games with other towns then the winner would play at the annual U.B.I.C.. Our brother Bill was something else, almost every time he came to bat he would hit a home run. Mom just loved a ball game and was a very enthusiastic rooter. Since we had lived in Randlett and also in Avalon⁶, the ladies from each town would pick her up and carry her to their side of the field. The others would go get her back. She was quite popular at the games. Two years in a row our team won the championship at the U.B.I.C..

Since everyone doesn’t understand what U.B.I.C. was, it was Uintah Basin Industrial Conference. It was a three day event that we looked forward to all summer. We would take tents and camp out.

We had so much fun cooking over a camp fire and Mom worked so hard preparing food. We always had fried chicken, cakes, cooked sting beans and so many more things I won’t list them all. The event was held at Fort Duchesne⁷ and was within the old fort.

We were awakened by a bugle playing reveille. About one hour after arising, the Fort Douglas army band had an hour concert. There was races for children, horse pulling contests, and many other things like sewing instruction and ballroom dancing, and fashion shows. Of course all the fair attenders entered the competition. After lunch they played the ball games and other activities. At night there would be dancing, silent movies, and on the third night they would have a musical production. They were some of the most beautiful programs I can remember. We always hated for the conference to end because we had made new friends, boyfriends and memories. Other than the 4^th and 24^th of July, which was held in our home town, these were outstanding summer activities.

Ella and Robert lived on a homestead (like little house on the prairie) it was about a mile from our place. One Saturday I walked down to their house to get ready for half day holiday, so they wanted me to ride their horses (Bell and Nell) back to our pasture, Marie and Mose wanted to go with me (two and three years old) so her I go, no bridle on the horses, just a rope between them. Ella assured me that they would be alright without a saddle. Marie was in front of me and Mose behind me. These horses started running and there was no way to stop them and I just held on for dear life to the kids and tried to stay on the horse. As we neared our house I was afraid they would make a quick turn in the gate and throw us under their feet. So I never yelled so hard in my life and Mom and some of the kids came running out and stopped them. It was sure an experience.

Hazel played the organ for the Episcopal church. Mr. Hower was the Reverend. Every Sunday she dressed up and marched us down the road to church with a penny tied in our handkerchief for the collection box. Boy how I hated to drop that in there when it would buy several pieces of licorice, however, it probably helped pay for the wonderful and only Christmas we had. There was always a big program, a very colorful big Christmas tree and lots of presents for all on Christmas Eve. Even after we moved away into Leota⁸, Mr. Hower sent us boxes of Christmas toys and gifts. The first doll I can remember had a pacifier and a little tiny hot water bottle. I was so proud of it. We always got beautiful beads and handkerchiefs. I was always very possessive of my things, too much I guess.

Stella and I had to herd the cows each taking turns every other day. How I hated this. One day when I came in from herding cows I told her I found this little city. The people were only an inch high, and described their beautiful clothes, houses, etc. (I must have been a really dreamer). Do you know she herded the cows for one week solid so she could find that little town. Sorry Stella I just had to share this.

Orval, my oldest brother, was a real source of enjoyment with his dry sense of humor. One of our special Sunday dinners, my brother Bill and his wife Ivy were visiting us, Mom went into the kitchen area and fixed our supper. When she came back she said “Burr it’s so cold in there you’ll freeze to death.” Not Orval, he put on his rubber over shoes, his sheepskin coat, ear muffs, cap, muffler and scarf and last but not least his big sheep skin lined gloves. Well needless to say he ate practically by himself, we were all laughing so hard we couldn’t eat. In his dry wit way we were always sent away form the table for laughing and it was usually something he did. I don’t know maybe he did it so he could have more to eat.

Clifford must have been about three at this time. He loved to play with our baby goats, we had about thirty at this time. We had several cows all had names but one, she acquired her name by Cliff saying “look at the heifer dust roll.” When she was walking and kicking up the sand. So from that time on she was called “Heifer Dust.”

I also remember we had a lot of geese and they were real mean. Every spring they picked the down off of them and Mom made pillows and feather beds. Our beds consisted of a straw filled mattress then a feather bed on top. Four of us girls slept in on bed, Stella, Roxie, Grace and Myself. Stella used to walk in her sleep. One night she got up and poured kerosene in a water glass that Mom kept for us. She set the lamp back down just teetering over the edge. When we took a drink of water it really surprised us.

We went to Leota to school. Stella, Grace, Roxie and I rode on old Topsy the stubbornest old nag. Mom always put a blanket on and pinned it around our legs on cold days. Some days our hands were too cold to undo the safety pins. The old horse always knew how to get us home; thru sand storms or snow. I guess that’s why to this day I don’t care for the beach or any form of sand. Sometimes the tumbling weeds would get rolling and [we] would get some as big as a house. One morning Stella decided she was going to make Topsy move faster than a snails pace, so she got a board and slapped her on the rear not knowing there was a nail in the end. Boy did we every go flying.

There are so may memories of our school years. Anna Haines Smart was one of my teachers (she later became my grandmother by marriage). She put on several real beautiful programs. Mom used to ride horseback to play the piano for them. With all she had to do it was really most generous of her. Mrs. Smart told me later on that a better woman never lived than my Mom, but we all knew that, didn’t we!

One Christmas I wrote a Christmas play and they decided to let me put it on. It was a real success and I felt very good for doing it.

Muriel and Willie had two boys, William and Karl. Ella and Robert had Moses and Marie. Bill and Ivy had Tommy. We all loved them so much and just waited for the times they would visit us. Marie was so tiny and walked when she was about six month old. Se looked like a little doll. She would say “My name is Marie Iffath (Elizabeth) Moore. They really brightened up our lives as well as the others, when they came along.

In Leota our school house consisted of two rooms, four grades on each side. Here I had my very first and best girlfriend. Her name was Kayola Jones. We all had to ride horse back or walk to school. She walked about two miles and one day she became very sick and I stayed outside with her in the shade of the building as there was no grass. That night she died of ruptured appendix. It was one of the saddest experiences in my life.

We had many good times too. There were dances and most of the families went. We would spend all day preparing. Mom would use big rocks and warm them on the stove all day, so we could have them at our feet. Usually we went by wagon. One night Ella was going to take Grace and me to the dance. Grace was at Bill and Ivy’s so we went there and picked her up. Then it seems like we traveled for hours, finally the light of the dance hall (we thought), but found out we had been going in a big circle around Bills house. It was so pitch dark and we were trusting the horses.

There was a family names Jenkins that used to homestead near us. Their Father died so they moved into Leota. One night I was spending the night with Mary, my friend, she kept saying “we are having bread and duck for dinner.” Boy was I disappointed when I found out that you ducked your bread in the milk.

The Indians used to gather play money, then on pay days some would get drunk and really cause a commotion. You could hear them late at night down on the river bottom singing and beating their drums.

During my teen years in Avalon my very best friends were Edith Woolley and Ester Jarman. Edith married and lived in Santa Monica, California. Ester married a local man an they later moved to Lewiston, Idaho. I have never seen Ester again, but Edith and her Brother Claude came to Lucille’s wedding reception and went thru the Los Angles Temple when Lucille and Dennis were married.

While living in the house on the hill a circus came to Roosevelt, which was about twenty miles away. Mom and Pa were taking us in an old flat bed truck that they used as a hearse. Well we got about half way there and had to go up this little hill and that thing would not go up such a small hill. So after so long Pa turned the truck around and it went home just fine. We were so disappointed.

Our entertainment was mostly self made. When I was in about third grade the bus took all of the students to see “Uncle Toms Cabin,” that was the first real movie I ever saw. They had some movies at the U.B.I.C. but they were all silent.

Thanksgiving and Christmas were always special. Everyone was home and enjoyed a good meal and all the kids played games.

Iva lived in Salt Lake and was teaching school there. She always sent a large box of celery, apples, and oranges. These were such a treat to us. I can remember one year for Mothers Day, she sent Mom a ten pound box of M^CDonald chocolates. We were allowed one a day and we sure enjoyed them. Iva was always thoughtful of her family, at Halloween she would send us masks and candies, and at Easter she always sent us candy. We always looked forward to her visits. One summer Iva was there and we had a cloud burst and she had brought a beautiful white coat with her. The roof of our house had a red type dirt and it was leaking so bad she went out and stood in the rain to keep her coat from being soaked with red water. What a mess that was.

As I end this rambling of memories I will say that we were a large family, not handicapped in any way. All were in good health and we had no serious crises. We always had enough food, sufficient clothing (not always what we wanted), but we always had a roof over our head. Most of all we had a wonderful Mother. To me there can never be a better person than Mom. If she had a fault it could only be being a patient, and giving to much at her own expense. We all loved her dearly.

Notes for Blanche Chandler Rasmussen

Vern Sheffer and Bernice Turner Sheffer

Sister and brother-in-law to Beatrice Ivy Turner

Written for the funeral of Vern by his son Klin

Great-Aunt of Keith M. Chandler

If you need to judge a man, count his friends, see who they are, and see bow he performs under adverse conditions. Dad made a lot of friends in the usual way but he made a lot more through his sports. In his younger days he was a tremendous athlete and it seemed that, no matter what the name of the game, he always chose his position and was the leader of the pack, but since I know that he wanted me to talk more about how he performed under adverse conditions I will talk more about these conditions, what some of them were, and how he performed as he made his way, as he tried to bring them to a satisfactory conclusion. This is a foundation upon which I would like to base my remarks as I pay tribute to my father here today.

