HISTORY OF MADELINE OLSEN Commented [MR1]: Should we say “Hanna Madeline

Olsen”?
Note: This history was initiated and originally put together by Carol Clark, (Carol Clark is Aunt Commented [MR2]: Maybe a half a sentence to tell us
Mad’s grandniece and the granddaughter of her sister Amanda) who taped Aunt Mad’s memories who Carol Clark is?
of her life. Carol had the history transcribed and sent it to Aunt Mad while she was living in San
Diego during the winter of 1989-90. We entered her history on the computer, and Aunt Mad sat by
my side and enlarged it as more details and more memories came to her. The history was
completed in the spring of 1990.

The editing of Aunt Mad’s original words has been minimal. We have only made corrections for
clarity. – Helen Read

CAROL CLARK: This is October 6, 1989. Okay, Aunt Mad, here we go. Tell us, about when you Commented [MR3]: Comma here
were young and things you remember at home—about your parents, your brothers and sisters.

MADELINE: We always used to sit around the kitchen table after dinner while Mother read to all
of us. She used to read Bible stories and faith promoting stories and early pioneer stories. She
didn’t talk much about her childhood in Denmark.

She did say that she would go to school and on the way home she would pass a bowery and all the Commented [MR4]: Let’s cut this word for clarity’s sake
fellows would be out and say, “There goes the Mormon girl, wonder where she is going.” She said
she used to run so fast by them so they couldn’t catch her.

I don’t know much more about her early life back there in Copenhagen, only that she went to a
church school. I don’t know how they joined the Church. She was 15 when she came to the United Commented [MR5]: Do we know if this means a Mormon
States. She said that was an awful hard journey because they were on the Baltic Sea for so long and church school? Or could it be a Lutheran school or some
other denomination? If it’s not the LDS church, let’s not
everybody was sick. She came with an aunt. I don’t remember whether it was Aunt Mariah or just capitalize it.
who. Aunt Mariah was her mother’s sister. She lived with Aunt Mariah for a while when she first
Commented [MR6]: No capitalization necessary here.
came here. She couldn’t speak the language at first. She lived in Moroni.

Mother got a job when she first came to Utah, doing housework. She was a very good cook and a
very good seamstress, and people liked her cooking and her sewing, so she didn’t have hardly any
trouble finding employment when she first came. But it was very difficult because she couldn’t
speak the language very well. She went to work for the post office man who ran the post office. He
was very, very good to her and finally got her a job in the co-op store. She worked there for a
while.

I think that was when she got sick. She had typhoid fever. She was staying at that time with
another aunt, or it might have been the same aunt, I don’t remember, but they had quite a big house
up on top of the hill. The hill was called Fox Hill because foxes lived there. Aunt Mariah and her
husband lived up above them. They ran a creamery. That is where she stayed. It was about 11 or 12
weeks before she could even talk or anything. She had lost all her hair and teeth. On Sunday she
said that they came to administer to her to ask the Lord to take her, but Bishop Bradley, who
wasn’t the Bishop then, I think, had come up.
There were two or three of the elders that wouldn’t go in while they pronounced that the Lord
would take her soon. They didn’t believe that she was ready to go. They said, “No, we can’t go in
because we don’t feel like she is ready to go yet.” The others blessed her but she didn’t die, she got
better. But she was a long time recuperating even after she had gotten better.

Everybody was good to her. She was loved by everybody and was very popular.

I don’t know how she met Dad, whether it was at a dance or how. He lived in Moroni too. Father
was born in Sweden. His folks came over when he was three years old and settled in Moroni. They
came in a handcart company, but I don’t know which one. I have never been able to find out much Commented [MR7]: I think this should be “came”
about it. Dad came over before Mother did.

CAROL: Did they all come together?

MADELINE: No, Mother came alone with an aunt. Dad was just a little boy when they came. The
whole family came. They came in a handcart company. I don’t know which one. They never did
talk much about it. I don’t know why, but it seemed like everything was kind of vague, or else I
don’t remember.

After Mother got better, I don’t know if she went back to work at the co-op store or what she did.
She had kind of a hard time keeping the men away from her. They would get too possessive of her
till she had to quit some of the places where she worked. So, I really don’t know much about her
courtship.

