Great-Great Grandparents of Keith M. Chandler
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Wallace Edwin Potter 1850-1909 |
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Wallace Edwin Potter 1850-1909 |
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Harriet Susan Kempton 1856-1948 |
Written by Crystal Potter Lewis
Wallace Edwin Potter 1 was born in Mill Creek 2 (Now Murray) Utah on April 14, 1850 the son of Arnold Potter and Elizabeth Ann Birch 3 [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 born 4 [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 MCClennon 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 9th, 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 27th 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 MCCarrell 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 MCCarrel” 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 14th, 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 29th, 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 thenb.
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 locatedc. 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 30th [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 29th 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 11th 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 8th. 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 Hiawathad 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 1st 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.
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
d: South West of Price
1; Wallace Edwin Potter born 14 Apr 1850 Mill Creek, Salt Lake, Utah, and Harriot Susan Kempton born 21 Mar 1856 Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah. Married 21 Aug 1871 in Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah Ancestral File of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Wallace AFN# 1JNP‑FB
2; Mill Creek; a community of Salt Lake City which is located at the mouth of Mill Creek Canyon on the east end of the valley at about 3800 South. The Creek in the canyon was named at the first conference of the Mormon Church in Utah.
3; Arnold Potter [Sr.] born 11 Jan 1804 Salisbury, Hrknr, New York, and Elizabeth Ann Birch born 29 Mar 1829 Rodnorshire, Wales, England. Married 10 Dec 1843 in Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois Ancestral File of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Arnold AFN# 1JNP‑2F
4; Children of Arnold Potter and Elizabeth Ann Birch, in order, are; Wallace Edwin 14 Apr 1850 AFN 1JNP‑FB; Mary Adaline 7 Sep 1854; Eliza Ann 5 Jun 1858; George [?] 1852
5; Eliza Ann Potter was known through her life as Brown instead of Potter. She became the first wife of Martin Weight [my Great Grandfather through my Mother] who latter also married Jennie MCClennon Gee, who were the parents of Ada Bell Weight, my Mothers Mother. Mary married Welcome Chapman Jr. who was Harriet Kempton’s (Marys Sister In ‑ Law’s) Uncle.
6; Children of Wallace Edwin Potter and Harriot Susan Kempton, in order, are; Elizabeth Rosetta 29 Dec 1872; Wallace Edwin Jr. 21 Aug 1874; John William 19 Sep 1876; George Jerome 18 Jan 1879; Amasa 23 Aug 1882; Harriot Elva 25 Jan 1886 AFN 3822‑NK; Arnold 16 Aug 1887; Welcome Elwin 12 Mar 1890; Crystal Dean 9 Jun 1892; Ann Craven 27 Jan 1894; James Reed or Reese 20 Jul 1896; Amelia Ivy (Millie) 30 Jul 1898; Royal Elmer 29 May 1900
7; Dover, Sanpete, Utah; on the west side of the Sevier river opposite Fayette (near Gunnison and Manti). Named after Dover England hometown of several of Dover’s settlers. Homesteads originally established in 1877. By 1890 the land had become alkaline due to improper irrigation methods so the village declined. During 1930 a drought struck simultaneously with an epidemic, forcing abandonment of Dover, which then became a ghost town. Utah Place Names; John W. VanCott
8; Wallace Edwin Potter born 14 Apr 1850 Mill Creek, Salt Lake, Utah, and Olive Andelin AFN# 1LF9‑9D Married 17 Jul 1884 int the Endowment House in Salt Lake city, Salt Lake, Utah Ancestral File of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Wallace AFN# 1JNP‑FB
9; Vernal; in the heart of Ashley Valley, it was settled in 1876, although trappers and mountain men previously explored the region and the Ute Indians had inhabited the area even earlier. Vernal has had various names, such as Ashley for the valley where the settlement is located (General William H. Ashley led the early trappers into the valley). Jericho was another early name used to compare the walls of the early local fort and the walls of ancient Jericho. Vernal was also known as the Bench for its location, and Hatchtown for the several Hatch families who settled in the area. In the late 1800's the town name was finally formalized as Vernal, which refers to a beautiful spring-like green oasis covered with grasses and numerous trees. Utah Place Names John W. VanCott
10; Dryfork; a small ranching community 11 miles northwest of Vernal. The fork is dry part of the year. Also sometimes called Mountain Dell. Utah Place Names John W. VanCott
11; Fort Duchesne; Near the Uintah river, originally a fur trading post prior to 1841. In August 1961, the fort was established under President Lincoln. In 1886 two troops of black men from the ninth calvary moved in. They served the fort for twelve years. The fort was abandoned in 1912, then re‑established as the headquarters of the Uintah Reservation. Utah Place Names John W. VanCott
12; Snyderville; 4 Miles northwest of Park City. Was settled in 1865 by JM Grant and Heber Kimball, and Samuel Snyder, who developed mine holdings and a sawmill in the area. After the Overland Stage went though this area, it became known as Snyder’s Station and later Snyderville. Utah Place Names; John W. VanCott
13; Riverdell; No reference can be found for the name of Riverdell other than the sentence following describing the area as not far from where the Heber city power plant now stands. This is north of Heber city about 4 or five miles and is also, as described, on the Provo river.
14; Midway; on Snake Creek four miles northwest of Heber. In 1859 there were two settlements on the creek. The Upper Settlement, two miles further up‑canyon had a temporary name of Mound City. The two communities united under the name of Midway so settlers could better protect themselves against the Indians. Utah Place Names; John W. VanCott
15; Duchesne; Settled in 1904 when the Uintah basin was opened to white settlers. The name Duchesne was the first name requested for the community, but was refused because of conflict with nearby Fort Duchesne. In 1905 the town was named Dora for the daughter of A.M. Murdock who owned the first store there. Subsequently the name changed to Theodore in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt. When a nearby town took the name of Roosevelt in 1915, the original request for Duchesne was accepted. Utah Place Names John W. VanCott
16; Myton; The settlement was built at the only bridge crossing the Duchesne river and for this reason it had an early name of The Bridge or Bridge City. For many years it was a well‑known trading post. The community received its present name when Major H.P. Myton came from nearby Fort Duchesne to take command as the region was opened to settlers in 1905. Utah Place Names John W. VanCott
17; Roosevelt; The settlement was called Dry Gulch before the area was platted in 1905-6. At this time it was renamed for U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. Utah Place Names John W. VanCott
18; Bennett; Located 6½ miles south of Whiterocks and 5 Miles northeast of Roosevelt. It was one of the many town sites laid out shortly after the Uintah Basin was opened to homesteading in 1905.. The site was officially laid out in 1914 but had been settled earlier by John B. Bennett, before James Jones filed for a town site which he wanted to name Cunela. He was not successful. Utah Place Names, John C VanCott.
19; Dragon; on Evacuation Creek at the Mouth of Dragon Canyon 20 Miles North is Bonanza. The town/canyon received its name from the nearby Black Dragon Mine where Gilsonite was originally discovered. This particular asphaltum is not known to exist in any other areas of the world. Known from the Uintah Railroad as Dragon Junction. Utah Place Names, John C VanCott.