In 1992, when Dad was a mere ninety-two years old, we had quite a long talk and at that rime was when he let me know that he wanted me to be here today to make a very condensed report about what happened during a few years in his early life. During our conversation he made the following statement: “When I think of the things you and I went through together when you was just a boy and I was a young man, I don’t see how either one of us lived to be as old as you are now, without even mentioning these 24 years that I am older than you.” As we talked more about the things he was referring to we took a trip down memory lane that brought back a lot of old and precious memories. As we concluded our talk he told me he would like for me to recall some of the things that happened to our family during the years of the Great Depression and in spite of many negative things my instructions were to “Tell it like it was.

I begin my story in 1928 which was the year Ivan got tic fever. That was considered to be a fatal disease and although Ivan lived through it, it was not without serious consequences. He had a paralyzed tongue so we couldn’t communicate. He had a lot of problems learning the basic skills like lacing and tying his shoes, and how to get them on the right feet. Since I was with him a lot of the time when my parents couldn’t be, I had to substitute for them in helping him with his problems. I had to try to keep track of things like how he was being ignored by the school teachers who didn’t have the patience to work with him. Dad had big problems with both me and Ivan because when Ivan’s problems spilled over into my life I didn’t have patience with him either.

When I had to correct his mistakes he was always so sure he was right that he would put up a vicious fight, and as I was forced to control him with physical strength. Occasionally I would over do it. Along with helping Ivan with his problems Dad had the problem of keeping me on the side of my brother, and that wasn’t easy. These trying problems were with us for a period of about 10 years.

In 1931 we leased a large farm on the Duchesne River bottom between Randlett¹ and Ouray². While living there we netted a lot of trash fish which we used to furnish our farm animals with a high protein diet. One night on the 3^rd of July my mother was grinding up the fish meat when she decided she needed a meat saw, so she sent Ivan to the house to get one. As he returned with the meat saw he was swinging it around his head similar to the way a cowboy might swing a lasso rope. Bert ran around the corner of the house and ran into the end of the meat saw. His eye was not only put out but it was badly mutilated. Following is a detailed story of what happened at that time the way I remember it:

The first thing I remember after the accident was running around getting things together that we needed to lift the rear wheel of our old model‑T Ford truck up off the ground. This had to be done because those old transmissions didn’t have a neutral and the wheel had to be free to spin so the engine could be cranked for starting. It took Dad and me about 30 minutes just to get the old truck started. By that time my Uncle Bill Chandler came on the scene to help. With Bert on a pillow on Uncle Bills’ lap and Dad driving they started for Roosevelt to find a doctor. The next thing I remember was my mother pacing the floor, worrying about whether or not they would make it. Her concerns were legitimate because the old truck was in real bad condition. She knew they would be in a rush and in the dark and the truck didn’t have any lights. The old truck didn’t have a fuel pump so the carburetor was fed gasoline by gravity. This meant that whenever they came to a hill they had to turn around and go up the hill in reverse so the engine could get fuel. In everyday ordinary routines we usually crossed the river in places where there was no bridge but quite often this meant getting stalled in the middle of the river with a wet ignition system so they had to go a long way around to get to a bridge. That meant a longer trip and many more hills to go up in reverse. About 5 o’clock the next morning Dad and Uncle Bill returned home and they still had Bert with them. Their report went something like this:

They had got to Roosevelt about 2 am and got the Dr, out of bed. He lifted Bert’s eyelid looked in and said, “The eye is definitely out. It will never see out of it again. It is badly damaged and this is so far out of my line I wouldn’t even dare give him an aspirin. He needs the best of eye doctors and my advice is for you to get him to S.L.C. as soon as possible. On their way back home Dad and Uncle Bill had decided to go for help on horses because they had to get back and forth across the river in places where a motor vehicle wouldn’t stand a chance. They knew they would have to move fast because all of the people in those outlying areas would take their families into Roosevelt and Vernal for the 4^th of July Celebrations.

About 10 o’clock they came back with a car and driver and Dad quickly took Bert and started for Salt Lake City. When we received our first long letter from Dad we learned that while trying to get help he bad gone to the home of a man we knew was a mean old coot, but he had two cars capable of making the trip to Salt Lake City. When Dad asked for help he told Dad to take care of his own problems, and when Dad pressed him a little because he needed help so bad he grabbed his shot gun, pointed it at Dad ordered him off his property.

Dad told how he had to sit almost as still as a statue all the way to Salt Lake City because any little movement would cause Bert to have additional severe and unbearable pain. He let us know that Bert had cried so long and so hard that he had completely lost his voice by the time they reached Duchesne³ City. The only way he could tell if he was crying was to watch him go through the motions without being able to make any noise.

We found out that Dad had been given the job by the driver of the car to help him keep the car at a speed of 35 mi per hour. Dad had to watch the speedometer and tell the driver when to speed up and when to slow down. That was because the car was new and in those days cars had to be broken in at a speed of 35 mi per hour for about the first 3,000 miles.

Dad said they had reached Salt Lake City about 8:30 in the evening, but they couldn’t find a doctor because they were all out celebrating the 4^th of July holiday. It was late in the morning of July 5^th before Bert received any medical attention. In Dad’s letter he told about having to take Bert from the hospital to the doctor’s office in the Medical Arts building some distance away. This had to be done once a day and without any transportation of his own, this was a tremendous burden on Dad’s shoulders. Dad and Bert were gone for about six weeks and I remember how the family all stood together watching the little section of the old dirt road where the car bringing them home would first come into view.

One of the first things Dad done after our reunion was to make a survey of the farm to see what a seven year old boy and a pregnant woman had been able to save. He was forced to conclude that it wasn’t much. By now it was known that we would lose our lease and the farm and to add to that problem we received medical bills during the next two weeks amounting to about $16,000 dollars. In short we were left without much food or clothing and a very large deficit of money. This forced us into a position where we had to call on my Grandpa Turner for help and with his permission we moved in with him for the winter of 1931 and 1932.

To understand the trouble we were in, besides the information already given, you have to know how bad things were during the worst years of the Great Depression because that was in 1931 and 1932 The bad things that happened to us that winter would fill a large book so I’ll just mention a few of them to place you in a better position to judge what some of the others might have been. Before we moved in with Grandpa his house was too small for his own family. He had traded a coal mine for his 40 acre farm only three months or so before so he hadn’t had a growing season on his farm vet. His root cellar was not full of potatoes, onions, carrots, turnips, and other types of farm produce like you could expect if you was under normal conditions of farm life. He hadn’t had enough time or money to replace the broken windows and doors of the old un‑lived in vandalized house. Even the shingles on the roof were a thing of the past. We were all working on these things as best we could, but until we could complete some of the jobs at hand our life was pretty miserable.

The winter set in and each storm would deposit several inches of snow on the roof and when the weather would turn cold as it always does after a storm, it would force us to fire up in our pot belly stove to keep warm. The heat would travel up through the un‑insulated ceilings melting the snow and bringing the water down on us. All of the kitchen utensils would go into action to catch the water as we tried to stay dry. About the middle of the winter a bee man in the area came to our rescue. He had purchased a large number of 5 fal honey cans which had collected moisture and formed rust on the insides. During the middle of the winter we were out there cutting up those cans and nailing them on the roof to take the place of the shingles we didn’t have.

We rook the best part of some old worn out clothes and sewed the cloth together and made three of what we called “ties”. They were large pillow shaped bags that we filled with straw so they could be used as substitutes for mattresses on our beds. When those beds were filled with children there was three heads ate each end of the bed and I can vouch for the fact that it seems like everyone in that bed is a little “Jimmy Dickens” sleeping at the foot of the bed.

Dad got a little work from the neighboring farmers that winter but he didn’t make any money because he always got paid with a dozen eggs, a wiener pig, a sack of grain or whatever they might have that we could use.

Spring in the Uintah Basin was always late but it did finally come and we were all still alive. When spring came we purchased a farm in Tridell and we plowed and planted crops in the 40 acres of fields. Besides running the farm we operated a blacksmith shop with blacksmith equipment Dad had worked for the winter before. Dad also took an outside job on W.P.A., for the government. I had school so we ended up with 3 eight hour jobs. Now I’m not trying to convince anyone that we actually worked 24 hours a day, but for a period of I years we came about as close to that as is possible.

It seemed like things had smoothed out and that maybe we would survive the storm, but it was not to be. At that time Dad got a serious gum disease that forced him to have all his teeth extracted and his gums were infected for quite a long time after, when they were just beginning to heal he got a form of edema that rendered him almost helpless. There were scabs an his body about 1/8 of an inch thick and covering about 75% of the surface. It was especially bad behind his knees. When he would move his legs the scabs would crack open letting the blood run down his legs into the tops of his shoes. The pollens and the grain and hay dust from the farm work greatly aggravated his condition. Again it became obvious that we would lose the farm.

We leased a 40 acre plot from an Indian for a small amount of money but there was no improvements on it at all, so we borrowed a tent from a friend (Ted Darling), boarded it up and moved into it. Maybe I should say, we put our necessities of life in the tent and made us a bed beside it. Dad was planning on leaving us on a trip with his brother, Uncle Rulon, to see if a change of climate would help his physical condition so he spent about a month working us into a routine. He knew I wasn’t old enough or wise enough at 12 to be the man of the house without a set of instructions and a plan to follow. He helped us get an acre garden growing and helped us plan a daily routine to keep the garden weeded and the chores to be done to care for our animals. He helped build an outdoor toilet. He left in the late spring and went to Arizona with Uncle Rulon. His health did improve and he got a job digging wells and working at a sawmill in Flagstaff, Arizona. He was able to send us $40 a couple of months later. That doesn’t sound like much now but in depression days that was quite a lot of money. Considering the odds against us we done quite well during that summer.