Mother was the first one of the family to come, and then Aunt Libby came. She came with Bishop
Funk. He was a polygamist. He took her to Salt Lake. Mother went down to Salt Lake to talk to her
to get her not to marry him, but to get a job and work a little while and earn some money that she
didn’t have. I don’t know, they must have been pretty well off in Denmark because Grandfather
didn’t join the Church when the rest of them did, because he was working with the King’s Army at
that time, and so he didn’t want anybody to know that his family were Mormons. Anyway, Aunt
Libby came, and then Bishop Funk kept after her and finally she married Bishop Funk. Then the
rest of the family came—Grandma, Aunt Amanda and Aunt Magna. The Funks settled up in
Lewiston, Utah. So they came and settled in Newton. There Aunt Magna met a wonderful man that
she fell in love with—Mark Benson. But Aunt Amanda never did marry.

Oh, and Uncle Johnny, they only had one boy, he came with them, too. He later served a mission
in Denmark, then he came home and married a girl from Newton. She was known as Aunt Clara.

Aunt Amanda stayed home with Grandma, and then finally Grandpa came over after the family
had settled. I don’t know, I never did see my Grandma, but I did see my Grandpa when I was eight
years old. Howard and I went with Mother up to Newton while Wilford and Dad went up to Idaho
to look over some property that one of his brothers wanted him to buy—Dad’s brother, up in
Idaho. They went up there, but there was too much wind. So they said they would stay where they
were.

While they were gone we stayed with Grandpa and Aunt Amanda in Newton. Grandpa had a nice

2
white beard. He was very straight and had a beautiful horse that he rode around Newton. Howard
would ride back of him while we went down to Aunt Magna’s. They lived a little way from where
Grandpa and Aunt Amanda lived. Howard was left handed; when we went down to Aunt Magna’s Commented [MR8]: This should be a colon or semicolon
and had dinner, they were shocked that Mother would let Howard be left-handed. She said, “I can’t
do anything, he is just naturally left-handed.” They said, “Well you should break him of that.” She
said she couldn’t do that. Aunt Magna said it was a disgrace to have a left-handed boy. Mother
said, “Well, he gets along just fine with it, so we’ll just let him be left-handed.”

Of course, Jack, my brother, is left-handed too, and several others in our family.

CAROL: We have two left-handers, Carol and Warren.

MADELINE: We had a lot of fun up in Newton. Uncle Johnny lived across the street from
Grandpa, and they had children about the same age that I was. Phyllis was my age, and Lorraine
was Howard’s age. So we used to go over there and play with them in a great big barn. That was a
lot of fun. They had a lot of hay and a swing out there that I remember. Aunt Clare was real nice
with us. She thought we were just wonderful children. That was Uncle Johnny’s wife. Uncle
Johnny wasn’t too well at that time, if I remember right. He had been on a mission and come
home, and it seemed like he was ailing a lot.

When we went to Newton, we went on the train. They let us off at Grand Junction, by the Bear
River, and Uncle Johnny came down there in a white-top buggy to pick us up. Howard didn’t want
to go—he wanted to go with Dad and Wilford. He cried and cried. Mother said, “No, you can’t go
with them because they are going far away and you have to stay with me.” But Howard didn’t want
to stay. He cried a lot until we got up to Newton. After he got up there and Grandpa talked to him
and told him he could ride with him on the horse, then he felt a little better about it.

We were there four or five days. Then Wilford and Dad came back, and they stayed overnight and
then took us down to get the train. We stopped in Salt Lake. We stayed there one night in Salt Lake
at I don’t know what hotel. Anyway, Wilford and Dad went up to town, and I remember they
brought home a barrel of gingersnaps. I thought that was the most wonderful treat—oh, they were
good. I still love gingersnaps. Then we came home on the train. I don’t know whether somebody
met us or if we walked home. More than likely they came down in the buggy and picked us up.
That was a wonderful trip to ride on the train and be with Grandpa. I don’t remember—it was quite
a while after that before we ever saw any of them again. Uncle Johnny came to Moroni, but I don’t
think any of the others did until later on.

When we were children, I guess I provoked Amanda a whole lot and wouldn’t mind her. I think
Mother and Dad had gone to Mt. Pleasant one time to do some shopping or something. Amanda
was left home with us kids, and I guess I was an ornery little brat, and she really did wallop me and
really give me a spanking that I never have forgotten. Just what it was over, I don’t remember. But
I do remember she gave me a real good spanking. That is the only one I ever had. I could be
ornery. If you don’t get your way, you throw a tantrum. I must have done that. Commented [MR9]: It might be useful to clarify that here,
she’s starting to talk about Amanda her sister rather than
Amanda her aunt, and maybe to specify that Lil, Ethel,
When we were growing up I always slept with Amanda. I always went with her every place. And Oscar, and Frank are her siblings. This could be done in a
Lil and Ethel were together and Amanda and I were together. We had a happy life and a lot of fun. footnote.

3
Oscar and Frank were the big teases. Nothing real vicious or anything, just like fun kids. We
always wore a little apron, and they would come and untie our aprons or pull our hair or
something, just teasing the way brothers do—maybe sneak up behind us and not let us know they
were there and scare us to death. We had a happy family. We always had to play a couple of games
of Rook just before Dad went to bed. He liked to play Rook. Mother would read to us.

Mother was always busy. If there was anybody sick in the town and she knew about it, she would
hurry up and get a chicken ready and make chicken soup. Lil and I had to deliver to the homes. Oh,
that was the most delicious soup with the nice dumplings in it. It smelled so good. We never did
get any because it went to the people that were sick, but sometimes she made some for us.

Mother was very famous in making malt beer. We would have to go and brew the hops. We would
have to go and pick the hops so that she could fix them. They grew on bushes or trees. She boiled
them or something. I don’t know just how she fixed them, but anyway we had to gather all those
hops. The worst job was washing the bottles. We would put little rocks in with water and shake
them up. That seemed to clean the bottles, but oh what a job that was to clean all the beer bottles.
Then Mother would brown the wheat to make the malt, which took several days to make, to get the
right consistency for the malt. Then after the wheat was ready, it had to sprout before it was good
for the other mixture. Then she would have to ferment it for a few days, and we would skim the top
off and then ferment it again so that we could get all the foam off.

She would put it in a big black tub, a boiler. We called it a boiler. That was the tub we boiled water
in if we had to kill a pig or anything. We made lye soap in it also. It was just a wonderful, big
black kettle that we could put over the fire outside. We made the beer outside. We put all this stuff
in water, the hops and wheat, and then they strained it several times and then it cooked on the stove
awhile, I think. Anyway it was quite a chore making beer.

I don’t know how many bottles of beer we had, but we had bottles upon bottles. She would make it
especially for the 4th and 24th of July. We always had a little beer. We hardly ever ran out. It
seemed like we were washing bottles all the time.

It was delicious. I can’t tell you what it tasted like, but it was real good. Sometimes we had to tie a
string around the cork and tie it up because sometimes it would blow the cork out if it got too old.
If there was anybody sick, they always said, “Go out to Olsen’s, Olive will get some beer and that
will make you feel better.” It was a good medicine for a lot of people. We really kept a big supply
of beer.
Commented [MR10]: Aaaaahh, this is all so funny to me!
We’re really uptight about alcohol now, but I know that
wasn’t the case a century ago—I just love hearing her talk
about how her mom had a local reputation for the beer she
made 😊

On holidays the Moroni Marshall Band would come out and stop at our place. Mother would
always give them beer. They would stop and play for us. We would have to go out with several
bottles of beer and glasses for them. Mother was noted for her beer because it served as quite a
medicine for a lot of people. When they didn’t have an appetite or were not well, they would come
out and see if Mother had a bottle of beer.

She stopped making beer when prohibition came about. As soon as they said it was illegal to make
malt beer she stopped right then. That was in about 1919. She never made any beer after that. They
would coax her to, but she would say, “No, I am not making any beer. I’ll make root beer.” Then

4
she started making root beer. She would make up a batch of root beer every once in a while. But
malt beer—we used to like it with a little milk in it too. Dad called that “blanning” with the milk in
it. Oh, that was good. I guess that’s why I like ice cream with the milk in it or root beer with milk.
Dad used to say, “Well, maybe a little glass of beer might help.” We would all drink it. We didn’t
think anything of it. It was just good flavor. It was beautiful. It was nice and clear.