The one thing I remember the most about that year was the fact that the tent floor was one inch boards nailed on 2 X 4 lumber which held it up 4 inches off the ground. This left room for mice to get under the floor and they came in by the hundreds. We were taking them out of our traps and resetting them constantly, Since we were next to a swamp and since the mice were food for the snakes we collected them like we were honey and they were flies. The snakes were harmless and maybe even a good thing because they ate the mice, but when there is so many of them, they did become a nuisance.

Dad came home with the first cold weather of the fall, but none too soon because the man we borrowed the tent from had came and got his tent. We had been totally under the stars for about 2 weeks. We were again forced to move in with Grandpa Turner for the winter like before, but this time many of the things that gave us so much trouble before had been remedied and life was much easier for us that winter.

Things didn’t seem to get much better for us until we left the Uintah Basin four years later and moved to Hurricane in the spring of 1941. The difference came because of fruit picking jobs where anyone big enough to work could pick fruit by the pound. When we had been in Hurricane for a week everybody in our family who was more than 10‑years‑old had money in their pockets.

During the years of the “Great Depression” I saw Dad fight and lose a lot of battles and I know how he felt because many of those battles I fought and lost along beside him. We also won a few but that wasn’t as many. Now when I look back on those trying times that fate had seemed to push in Dad’s direction, I see a man who had to be discouraged many times, but I never ever saw him quit. In his early life he smoked and use some profane language. We were not active in the church, but in later years he did what we all should be doing. He recognized his problems for what they were straightened out his life and got all his ordinance work done.

During the time in Dad’s life that I have attempted to briefly cover it can be seen that the adverse conditions he had to cope with were about as adverse as conditions get in ordinary everyday living. So, “If you judge a man, count his friends, see who his friends are, and see how he performs under adverse conditions” then one might say Dad has prepared himself for the final test.

These are just a few experiences that our family went through together. It was a very hard period of time for us but there were also good times that we will always remember.

Notes for Bernice Turner and Vern Sheffer

Reminiscences of Childhood and Early Girlhood

Amelia Ivy (Millie) Potter Daniels

By her adoring sister Crystal Potter Lewis

Dated January 1967

Sister of Harriot Elva Potter

Great-Great Aunt of Keith M. Chandler

I am hoping that all of Millie’s children, grandchildren and brothers and sisters still alive may have the chance to read this (Crystal Potter Lewis)

Some of the fondest memories of my childhood are the ones where Mother took the time to sit down with us and teach us little songs and poems and tell us stories of her childhood.

One story that I feel showed why Amelia (Millie) received her name is a favorite of mine. She told us how fortunate she was when she was a little girl to live next door to a wonderful grandmother, Amelia Risley Chapman¹ [see History for Jerome and Amelia Chapman page 183]. This grandmother was kind, sweet, and generous and gave her grandchildren food when they (the grandchildren) had very little to eat at home. Mother Hattie loved her so much and I feel that is why on July 30, 1898, when a cute chubby little daughter was born to her, she named her Amelia after her beloved grandmother. We never understood why she added Ivy to the baby’s name. My oldest brother, W.E. [Wallace Edwin] “Ed” Jr. said: “Amelia is a good name, but why name her after that d___ poison weed.” Millie as she was immediately nicknamed, was the fifth daughter and twelfth child² of Wallace Edwin and Harriot Susan Kempton Potter³ [see History for Wallace page 151].

She was cute smart and also good natured till she had a bad cough when only a few month old. I don’t know if it was whooping cough or not, but it seemed that nothing Mother could do for it helped at all. She would cough and cry—not able to sleep and father was cross because she disturbed his sleep. I can’t remember any of the rest having a bad cough at that time.

She talked real young and when she was little was quite independent. One day she couldn’t open the door from outside and called “Pa nor Ma nor nobody or nussin open de door.”

One day Mother asked me if I would wash Millie’s diapers if she would buy me a small washboard and I was pleased to do it. I had a wooden bucket for my tub and we had an outdoor hydrant where I got the water.

She was just ten months old when we went to Idaho in a covered wagon. I will tell about that trip later.

James R. [noted in Ancestral File as Reed or Reese] “Jimmy” was just two years and ten days old when Millie was born. Anna “Tine” was four and a half, and I (Crystal) was six years old. Arnold was nearly eleven years, Elva was twelve and a half, Amasa nearly sixteen years, George J. [noted in Ancestral File as Jerome] nineteen and a half, John about twenty one years, Ed Jr. twenty three years, Zettie twenty five and a half at that time.

Zettie had been married nearly two years, Ed and John both married several months. Zettie married Michael Crowley of Ogden, Ed married Emily Noakes of Charleston and John married Sadie Casper also of Charleston, Near Heber Utah.

The Lumber [Frame] house where Millie was born and where Jim and Royal were also born was humble. It had four rooms—a kitchen, living room, which was divided to make two bedrooms, a room for the boys and a lean to room where part of the boys slept and harness and extra firewood was also kept. The kitchen had a large range stove, a wood box, a wash bench, a large home made flour bin and a large home made table, some chairs and a dish cupboard. There was no covering on the kitchen floor ‑ just bare, rough boards.

The large living room, as I have stated before, was cut in half by long percale curtains behind which were two bedrooms. On one side a bed for the girls on the other, Father and Mother’s bed and the baby’s cradle.

The living room had a dresser or bureau as we called it, some rocking chairs, and old fashioned Church organ and the following musical instruments: violin, guitar, mandolin, banjo, and on the floor a hand woven rag carpet. In the winter there was also a small wood box behind it.

The boys’ bedroom just off the kitchen, had a curtained clothes cupboard, where the boys hung their clothes and some the best clothes of the rest of the family also hung there. A large double bed, where two or three boys slept, and above the bed a large shelf where a bass fiddle was kept. A small rag rug was in front of the bed. An outside room—the lean‑to—had another large bed with a chest of drawers, two large trunks for storage, some harness and a saddle and a large box for wood for stoves cut and piled for winter, where it would keep dry.

Perhaps this would be as good a place to tell why we had all those musical instruments. Father went to Salt Lake City and came back with a second hand Church organ. He had always played a violin from the time he was very young and had played for dances for many years. He could play any tune that he knew the tune of, and reels, hornpipes and jigs were his specialty. Each of the boys played a different instrument, but Ed, George and Amasa could play several. Father on the violin or fiddle, Ed the guitar, John the banjo, George the guitar, Amasa the mandolin and Elva [the mother of (Beatrice) Ivy Turner] chorded on the organ. It was a musical orchestra when all got together. I remember many evenings of listening with rapture and going to bed behind the curtains to go to sleep with the music.

Millie made up songs and played one or two notes on the organ, to accompany herself. she couldn’t have been more then three years old when she sang “Me river and lilies blooming all around, and did you tell me that I never left a feather on his back,” both words and music her own composition. She was like Tine ‑ she sang when very young and could remember the words to songs.

I can’t remember when she first played tunes on the organ, but she is a very good player on the organ or piano now. Of course all the family played by ear. Amasa took a few lessons on the violin, but I think he played by ear all his life. Mother gave him Fathers violin after Fathers death and he played to many dances in Bennett⁴ and other places. Music came natural to Dawn—Millie’s daughter and as they gave her lessons she is a fine pianist. She was organist in Chico for the church organizations.

The house [in Midway, also known as Mound City, Utah] stood near a hill which was called Jesse’s mound as Jesse M^CCarrell had been the owner before Father bought the place. Our chicken coop and cellar were dug partly into that mound and built of “Potrock” that came from near the strange hot pots.

That cellar was the most wonderful in all of Midway⁵. It was a natural refrigerator in summer and nothing froze in it in winter. The back room dug into the mound held vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions and sometimes cabbage, etc. During the winter all partially buried in soil that kept them fresh till spring and we could always dig them out all winter. The front room held a screened in cupboard where mother kept pans of milk, a cream jar and butter. I imagine it was as new a style of churn as was known at that time. On churning day we would take turns churning and when the little glass in the top showed small spots of butter on it, Mother would take out the big lumps of butter into a large wooden bowl where she pressed all the buttermilk from the butter and worked salt into it. We were then allowed to each have a glass of cool buttermilk to drink.

In another part of the cellar in the fall, there were two or three large kegs of pickles similar to dill pickles which we enjoyed as long as they lasted. We had grown the cucumbers in our garden at the foot of the mound where everything was sheltered and free from the early and late frosts that came to the valley. No one else could raise as many kinds of vegetables as we could. I imagine we could have raised tomatoes but never tried.

Midway was unique—different then any town I’ve ever known, in two ways. First it was situated mostly south of queer formations of what was called Hot Pots, similar to those enclosing the geysers and hot springs in Yellowstone Park. Some pots were just dry cave like formations, but others contained hot springs of mineral water, and piped into large indoor pools of bath houses where people came from many miles around to bathe. One small private bath house known as Abegglen’s from the people who owned it [was the one we used]. They didn’t commercialize on it but let whole families bathe in it[, mom paid] from ten cents to twenty five cents for about six us including herself.

The Latter Day Saints preformed baptisms here. I was baptized there and I suppose some of the other members of the family were too.

The first time Mother took Millie there she wouldn’t go in the water. The reason was that when she was about one year and ten and a half months old she fell from a small footbridge into a raging ditch of water and went under a large wagon bridge built of logs and covered with clay. One of the older children saw her go under the bridge and gave the alarm. Royal was just two weeks old and as was the custom in those days, Mother had just got out of bed four days before. There was not a man anywhere on the place. We could hear Millie crying, but although all of us there, got into the rushing, rolly water—even Mother, we all tried to reach our little sister, but we couldn’t see her. The water was so high that it was splashing against the bridge. Mother told me to run across the street and ask the neighbor to come and help us. His name was Joe M^CCarrell. He was not very friendly and besides he’d been sick. He was lying down on a couch, but he jumped up and ran across the street in his socks. He jumped in the water and with his longer arms, he reached under the bridge, found Millie’s arm and pulled her to safety. Although she had been under the bridge quite a while, her head had probably been above water much of the time or we couldn’t have heard her crying. She looked like a drowned rat and was coughing up dead leaves and sand with every breath. They wrapped her in a heavy quilt and worked with her all night.

To return to the hot pots. When I was a little girl, there were two resorts. One was called Luke’s and the other Ritter’s. Ritter’s was later called Schneitter’s. Both of these had two large indoor pools with dressing rooms, etc. Here were also dance halls, a store at each, playgrounds for children and table for picnics. At Ritter’s was the largest hot pot in the valley. They said that they had never found a bottom to it. Steps were carved in the potrock so that people could climb to the top and look in at the water below.

One other thing I remember about Millie. She would ask for a clean dress when she was very little. There wasn’t always a clean one for her, for we had only two or thee outfits for everyday and one dress for Sunday School in the summer. Our sister Zettie always bought school dresses for me when I lived with her during the summer. Mother knitted and sewed for other people and helped get clothes for her children. The hardest thing to get to wear were shoes. We went barefoot during the summer (of necessity) with shoes for Sunday. But the shoes hurt our feet when we came to wear them. By the time school started our shoes were too small and we had to hand them down to the next one smaller.

The trip to Idaho when Millie was ten months old was an interesting adventure for all of us. Although we were traveling like real pioneers. Mother received word in the spring of 1899 that her youngest sister [Anise K Kempton] had died^a leaving a family of six children and her husband. Also her Father [Jerome Bonaparte Kempton] was very ill in a hospital. So Father fixed up an outfit covered wagon and what must have been a fairly good team, for they got us to Idaho and back with about three weeks of travel, and about one week of rest in between. There were eight of us including Mother. Amasa, the teamster nearly seventeen, Elva fourteen, Arnold nearly twelve, Crystal nearly seven, Tiny five, Jim nearly three, baby Millie and Mother. That wagon must have been loaded. There was bedding, clothes, food box, hay and oats for the horses, besides all of us. I can’t remember what we had to eat but salt bacon, tea and eaglebrand milk. Mother and Amasa had tea and the rest of us had hot water in the mornings sweetened with the eaglebrand. I can also remember the salt bacon frying in the fry pan over the campfire.

One incident I remember that was rather funny was at Tremonton. We stopped at this small farm to buy hay for the horses. An odd looking little man came out and told us he was called Billy Bowlegs and when he went to dances the girls would say to him, “Billy Bowlegs why don’t you dance?” He would give us hay for the horses for our old dog Tip who had followed us all the way from Midway. We camped across the road from his place and the horses ate most of the hay that night and the next morning. Billy ties old Tip up. We could hear him howling as we drove away and some of use were howling too. But by noon he had caught up with us. We don’t know what happened, but we never saw poor Billy Bowlegs again.

We stopped at Malad at the home of Mother’s Aunt Fidelia K. Babbitt where I think Mother did some washing. The Babbitt family consisted of Uncle Richard about five sons and Aunt Fidelia. The oldest son Richard Jr. went with us to Pocatello where he married his second cousin Rosetta (Etta) Kempton and stayed in Pocatello.

When we reached Pocatello and went to the home of Uncle George Kempton we found that grandpa Kempton^b had died the day before. The next day, the adults went to his funeral and we stayed at Uncle George’s. He was light complexioned and Mother was dark. His wife was dark with dark eyes and hair. They had four girls and two boys. Rosetta (Etta), Ida, Lavell and Katherine. The three older girls were dark and all of them were very good looking, while Katherine was blonde like her Father and grandfather Kempton, with long blond curls and blue eyes. The two boys were Ransom and Freddie.

After the funeral we went to grandmother Kempton’s home near American Falls and stayed for a few days. Two of Mothers brothers were there, Uncle Jim and Uncle Osborne (Ob) they called him. He took Amasa and Elva around and they had a pleasant time together. Up until that time Mother had kept Jimmie’s hair in blond curls, but everyone asked her why she didn’t cut his hair.

Mother’s sister Anise had died a month before and left her husband and six children. We had a good time with our cousins Andy, Katie, Zetta and Jimmie. I can’t remember the names of the others. Uncle Cal Allen owned a farm next to Grandmothers. One day Uncle Jim took Jimmie to Uncle Cal’s place and cut off his curls. All were happy about it but Mother, as he now looked like a boy. I don’t remember the trip home.

Notes for Amelia Ivy (Millie) Potter Daniels

Ann Craven (Potter)

Great-Grandaunt of Keith M. Chandler

Written by Crystal D. Potter Lewis

Sister of Harriot Elva Potter

Before starting on Ann’s or “Tine’s” biography I think a short biography of her parents should be written.

Our Father Wallace Edwin Potter¹ [see History for Wallace page 151] was born in Mill Creek², Salt Lake county, Utah on April 14, 1850 the son of Arnold and Elizabeth Ann Birch Potter [see History for Arnold page 175 and 177], Mormon pioneers of 1849. Edwin or Ed as he was always called had very blue eyes, dark wavy hair, heavy eyebrows, prominent nose, and dark complexion. He only had two terms of formal schooling in all his life altho [original spelling] he was a brilliant scholar. He could spell any word he’d ever seen in print or heard spelled once. He could work out difficult mathematical problems in his head, could read and write well and when he was nearly fifty years old he took a course in optometry and graduated with high honors and a Doctor’s title. He fitted glasses from then on until his death at the age of fifty nine and a half, September 30, 1909 in Vernal³ Utah.

His prescriptions for lenses were sent to the Columbian Optical Co., to be ground and I never heard of one dissatisfied glasses customer. Because of lack of capital he was never able to set up a suitable shop for his optical goods, but did rent a small place in Heber⁴ where he practiced and had some jewelry watches and clocks and did repair work. Later when we moved to Provo he set up a small shop there also, but didn’t do too much business. Besides he was an expert blacksmith, gunsmith, and carpenter, and a self taught musician.

He played several instruments, organ, or piano, flute, bass violin, and was an expert on the violin, with which he earned quite a bit in his younger years playing for dances. In spite of all these talents he was never able to support his two wives and twenty children. Both wives earned money outside their homes and the children had to help earn as soon as they were old enough to find work.

His worst fault was a hot quick temper which I imagine he acquired by being beaten and mistreated by a cruel step‑father. Father beat some of his boys for small offenses while some he scarcely whipped at all. The daughters he punished very little and his second wife’s children he never whipped at all except the older girl once.

Father certainly passed exceptional music ability and intellectual alertness to some of his children and grandchildren, for he had an abundance of both. Another fault he had was he was a rover, never being content to settle in one place very long.

Our Mother Harriet Susan Kempton Potter^{See End Note
1}. Harriet always called Hattie was born in Salt Lake City March 21 1856, daughter of Jerome B and Rosetta Anise Chapman Kempton [see History for Jerome and Rosetta page 183]. Mormon pioneers of 1849. She had dark brown eyes and hair but fair completion. As she was the eldest daughter of the family for several years she had to work very hard from the time she was very small, carding wool, scrubbing bare wooden floors with sand and a brick, and many other hard jobs that are unknown today. The hardships of her life probably caused her to think that married life would be much easier. She was married to Father when she was fifteen years and five months old, and he was twenty one years and four months old, on August 21, 1871.

Altho they went to Bingham Canyon that fall while Father hauled timber for the mines, she cooked in a boarding house, she was very happy. They were able to save some money but when they came back to Murray, they found that Fathers step Father, Francis Brown^a, had sold the house that Father had bought with his inheritance from his own Father, and Father never got one cent of the money.

But Father started working at the smelter and they bought a small farm, with at three room house. They also got some livestock and were soon prospering. Four children were born to them there. [Elizabeth, Wallace, John and George]

About 1881 they sold the farm and moved to Dover⁵, a small village in Sanpete County. Here they lost everything they had thru drought and poor soil. Their fifth child was born [Amasa] and Father married a second wife [Olive Andelin⁶]. Mother had eight more children making thirteen⁷ in all and all but one grew to adulthood, married and had families of their own.