I don’t know where Mother learned how to make beer—maybe over in Denmark. I don’t know
whether she had a recipe or not. But I know we had to grind the wheat after it had browned. That
was a job. But the biggest job was washing the bottles, getting them up from the cellar and putting
them back down in the cellar.

We didn’t have any ice box or anything like that, but we had a real cool cellar where we put all the
milk and the fruit. Then we had a potato cellar outside where we put the potatoes and carrots and
cabbage. But the cellar downstairs was really nice and cool. We had cool milk whenever we
wanted a glass of milk.

We had a happy home. As soon as the phonograph came out we had a phonograph and bought
these round records. All those wonderful singers. Caruso—Dad loved his music. Dad was a good
singer and Mother was a good singer. So we had music. We had an organ and piano in later years.

We lived at the bottom of this hill, and school was up halfway between one hill and another hill. In
early years in school there was a Methodist Church down below the school, and we used to go
down there at recess and look around and go inside and look at the pictures they had. And we
talked to Mrs. Baker. She was really a sweet lady and liked all the school kids. They were trying to
get us to come there for after school activities.

Mother said, “You are not to go there. You are to come home because you have chores to do here
at home.”

We would go down at recess anyway, and they would give us little cards with a picture of Christ
on it and pretty painted windows. Mother didn’t like that very well, so she said, “You kids find
something else to do at recess besides going down there. Take your jump the ropes.” We used to
play ginny too. That was with a little round stick that they whittled down to two points on the stick
and you had to hit the point and then hit it with another stick and see how far you could hit it. We
used to have fun playing that and then we used to play jump the rope and different kid games after
school.

A lot of times towards fall, Wilford always killed a pig. If we mentioned at school we had to go Commented [MR11]: Is this a brother? Again, a footnote
home because Wilford was killing a pig, why then we took half the kids down there to watch might help preserve knowledge of these relationships for
readers who didn’t know Aunt Mad’s family.
Wilford scull the pig and scrape the hairs off. After that was done then he would wash it off good
and then cut it down the middle to get the insides out. It was just kind of fun to watch him do that.
I only remember Wilford doing that. If there was anything like that to be done, Wilford did it—the
killing of the beef and that.

Dad would help me catch the chickens and tried to teach me how to cut the head off, but I couldn’t
do that. I would hold the wings and legs while Dad cut the head off. Then I would let it loose and it

5
would turn around for a while, still not clear dead. After it laid still we would take it down to the
house, and Mother had a tub of hot water to scald the feathers. We had to take the feathers off.
That was not a very nice job. I didn’t like that very well.

We didn’t save the chicken feathers for pillows; they were too stiff. When the boys would go duck
hunting, then we would take the feathers off the ducks and save that for our down pillows. Goose
feathers were also good to make down pillows. I don’t remember them ever bringing any geese
home, but we always had ducks. We would all sit around the tub picking feathers.

They would bring home quite a few ducks. The wing and tail feathers you would have to throw
away because they were too stiff for pillows. Each time we had enough feathers, we would make a
pillow. I think everybody in the house had a down pillow eventually. I still have two of them.

At the time the pig was ready, the entrails and that, mother used to scrape them so that she could
stuff them full of sausage—in the skins. That is how they made sausages—from the skins of the
pig (the entrails, the intestines). She saved nearly everything of the pig, the liver and the heart and
some of the head, and she always made what we call liverwurst, which they still have now, but
hers was a different kind of a liverwurst. Then she would take some of the finer pieces of meat and
make head cheese out of it. We used head cheese for sandwiches. Then she used to make a roily
polly with some of it. That was a little spicy—spiced up and rolled, and string tied around it, and
cooked, and then pressed in some kind of a round thing. It was really nice.