Mothers life was full of hardships, poverty, sharing her husband with another woman and also losing a little boy Welcome Elwin who was killed by a drunken man’s team. In spite of all her troubles she was always singing or whistling as she went about her work except when she had one of her terrible headaches (migraine perhaps). She taught us children little poems and songs and we knelt by her knee every night to say our little prayers. We also had family prayer night an morning most of the time. But she didn’t attend church very often. I realize now that it was because she didn’t have good enough clothes to go anyplace. They lived in Murray the first ten years of their married life, then in Dover San Pete county for four years, then to Salt Lake to Vernal 1887, to Snyderville⁸ 1891, Provo river or Riverdell 1893, then to Midway⁹ 1894 where they again lived for ten years then to Heber 1904 for on year, to Provo 1905-1907 two years, and ended up in Vernal¹⁰ again where they lived at the time of Fathers death September 1909. Thru all these moves Mother did work outside her own home, kept boarders, worked as cook in a boarding house, knit and sewed for other people, wove carpets etc. After fathers death she sold her home in Vernal and went to Park City where she lived in part of George’s home, took care of an invalid lady, and later lived in Millie’s home. She went with Millie to California in 1936 where she lived with Amasa, Royal, George, and Millie at different times. She died at Millie’s home in Redding at the age of 92 on March 1, 1948. The last few years of her life she lived in the past—always thinking her sons were her brothers and running away saying she was going home to her Mother.

Born in Riverdell near Heber power plant on January 27, 1894 Ann Craven Potter (Allen Kamerle). The Christian name of My beloved sister, Ann Craven was given to her because it was on our Great Grandmother’s maiden name^b. But I inadvertently am responsible for her nickname of Tiny ‑ then Tine. When she was born I was only one year and seven months old, had been a sickly nervous baby and had been petted by all the family. So naturally I was jealous of the new sister who was getting all the attention. They brought her to me and said “See the tiny baby how nice she is.” And I said “I don’t like that tiny baby ‑ throw that tiny baby outdoors.” Right then they began calling her tiny baby. She [end of available copy at bottom of page, more was expected]

Notes for Ann Craven Potter

Isaac Allred (Son of James Allred)

Nephew of Isaac Allred, 4^th G-Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Written by Isaac Allred hemself

The following history is an abridgement of a copy of Isaac's history as written by him in 1849. This copy was in the possession of Athlene Allred Osborne, a great grand daughter of Isaac, and has been posted on the Allred Organization website.

"I, Isaac Allred, the son of James Allred, was born the 20th of June, 1814, in Bedford County, Tennessee. Here I was raised on a farm until I was 17 years old, at which time my family moved to Monroe County, Missouri. Here we were admitted into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1832. Later the same year I was married to Julia Ann Taylor. The following spring I marched with the Prophet Joseph Smith to Clay County, Missouri to help liberate the Saints (the Zion's Camp March).

In the fall of 1835, I, in the company of my father and others, moved to Clay County, where we stayed one year and raised one crop. But this year our people became careless to the non-members living among them; some resolutions were passed and it was decided that it was best for our people to live by themselves. In October of 1836, we moved with the Church to Caldwell County.

I bought land from the government and made a far. In the year of 1837 I was ordained an Elder. In the fall of that year, at the request of the prophet Joseph Smith, I, in the company of Benjamin L. Cluff, went out to preach the gospel to the people. We traveled eleven hundred miles. I spoke at Brooks Cedars and baptized eleven.

Later on that year, after putting my crop in, I left on my second mission. We traveled by steamer to St. Louis, then up the Ohio River where we commenced preaching. On this mission, I traveled two thousand one hundred miles, preached 35 times, and baptized four souls, before returning home.

The Church was mobbed and driven out of Missouri in the fall of 1838. We settled in military land in Illinois and took out a lease for five years. I made some improvements and remained one year, then moved to Nauvoo, built a house and did the best I could for a living.

After some months I left with Solomon Hancock for a mission to Missouri after they had driven us out. We baptized some, organized a branch and returned home.

I went to work for Mr. Law, cutting timber. I remained with him for two years.

The mob in Illinois raised against the church and killed the Prophet and his brother, Hyrum. The Nauvoo Legion was organized and I was commissioned colonel on the Fifth Regiment in the Legion.

The Law family left the Church and relieved me of my place. I moved back to my home and went to work on the Temple and stayed until it was finished. During this the toils and privations of life, the afflictions in sickness and the death of brothers and sisters and friends, my pen cannot print.

In February, 1846, we left Nauvoo and crossed the Mississippi River to the state of Iowa. I being perfectly destitute of anything to help myself. We stayed at Garden Grave for two years, at which time, I traveled from place to place suffering the entire loss of what little property I had.

President (Brigham) Young, finding out my condition, sent for me to leave Garden Grove. By the help of my father, we left in the spring of 1848 and moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Here I made a crop and built a house. I was elected Constable at the August election. I was called by President Young to travel and preach to the branches of the Church.

With this sketch there are thousands of other circumstances that I should have like to of written that my history be more complete, but being poor and being driven to the extremity, I must omit them.

My father's family (1849) is scattered to the four winds of heaven. My oldest brother (William Hackley Allred) left the Church, the next one (Martin Carrel Allred) died, and my three youngest sisters are in three different states, and my two brothers (actually one brother, James T. S. Allred and a nephew, Reuben Warren Allred, son of Martin Carrel, who was raised as a brother after his father's death, as well as two cousins, Redick N. and James Riley) drug off into the service of the United States (Mormon Battalion) after being driven from their homes and robbed of their property.

I thank the Lord that I yet live and have a standing in the Church. Wednesday, December 20th, 1849. All is well. Thank God."

Note: Isaac Allred crossed the plains in 1851 as a captain of a company of Saints (followers). With his family, he settled in Kaysville, Utah. He served a mission (his fourth?) to Great Britain from 1853 to 1855. After his mission, he moved to Ogden and then to Ephraim, where his parents lived. He married Mary Henderson in Nauvoo and in 1856 he got into an argument with Thomas Ivie over sheep and was hit with a burning log from the campfire and killed. By his three wives, he fathered seventeen children.
Saviors On Mount Zion

Course No. 21

For the Sunday Schools

of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Published by the Deseret Sunday School Union Board

Chapter 21

A Race of Religious Leaders

In previous lessons we have learned how sincere and devoted searchers everywhere have been led by the Lord to trace their own lineage. In doing this they have at the same time traced the pedigrees of Church members, for we descend from the same families as they. Actual evidences of this will be presented for study in this lesson, taking for examination the lineages of well-known typical Church leaders.

The pedigree of the Prophet.

Joseph Smith, Jr., was one of the "noble and great" spirit children of our Father in Heaven, and especially chosen and ordained to his special mission in the Grand Council before the world was formed. "I suppose that I was [p.86] ordained to this very office in that Grand Council," he himself said.1 President Brigham Young was very emphatic on this point:

It was decreed in the counsels of eternity, long before the foundations of the earth were laid, that he, Joseph Smith, should be the man, in the last dispensation of this world, to bring forth the word of God to the people, and receive the fulness of the keys and power of the Priesthood of the Son of God. The Lord had his eyes upon him, and upon his father, and upon his father's father, and upon their progenitors clear back to Abraham, and from Abraham to the flood, from the flood to Enoch, and from Enoch to Adam. He has watched that family and that blood as it has circulated from its fountain to the birth of that man. He was foreordained in eternity to preside over this last dispensation.2

In Chapters 16 and 17 we learned that Joseph in Egypt predicted before his death that in the latter days a prophet should arise with a great mission to perform for the seed of Joseph. This Prophet should be named Joseph, and so should his father, and they should be direct descendants of Joseph in Egypt. We also saw that the patriarchal blessing of the Prophet pronounced him to be descended from the more blessed son of Joseph and Asenath, Ephraim, the "firstborn" in Israel.

Following the coming of Elijah the spirit of research and family feeling was felt by members of the Church as well as by those of the world. The Prophet took the lead in this important endeavor, and was given by divine means an insight into his own genealogy. This showed him that others of the early Church leaders were of the same lineage as he and that they were blood relatives. Echoes of this knowledge are heard in the words of his intimate companions and followers in later years.

Recently found among the papers of Elder Parley P. Pratt, and contributed by his granddaughter, Mrs. Una Pratt Giles, is this excerpt from a letter written to him by his brother, Orson Pratt. It is dated Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 1853:

I have published the history and genealogy of Joseph Smith as written before his death: this includes six or seven generations of his ancestry. You will recollect that Joseph had a vision and saw that our fathers and his all sprang from the same man a few generations ago. I should be pleased to trace both genealogies back to their junction, if it be possible.

The first family meeting in a formal way on record is that of the Richards and Young Family, held in Nauvoo, January 8, 1845. Speaking to the large assembly of relatives on this occasion, President Brigham Young said:

When we come to the connections we discover that we all sprang back to the settlement of New England about two hundred years ago. It is but a little more than that time when Father Smith, the Goddards, Richards, Youngs and Kimballs were all in one family-as it were. We are all relations….

I will first set in order before these relations how the families hereafter will be organized. You have heard Joseph say that the people did not know him; he had his eyes on the relation to blood-relations. Some have supposed that he meant spirit, but it was the blood-relation. This is it that he referred to. His descent from Joseph that was sold into Egypt was direct, and the blood was pure in him. That is why the Lord chose him; and we are pure when this blood-strain from Ephraim comes down pure. The decrees of the Almighty will be exalted-that blood which was in him was pure and he had the sole right and lawful power, as he was the legal heir to the blood that has been on the earth and has come down through a pure lineage. The union of various ancestors kept that blood pure. There is a great deal the people do not understand, and many of the Latter-day Saints have to learn all about it….

Mother Smith is here-she is our Mother; we hold her in a three-fold bond, for we hold her by blood, by the Spirit, and by the Gospel. We are connected together. The human family will find out who are the saviors of the Earth. The world knew nothing of the office of saviors upon Mount Zion….

There is the same blood of Ephraim running in the veins of this family-and I know who has the blood and the Priesthood to carry the keys to the world…. .the keys will rest upon the Prophet, and there is no power on earth or in hell to take it from….If our progenitors had kept their records the Jews anciently did they would be [p.87] tell to tell exactly where they came from-and see where they run down in one straight line.3

These declarations of relationship between the Prophet's family and the Youngs and Kimballs and Richards were nothing short of prophetic. For in 1845 genealogical research was in its infancy, and only about thirty-six family genealogies had ever been printed in America. Heber C. Kimball had not been able to learn the names of even his grandparents, and Brigham Young knew no further than his great-grandparents. The Prophet knew back from himself five generations.

Only in recent years, with thousands and thousands of family histories available, have facts been discovered to prove that these brethren spoke the truth.

Joseph Merriam came to America from Kent, England, with his wife, Sarah Goldstone. Their son William was the 3rd great-grandfather of Lucy Mack Smith, mother of the Prophet; while their daughter Sarah Merriam was the 3rd great-grandmother of John Young, father of Brigham Young. Thus, as shown by the following chart, two of those present at the meeting in Nauvoo-Mother Smith and John Young-were 5th cousins; and the Prophet and Brigham Young were 6th cousins.

From the little village of Frampton, near Boston in Lincolnshire, came to America William Stickney and his wife Elizabeth. These were the common forefathers of the Prophet and Heber C. Kimball, who are seen to be 5th cousins.

It is a remarkable thing that for every surname shown on these two charts there are printed genealogies giving descendants of the emigrant of that family to America. There are actually hundreds of such volumes published on the ancestral lines of the Prophet; and the same is true for those of Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. The Pratt brothers actively assisted an Eastern clergyman to compile their Pratt genealogy; and when Orson Pratt was on one of his missions to England he directed the research in England which discovered the home and three generations of the ancestry of his emigrant ancestor. The young man who did the actual searching was Charles W. Penrose, later a member of the First Presidency and a president of the Genealogical Society of Utah. The printed Pratt Genealogy acknowledges the help given by Orson Pratt. It is interesting to reflect that from his first pilgrim father, William Pratt, is also directly descended President George Albert Smith.4

Happy should be the family whose ancestors settled early in New England, for "they were God's chosen seed for planting the greatest nation this earth has ever known." Among the 26,000 Puritans who came between 1620 and 1640 was a New England father named Joseph Loomis. He was a well-to-do woolen draper or merchant; but left all behind to bring his wife and five sons and three daughters to America. For eighteen years he and his family labored in pioneering the new land, and when he died his [p.88] posterity had been established forever in America. A huge genealogy contains over 14,000 names of his descendants has been published. From these have come many stalwart leaders of our Church--the Prophet, President Lorenzo Snow, President George Albert Smith and Elder Joseph F. Merrill, among others.

Heroic men and women.

All true Americans now pay homage to those masterful men and gentle, heroic women, those pioneer makers of history such as Joseph Loomis, William Pratt, Joseph Merriam and William Stickney and their wives, who sacrificed so much to give their children's children the blessings of freedom in religion and government. They were born of sturdy stock, they performed their labors, and they left to their sons and daughters in this land a princely heritage of truth, of honor and of noble character.

Zaccheus Gould, another ancestor of the Prophet, was "a man of exceptional liberality in his theological ideas; maintaining friendly relations with Quakers and Baptists, although both were proscribed." He was once fined in court for entertaining Quakers. From this upright progenitor have come, in addition to the Prophet, Hyrum Smith, Joseph F. Smith and President George Albert Smith, and such other progeny as Willard Richards, Franklin D. Richards, George F. Richards, LeGrand Richards, and Orson F. Whitney.

The Prophet's patriarchal line.

The Prophet's father, Joseph Smith, Sr., was a good man and true, the first person to receive his son's testimony after the appearance of the angel, and always true to the Prophet's mission. He became the first Patriarch to the Church. He was persecuted, imprisoned and driven for his religion, and died a virtual victim of the Missouri persecution. In a sacred record the Prophet wrote this tribute to his departed father:

I have thought of my father who is dead, who died by disease which was brought upon him through suffering by the hands of ruthless mobs. He was a great and a good man.…He was of noble stature and possessed a high, and holy, and exalted, and virtuous mind. His soul soared above all those mean and groveling principles that are congenial to the human heart. I now say that he never did a mean act, that might be said was ungenerous in his life, to my knowledge. I love my father and his memory; and the memory of his noble deeds rests with ponderous weight upon my mind, and many of his kind and parental words to me are written on the tablet of my heart.

Sacred to me are the thoughts which I cherish of the history of his life, that have rolled through my mind, and have been implanted there by my own observation, since I was born. Sacred to me is his dust, and the spot where he is laid…Let the memory of my father eternally live…Words and language are inadequate to express the gratitude that I owe to God for having given me so honorable a parentage.

My mother also is one of the noblest and the best of all women.5

Joseph Smith, Sr., was the son of Asael Smith, whose mother died when he was less than six months old. Five days after the Declaration of Independence was signed, he was enrolled in a patriot company which marched away to Canada. His father was also a Revolutionary soldier. He became a man of strong religious convictions, and his rugged pioneer life made his character stand out in bold relief. He held that all men in America should have free and equal religious liberty. For outspoken expression of such unorthodox tolerance, and for giving shelter to a despised Quaker, he drew upon himself and his family the condemnation of his neighbors. A gifted writer, his innate refinement, noble independence of mind, and child-like humility and trust in God are best shown in some words of guidance he addressed to his wife and children, which are still preserved and prized among his descendants.

"My grandfather, Asael Smith," wrote the Prophet, "long ago predicted that there would be a prophet [p.89] raised up in his family, and my grandfather was fully satisfied that it was fulfilled in me. My grandfather Asael died…after having received the Book of Mormon, and read it nearly through; and he declared that I was the very Prophet that he had long known would come in his family."6

Both Asael Smith and his wife Mary Duty rejoiced in the restoration of the gospel before their departure from mortal life.

In "A True Copy of a Record Kept by Asael Smith," he gives this account of his own forefathers:

"My father, Samuel Smith, Esqr. was born Jany. 26th 1714…My grandfather, Mr. Samuel Smith, was the son of Mr. Robert Smith who came from Old England."

Of the emigrant from England, Robert Smith, it is written:

Beginning life in the new world in a humble way, he gradually won the esteem of his neighbors, and through his industry and integrity was able to gather around him some of the comforts of life…Robert was known among his neighbors as a quiet, unassuming man, devoted to the welfare of the settlement. His family was reared in the prevailing religious teachings of Puritan communities, and in a strict knowledge of the scriptures.7

From the days of Asael Smith to the year 1950 [1650] it was not possible to trace with certainty the parentage and ancestry of this Robert Smith. In 1659 he testified in court he was thirty-three years old. At a trial in Ipswich, Mass., in 1655, he testified that he came to New England as a boy apprentice, in the same ship with Mr. John Whittingham, from Boston in Lincolnshire, sailing in May, 1638, from London. This John Whittingham was baptized in Boston, England, 29 Sept. 1616, but his father was from Sutterton, about five miles south of Boston. Between Boston and Sutterton is the village of Kirton. Here the baptism record of Robert Smith has been found. From a microfilm copy of the Kirton parish registers the entry has been copied thus (translated from the Latin):

Robert Smith, son of Robert, baptized the xxxth day of April 1626.

A further search in the old and difficult handwriting of that early period revealed the baptisms of Robert's father and grandfather:

Robt Smythe the Sonne of Edwarde was baptized the forth daye of this moneth, Marche 1595. (p. 105)

Edward Smithe was baptized ye xxxth day of September 1571.

Since no father is mentioned in this last entry, the parentage must now be sought for Edward Smith from other sources.

For religious freedom.

The forefathers of the Prophet's mother, Lucy Mack, are equally notable. For the sacred principle of freedom of conscience in religion seven of them left England and Holland and came with that devoted band of Pilgrims on the Mayflower in 1690-Edward Fuller and his wife and little son Samuel, John Tilley and wife and daughter Elizabeth, and John Howland, who later married Elizabeth Tilley. The four parents all died from the hardships of that first cruel winter in the new land.

Another of her ancestors was Rev. John Lathrop, a Puritan preacher who was thrust into prison for the principles he taught. On his pledge to return to the jail he was released long enough to go to the bedside of his dying wife, give her a blessing and lay her away in peace. Then back to prison he went, true to his promise. Only upon the appeal of his homeless and destitute children was he released on the understanding that he leave England and never return. In America he was welcomed, and became one of the great religious fathers of his day. "No pastor was ever more beloved by his people and none ever had a greater influence for good. He fearlessly proclaimed views far in advance of his time."

[p.90] Only in recent years has the name of his wife who died in England been discovered, so that her memory can be honored. She also was the daughter of a minister. Of their children, a son Samuel became the 4th great-grand-father of President Wilford Woodruff and also of Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt; a daughter Jane is the 4th great-grandmother of the Prophet. Thus was the Prophet's statement of his relationship to the Pratts verified.

Sealings that were accepted.