The head cheese was just a little flat mixture of ground heart and head meat with some spices. I
don’t remember if there was anything else in it. The roily polly was like a sausage only it wasn’t
stuffed in anything; we just tied it up with string. She would wind it up like a jelly roll, layered
with spices and then rolled up and pressed. It must have been boiled, or maybe it was baked, I
don’t know. The pig would last us all winter. Mother used to can a lot of the sausage and some of
the tenderloin all cut up. Most of it Wilford would smoke, so we had smoked bacon and ham. We
had a little smoke house where they would do that. Then the beef would come along so Mother
would can a lot of the beef. That was good.

At conference time we would always open a bottle of canned meat and a bottle of sausage for the
conference visitors. We used to have a lot of conference visitors at home. This was stake
conference. Some came from Chester, Spring City, Mt. Pleasant or Fairview. They all liked to
come out to our house because they always got something extra special. We would have ice cream
and all this lovely canned meat. Then they would have to hurry up and go back to conference. We
were about two blocks from the church, or maybe a little further, maybe two and a half blocks
from the ward. But they all loved to come. I think we had twelve people a lot of the time that came
out for dinner between conference sessions. Some of them were very good friends from Spring
City that Mother and Dad used to go and visit, spend the night over there, or they would come over
home and spend the night with us. It was just a nice little visit. They had two girls about Ethel and
Lil’s ages. They were nice girls. They would come over and stay.

Mother always had room for one more. I don’t know where we put them all. We had people come
to stay, and of course I went over to Spring City once and stayed, but I didn’t want to go back any

6
more. I liked home better than I did staying away.

A typical dinner was meat, potatoes and gravy every night. We had vegetables, carrots mostly, I
think. We also had peas. Carrots in the winter time and peas in the summer time, and string beans,
too. But mostly we had peas in the summertime because we had a large pea patch. Mother and Dad
would go out in the field and spend a few hours out picking peas, and Mother would sit with them
in her apron and be shelling them all the way home—what she could. When she got home we had
to help shell the peas. I don’t remember if we ever canned them, I don’t think so. But we canned all
kinds of fruit that we could.

Peddlers used to come around with the fruit. Mother would buy some raspberries and strawberries,
a case of those. We could have either one when we were sick and didn’t want anything else, then
she would open a bottle of fruit for us. Or if we had special visitors in, she would have raspberries
or strawberries, but that was really a delicacy. Did we ever love that! On our birthday we could
have it also. She used to make a lot of cobbler and sweet soup, and rice puddings. She baked a lot
of bread. A lot of times when we would come home for lunch we would have boiled donuts. They
were just boiled in hot water. When they were done we would pick them out and put sugar and
cream on them. This was regular donut bread. They were good. They were kind of heavy, but very
tasty. Mother would make kale soup that was good, too.

I didn’t have to help too much with the dishes, and that’s because they always sent me to the store
because I could go faster than anybody. I could run faster than any of the other girls, so whenever
they needed anything at the store I would have to go. Sometimes I was fast and sometimes I was
slow. I could detour once in a while and go visit some friends. Mother would say, “Well, what took
you so long?” I said, “Well, I stopped to visit with Hazel for a while.” She said, “Okay, well next
time we send you to hurry, you’d better hurry.”

When it was pickling time I would have to get some vinegar at the store, so I used to shake the
bottle and then take the cork out and suck it. I liked vinegar. I would go to the store three or four
times a day sometimes, and up to the post office. Once on the 4th of July, Mother had sent for
some shoes for me, a pair of patent leather shoes with white tops. Oh, they were beautiful shoes.
So she said, “We’ll go the post office.” They were open a little while in the mornings. So I went up
there, and there were those beautiful shoes. Oh boy, did I ever run home fast. I was maybe 10 or 12
years old. Oh, I couldn’t hardly wait to get them on. They fit good, but after a while they started to
pinch. But I wouldn’t take them off.

On the holiday Mother would give us a few eggs to take up to the store to buy whatever we wanted
to, because we didn’t have a whole lot of money around, but we had lots of eggs. So she would
give us a few eggs, and Howard and I would go up to the store and pick out these little things they
had. They used to have pressed popcorn candy about a foot long, kind of slim with a nice fan on it
or some little thing. I always bought one of those because I liked popcorn and I liked to have the
fan too, or whatever it was. Then they would give us a few nickels back, so we could go to the
fairgrounds where they had sports and things to take our money from us.

It was a big celebration on the 4th of July and 24th. We always slept out on the lawn. A group of

7
the kids would come out and we had some old mattresses that Wilford would put on the lawn for
us. We had a lot of old camp quilts that the boys used when they used to go camping after coal or
up the mountains to get the cattle. About 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning Wilford would get up and
shoot his two barrel shotgun off to wake us up. It was fun. I think I was maybe 15 or so.

We went to the dances. We all started dancing early. So we would come home (a bunch of us) and
stay, sleep on the 24th or 4th, and then Wilford would get up, and then the Marshall Band would
come about 6:00 a.m., so we had to be up to greet them. We had dances out in Moroni three times
a week that were really a lot of fun. People from all over came there because the other towns
couldn’t hold a dance. But Moroni had imported orchestras come and it was a lot of fun.

One year, my freshman year at high school, there was an imported band that was going to come on
Tuesday night. The principal said that nobody should go—none of the school kids should go to
that dance. Anyway we all went. The next morning we all went to school and we all got expelled.
We were expelled for a few days so Dad said, “Well, I have a lot of work for you and Howard to
do.” So we had to work. We couldn’t play, we worked. When we went back to school we sat in the
algebra room with no windows raised, the sun beat in on us—oh it was hot. We had to stay in that
room all day, we couldn’t go home for lunch. We worked on our lessons. I was doing algebra. I
was pretty good in algebra, but I don’t know anything about it now. I did get a good mark in
algebra, which was wonderful. Helena used to help me with my algebra lessons. After that, we
paid attention when they told us we couldn’t go and we would have to stay home. That Tuesday
morning we went down to see the band off. We never tried anything like that again. That was the
first time I had ever, ever done anything like that.

We used to have an opera company come through Moroni three or four times a year. Dad and
Mother always went to that. They never missed the opera or anything special like that. They loved
music. They loved to be part of the community and taking some of the responsibility in helping
some of the people to come and perform. Moroni had an old opera house. I guess it wasn’t old. It
was new at the time, and about a block and a half from where we lived. We called it Munson’s
Opera House because Munson lived next door to it. They sort of took care of it.

Then, after the opera company quit coming, it was turned into a grist mill. That is where they
ground all the wheat, but they didn’t make flour there. We had to take wheat up farther between
Moroni and Mt. Pleasant where they made flour. Dad always took us kids up there when they went
to the mill after the harvest. We just played around in the creek and went through the grist mill. It
was wonderful to see all the different kinds of flours and grains, and then to help load it up in the
big wagon so we could go home. Father and Mother were very active in the community. Father
was a city councilman and president of the Duck Springs Ditch and Pasture—he and Eph
(pronounced Eef) Anderson. They spent a lot of time walking around the rivers that came through
the pasture. They had to keep them flowing and keep the cattle well-watered. That is why we took
the milk cows, and I usually had to take them out and sometimes Howard went with me to take
them out to the pasture. That was about a block and a half north from where we lived, out by Dan
Olsen’s. He was a cousin, a son of Uncle Johnny’s. That is where the pasture was—down below
his place.

8
Mother was busy in the Primary and Relief Society and Mutual. Mother was in the presidency of
the Primary for many years and really built up the Primary and got all the kids to come to Primary.
We had Primary after school. School let out at 4 o’clock and we had Primary for an hour after
school was out. Then sometimes Mother would be up at the top of the hill to see that everybody
went to Primary—all of the Primary-aged kids. That was one day a week.

After she had been in the Primary for a number of years she was in the Relief Society presidency.
During this time, they decided to help raise funds for the Relief Society. They would gather eggs
on Monday that the hens had laid on Sunday. They called them Sunday eggs, and we had to go
around to all the homes and gather what eggs the hens had laid on Sunday. I used to do that for
Mother. I had to go up through town, two blocks from where the co-op store was. That was
Mother’s district up there.

I would take one of these great big milk buckets and before I got through with all of them I would
have to go back down to Munson’s. Sister Munson was the secretary of the Relief Society and she
took care of all the Sunday eggs. I would have to go down there and empty the bucket, and then I
would have to go back.