In 1928, I was instrumental in tracing the ancestry of Lucy Mack through her mother back to these Mayflower passengers and to Rev. John Lathrap and Hannah House. When the records were complete the Smith Family members promptly attended to the temple ordinances for all progenitors then known of the Prophet Joseph Smith. I had been told that all the sealings were completed, and the Prophet was linked up by sealing with all of these fore-parents. Later I accompanied Bishop Joseph Christenson to Cardston, Alberta, on a convention. On July 16, 1930 we attended a session in the Alberta Temple. I received the endowment blessings that day in behalf of my 7th great-grandfather, Henry Rowley, a member of Pastor Lathrop's congregation.

Just as I was about to leave the temple, President Edward J. Wood sent a messenger to request me to return to the sealing room. I did so. President Wood said, "Brother Bennett, I don't know just why I want you here, but I feel that you should be here to witness these sealings." I said I would gladly take part.

"We are performing sealings for the ancestors of the Prophet Joseph Smith," he explained, and then to the group of participants, "Who knows but what Brother Bennett may have had some part in tracing the connections with these very people?" The first names he read to be sealed for eternity were those of Rev. John Lathrop and his wife Hannah House. Then I knew why he had been impelled to send for me! This was their way of showing appreciation for being "found." The last couple sealed were Samuel Fuller, the boy who came on the Mayflower and whose parents had died soon after, and his wife, Jane Lathrop, daughter of John and Hannah.

Contact Information

Keith Chandler

151 South 100 East

Spring City, Utah 84662

Phone (435) 571‑8727

(As of printing August 23, 2016)

a: Buried in Avalon Cemetery. Headstones read Father Elbert M. Chandler Feb 28, 1878 - Oct 7, 1951, and Mother Mamie M. Chandler Aug 8, 1881 - Nov 6,1957

b: Family records and copies of certificates in possession of editor.

a: Approx. 8 Miles West of Roosevelt along U.S. 40

b: Jessie Arnold Born 9 Aug 1907 died 28 Aug 1909

c: Given the name of Beatrice Ivy Turner but always called only Ivy, born 13 August 1910 in Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah

d: She died 15 Feb 1928 in Deep Creek, Uintah, Utah

e: Harriot Elva Potter Turner Born 25 Jan 1886, died 15 Feb 1928 in Deep Creek, Uintah, Utah. She was Buried on 19 Feb 1928, outside of Tridell in a cemetery on the hill. Her gravestone simply reads; Mother H. Elva Potter Turner Jan. 25,1886 - Feb. 15,1928.

f: George Washington Turner Born 29 Jan 1861 in Kentucky, died 30 Dec 1928 in Murray, Salt Lake, Utah Buried 3 Jan 1929 in Murray, Salt Lake, Utah

g: William Thomas Chandler Jr. born 22 May 1930 at Randlett, Uintah, Utah; always called Tom rather than any Jr. version of his father.

h: Elva May born 28 Jan 1932 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

i: George Wilbur Turner Born 20 Jun 1918, died 25 Oct 1930; [editors note; although this was a shock and concern, it was something striking to William Thomas (Tom) Chandler Jr. who I remember often talking of him and this event]

j: Gilsonite; this particular asphaltum is not known to exist in any other areas of the world.

k: Beatrice Ivy born 8 Nov 1935 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

l: Ivan Morton born 13 Jan 1934 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

o: Earnest Edwin born 25 Mar 1944 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

p: James Bailey born 13 Oct 1948 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

q: Craig M^CKee born 16 Dec 1951 in Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah

r: Helen Woodruff his wife was a descendant [Granddaughter?] of Wilford Woodruff president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints

t: Tom Married Leah Mae Pickup 6 Dec 1950 in Salt Lake Temple, Salt Lake, Utah

u: Elva Married Roy Claude M^CKee 30 Mar 1951 in Elko, Elko, Nevada

v: Morton Married Carolyn Ray Ross 15 Oct 1955

x: He had found the gun on the book cliffs while working, it was old then. He soaked if for a week to remove the rust, reworked it and used it.

y: Keith Chandler son of Morton and Carolyn, born 9 Aug 1956 in Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah married Susan

z: Chris Alton born 3 Jun 1959 in Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah

aa: Rodney Thomas born 25 Oct 1955 in Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah

dd: Cindy Lee Davis 22 Feb 1959 in Riverton, Wyoming; Terry Lynn Davis 3 Jan 1961 in Worland Wyoming

ee: Lynn born 7 Jun 1964 in Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah; Todd born 30 May 1968 in Roosevelt, Duchesne, Utah

ff: Earnie Married Joan M^CKowen 13 May 1963 in Randlett, Uintah, Utah

gg: 17 Oct 1977 at Seal Beach, Orange, California

jj: Family records and copies of certificates in possession of editor.

d: Buried in Avalon Cemetery. Headstones read Father Elbert M. Chandler Feb 28, 1878 - Oct 7, 1951, and Mother Mamie M. Chandler Aug 8, 1881 - Nov 6,1957

a: Approx. 8 Miles West of Roosevelt along U.S. 40

b: Jessie Arnold Born 9 Aug 1907 died 28 Aug 1909

c: Given the name of Beatrice Ivy Turner but always called only Ivy, born 13 August 1910 in Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah

d: She died 15 Feb 1928 in Deep Creek, Uintah, Utah

e: George Washington Turner Born 29 Jan 1861 in Kentucky, died 30 Dec 1928 in Murray, Salt Lake, Utah; Buried 3 Jan 1929 in Murray, Salt Lake, Utah

h: Helen Woodruff was a descendant [Granddaughter?] of Wilford Woodruff president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints

a: John Birch Death 8 Feb 1852 in England AFN BBTC‑VL; Ann Craven Death 11 Feb 1846 Sugar Creek Iowa AFN BBTC‑WR

b: died 30 Sep 1909 Vernal, Uintah, Utah; Buried 2 Oct 1909 Vernal, Uintah, Utah

c: on U.S. 40 between Roosevelt and Fort Duchesne, at junction towards Whiterocks

a: Crystal spelled name Adaline, genealogy records also recorded it as Adiline

b: note previous statement that Arnold and Elizabeth had not been sealed.

a: Located in the southwest corner of Vermont, Very near to where Brigham Young was born.

b: in Madison, Madison, New York; the marriage was in 1831

c: No location could be found called Pinctop, however the location of Pinetop is found, perhaps an “e” was incorrectly transcribed as a ‘c”

[b]: See other Histories Father William Thomas Chandler Sr. See Page 9; Ivy Turner See Page 19

[c]: Gilsonite; this particular asphaltum is not known to exist in any other areas of the world.

[d]: Address of the house is 5856 South Lupine Way approx 1210 East, purchased at the price of $18,500, with an interest of just over 2%. The payment was $120 per month when they moved in.

[e]: Address of this house is 11129 South 2125 East, Sandy, Utah

[f]: Family records and copies of certificates in possession of editor.

b: Ann Craven Born 17 Oct 1778 Radnor, Wales AFN BBTC‑WR

5 Dec 1876	G-grandfather James Isaac Ross born	Midway Utah
28 Feb 1879	G-grandfather Elbert Morton Chandler born	Burden Kansas
8 Aug 1881	G-grandmother Mary May "Mamie" born	Winfield Kansas
13 Aug 1881	G-grandmother Fannie Jane Young born	Charleston Utah
18 Jun 1882	G-grandfather Ivan Vane Turner born	Hartford Kentucky
25 Jan 1886	G-grandmother Harriot Elva Potter born	Dover Utah
16 Dec 1889	G-grandfather William Bailey Taylor born	Sanford Colorado
30 Dec 1895	G-grandmother Nora Matilda Allred born	Thatcher Arizona
8 Jul 1896	James Ross and Fannie Young married	Vernal Utah
8-Feb-1901	Elbert Chandler and Mamie Murphy married	Guthrie Oklahoma
6-Jan-1904	Ivan Turner and Harriot Potter married	Salt Lake City Utah
28-Oct-1906	William Thomas Chandler born	Pawnee Oklahoma
13-Aug-1910	Beatrice Ivy Turner born	Vernal Utah
20-Jan-1917	William Tayler and Nora Allred married	Graham Arizona
13-Feb-1916	George "Tex" Ross born	Vernal Utah
16-May-1919	Nora Louise Taylor born	York Arizona
15-May-1922	G-grandmother Nora Allred died	Miami Arizona
17-Aug-1929	William Chandler and Ivy Turner married	Salt Lake City Utah
15-Feb-1928	G-grandmother Harriot Potter died	Deep Creek Utah
14-Apr-1936	George Ross and Louise Taylor married	Heber Utah
13-Jan-1934	Ivan Morton Chandler born	Randlett Utah
26-Jan-1937	Carolyn Rae Ross born	Park City Utah
29-Oct-1945	G-grandfather Ivan Turner died	Los Angeles Ca
14-Sep-1950	G-grandfather William Taylor died	Park City Utah
7-Oct-1951	G-grandfather Elbert Chandler died	Blanding Utah
14-Oct-1955	Ivan Chandler and Carolyn Ross married	Ballard Utah

9-Aug-1956			Born to Ivan Morton Chandler and Carolyn Rae Ross	Salt Lake City Utah
1-Sep-1956	Age		Blessed by	Ballard Utah
7-Nov-1957	Age	1	G-grandmother Mamie Murphy died	Salt Lake City Utah
28-Mar-1958	Age	1	Sister Kim Chandler born	Salt Lake City Utah
27-Sep-1959	Age	3	Wife Michelle Lunt born	Oakland California
16-May-1961	Age	4	Wife Verlene Hull born	Rexburg Idaho
31-Oct-1964	Age	8	Baptized by William Thomas Chandler, Jr	Granger Utah
1-Nov-1964	Age	8	Confirmed by William Thomas Chandler, Sr	Granger Utah
12-Apr-1967	Age	10	G-grandfather James Ross died	Roosevelt Utah
1-Sep-1968	Age	12	Ordained a Deacon by	Granger Utah
1-Sep-1970	Age	14	Ordained a Teacher by	Granger Utah
1-Sep-1972	Age	16	Ordained a Priest by	Granger Utah
16-Dec-1973	Age	17	Patriarchal Blessing from Ernest Smith Anderson	Granger Utah
1-May-1974	Age	17	Graduated from Granger High School	Granger Utah
6-Jul-1974	Age	17	G-grandmother Fannie Young died	Roosevelt Utah
1-Jul-1975	Age	18	Ordained an Elder by Reid Jewkes Bailey	Granger Utah
1-Jul-1975	Age	18	Received Endowment - Salt Lake Temple	Salt Lake City
12-Jul-1975	Age	18	Received Mission call - Finnish Helsinki Mission	Granger Utah
9-Aug-1975	Age	19	Entered Mission Home	Salt Lake City Utah
16-Aug-1975	Age	19	LTM Language Training Mission - Ricks College	Rexburg Idaho
1-Oct-1975	Age	19	Haaga Finland	Haaga Finland
1-Mar-1976	Age	19	Joensuu Finland	Joensuu Finland
1-Oct-1976	Age	20	Pori Finland	Pori Finland
12-Oct-1976	Age	20	Wife Kristy Louise Robinson born	Provo Utah
1-Apr-1977	Age	20	Kuusankoski Finland	Kuusankoski Finland
1-May-1977	Age	20	Hyvinkaa Finland	Hyvinkaa Finland
9-Aug-1977	Age	21	Swiss Temple	Switzerland
19-Nov-1977	Age	21	Married Susan Faye Palmer - Salt Lake Temple	Salt Lake City Utah
19-Jun-1979	Age	22	Daughter Emily Marie (Zoe) Chandler born	Murray Utah
7-Oct-1980	Age	24	Son Daniel Reade Chandler born	Murray Utah
13-Nov-1980	Age	24	Father Ivan Morton Chandler died	Salt Lake City Utah
16-Nov-1983	Age	27	Married Roxanne Wheelock	Bountiful Utah
7-Feb-1985	Age	28	Married Verlene Hull - Jordan River Temple	West Jordan Utah
10-Jul-1986	Age	29	Daughter Karlene Chandler born	Salt Lake City Utah
15-Jul-1986	Age	29	Daughter Karlene Chandler died	Salt Lake City Utah
1-Jul-1987	Age	30	Emily baptized	Kearns Utah
1-Nov-1988	Age	32	Daniel baptized	Kearns Utah
10-Jan-1991	Age	34	Daughter Jessica Hannah Lynn Chandler born	Murray Utah
4-Mar-1991	Age	34	Grandfather William Chandler died	Salt Lake City Utah
31-Mar-1991	Age	34	Daughter Jessica blessed	Hyde Park Utah
13-Aug-1992	Age	36	Son Hyrum Meshach Chandler born	Gold Hill Utah
1-Nov-1992	Age	36	Daniel ordained a Deacon	Kearns Utah
1-Nov-1994	Age	38	Daniel ordained a Teacher	Kearns Utah
1-Jun-1996	Age	39	Grandmother Ivy Turner died	Vernal Utah
1-Nov-1996	Age	40	Daniel ordained a Priest	Kearns Utah
23-May-1998	Age	41	Step-daughter Sarah Gillespie born	Tucson Arizona
1-Sep-1999	Age	43	Step-daughter Wendy Gillespie born	Tucson Arizona
1-Sep-2000	Age	44	Hyrum baptized	Moroni Utah
24-Dec-2000	Age	44	Step-daughter Rebecca Mae Gillespie born	Tucson Arizona
00-Oct-2001	Age	45	Emily married Edmunds	Las Vegas Nevada
7-Feb-2002	Age	45	Wife Verlene Hull died	Provo Utah
16-May-2002	Age	45	Daniel married Amy Searle - Manti Temple	Manti Utah
22-Nov-2002	Age	46	Married Norma Michelle Lunt	Spring City Utah
1-Sep-2004	Age	48	Hyrum ordained a Deacon	Spring City Utah
28-Oct-2005	Age	49	Grand-daughter Annalyce born to Dan	Orem Utah
2-Apr-2006	Age	49	Mother Carolyn Rae Ross died	Logan Utah
25-Sep-2007	Age	51	Grand-daughter Erica Verlene born to Dan	Orem Utah
16-Jan-2007	Age	50	Daughter Jessica receives Patriarchal Blessing	Mount Pleasant Ut
1-Sep-2008	Age	52	Hyrum ordained a Teacher	Spring City Utah
28-Mar-2009	Age	52	Sealed to Norma Michelle Lunt	Manti Utah
21-Jul-2009	Age	52	Grand-son Preston born to Dan	Orem Utah
1-Sep-2010	Age	54	Hyrum ordained a Priest	Spring City Utah
13-Sep-2010	Age	54	Grand-daughter Alyssa born to Dan	Provo Utah
5-Nov-2011	Age	55	Jessica married Chris Baxter - Manti Temple	Manti Utah
10-Nov-2012	Age	56	Zander Reide Lawrence Burnham born to Emily	Clackamas Oregon
20-Dec-2013	Age	57	Hyrum married Amber Markham - SLC Temple	Salt Lake City Utah
11-Feb-2013	Age	56	Grandson Dean Alan Baxter born to Jessica	Orem Utah
1-Nov-2014	Age	58	Grandson Carter Chandler born to Hyrum	Mount Pleasant Ut
10-Sep-2015	Age	59	Granddaughter Aelyce Chandler born to Hyrum	Orem Utah
10-Sep-2015	Age	59	Granddaughter Ecylea Chandler born to Hyrum	Orem Utah
16-Jan-2016	Age	59	Married Kristy Louise Robinson	Spring City Utah
24-Mar-2016	Age	59	Grandson Malcolm Keith Baxter born to Jessica	Orem Utah

Keith M. Chandler Timeline

Mother of Keith M. Chandler

Written by Carolyn Rae Ross (Chandler) (Bailey)

Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Notes for William Thomas Chandler Sr.

Beatrice Ivy Turner (Chandler)

Written By Herself

Written in 1977 to Celebrate Her 50th Wedding Anniversary

SHARING

Deer Hunt

Deer Hunting with Jim

My Lyon Chase

Golden Wedding Anniversary19

Notes for Ivy Turner Chandler

Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

As given by George “Tex” Ross

Grandmother to Keith M. Chandler

Partial Life History in Her Own Words

Compiled by Rod Chandler from the writings of their Children

Iva Chandler Newman

Elbert Martin Chandler Family

Stella Chandler Nielsen

Blanche Chandler Rasmussen

Compiled from the writings of

Ivy Beatrice Turner Chandler one of their Children

the Great-Grandfather and Great-Grandmother of Keith M. Chandler

Notes for Ivan Vane Turner and Harriot Elva Potter

Great-Grandparents to Keith M. Chandler

Prepared by Keith M. Chandler

Great Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Great-Great Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Mary, Mahalia, Eliza, Shad, and Bailey Chandler Wallace Edwin Potter & Harriet Susan Kempton

Great-Great Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Written by Crystal Potter Lewis

Notes for Wallace Edwin Potter & Harriet Susan Kempton

Compiled by Eleanor Ranae Peterson

Great-Great Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

This picture has Aldo Ardeen Allred, Matilda Johnsen, and Nora Matilda Allred their daughter and my Great-Grandmother Taken in Artesia Arizona around 1898 Great-Great-Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Utah Pioneer of 1849

Great-Great-Great Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

Notes for Arnold Potter

Notes for Jerome Bonaparte Kempton

Great-Great-Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

LUKE PROVOST & JULIA ANN WHEELER

Great-Great-Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Great-Great-Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Joseph Taylor (1825-1900)

& Mary Moore, Jane Lake, Hannah Mariah Harris

& Caroline Mattson or Madson

Short Biography of JANE LAKE ORDWAY TAYLOR 1830-1914

Great-Great-Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Short Biography of Daniel Berry Rawson (1827-1892)

4th-Great Grandparents and Beyond

Notes for Welcome Chapman

Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

as published in the LDS magazine “The Friend”, December 1993

by Myrna Hoyt based on a history written by the author’s Grandmother

Notes for Welcome Chapman

Great-Great-Great-Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler

Short Biography The Smith Family - by Leon Pitman

Richard Smith

Born September 19, 1792, Holston River, Sullivan County, Tennessee.

Died March 18, 1876, Provo, Utah.

Diana Braswell

Born October 9, 1797, Greenville County, South Carolina.

Died March 8, 1875, Heber City, Wasatch County, Utah.

Married December 11, 1817, Gibson County, Tennessee.

Written in 1977 to Celebrate Her 50^th Wedding Anniversary

Golden Wedding Anniversary¹⁹

Mary, Mahalia, Eliza,
Shad, and Bailey
Chandler

Wallace Edwin Potter & Harriet Susan Kempton

This picture has
Aldo Ardeen Allred,
Matilda Johnsen,
and Nora Matilda Allred
their daughter and
my Great-Grandmother

Taken in Artesia Arizona
around 1898

Great-Great-Grandfather of Keith M. Chandler

4^th-Great Grandparents and Beyond