Sometimes we didn’t get as many eggs as we did on other Sundays.

I enjoyed that—going around to see all the ladies. There were some really nice ladies that I liked,
and they kind of liked me too, so that made it all the better.

Dad and Mother used to get in the buggy and go over to Mt. Pleasant to do a lot of shopping for
things that they didn’t have in Moroni. They would be gone a whole day, but they never took any
of us kids with them, which we felt very bad about because we always wanted to go. Howard and I
would go up to the top of the hill and wait for hours for them to come home in the summer time
when we didn’t have much to do. Then we could ride home with them from the top of the hill
down to our home. We helped carry the packages in to see if they had anything for us. They always
had a little sack of candy or something for us.

Dad left to go up in the mountains with the cattle several times a year. We had quite a few cattle
that they took up in the mountains every spring. They took a cattle drive to drive all the cattle
around Moroni up in the mountains at the west.

Dad always went with them. He had a beautiful kind of Pinto horse we called Old Sky. He liked
that horse. He was very gentle and nice. Father loved to be with all the boys that went up in the
mountain on these cattle drives. They would go up in the summertime, after the cattle were up
there, every two or three weeks to see how the feed was and how the cattle were doing and if there
was water. And if not, then they would have to move them to another area.

Father was interested in what we call Black Hawk, that was a celebration after the Black Hawk
War with the Indians. Dad helped get programs together where they could have a big celebration of
all those who were members in the Black Hawk War. Dad was too young to be in that. Then
besides, when he was young, about five years old, his sisters and his brothers always played a
game together called Mumblepeg. They had knives that they would try to hit a certain place. It was

9
fun to play, but we had to be very careful. One of Dad’s sister’s knives (I don’t know whose it
was—he doesn’t know either), hit him in the left eye. At that time they didn’t have very many eye
doctors, so I don’t know just what they did. That was before any of us were born. He was only five
years old. From that time on, he was blind in one eye—the left one, I think.

In later years it started to irritate him, and it sort of made a sore on his nose. That was after he was
married, and we were all pretty well grown at that time. Ethel went with him first. They went to
Ogden to see what could be done, and the doctor there said to take him to St. Joseph’s, Missouri,
and there they burned a hole in his nose to see if they could stop the irritation. So he wore a patch
on his nose, and after he came home with the patch, he wasn’t very active in going to Church. He
didn’t want too many people to ask questions, I guess, because he was very sensitive about it. He
still was active in his quorum when they met without the whole public being there. He was in the
High Council. He kept on with his city council work until years later when he couldn’t go
anymore. That didn’t stop him from going with the boys to look after the cattle, and when it came
time for the roundup, why, he was right there with them. Commented [MR12]: Another comma here

While he was a young boy he was also a freighter. He used to go to St. George and bring freight
home. He would bring home molasses and fruits of some kinds for the people in Moroni. He did
that for quite a while. He was a freighter, too, when Mother and Dad went to Salt Lake to get
married. He had a load of freight to take up to Salt Lake; that was on January 19, oh, I forget the
year. They were going to Salt Lake to get married and Viceeny (I’m not sure how that is spelled), Commented [MR13]: This should be a comma, not a
Mother’s dear friend, went with them. That was in the dead of winter. Oh, it was terribly cold, they period.
said. It took them three days to get there. Their fruit and everything froze. They stopped along the
way, I don’t know if they had friends along the way or not, but they arrived in Salt Lake okay and
were married.

I don’t know how they came home. I guess they came home all right. They were married in the
Endowment House. The Temple hadn’t been completed yet. I don’t remember who performed the
ceremony. I don’t know if we even have their certificates or not. I don’t know what they did about
that in those early days.

They came home and settled in Moroni, and they lived out on Duck Springs, close to the cemetery,
in a sort of a dugout. That is where the older kids were born. Ethel was a baby when they moved
down closer to the city of Moroni into the old homestead that is still there. It was a beautiful home
when it was built. It is still nice. They have kept it up pretty good.

My high school days were very pleasant. I enjoyed high school, had a lot of friends, and we had
lots of good parties.

We lived at the bottom of a hill, and when the snow came in the wintertime we always had snow
parties. We would build a big bonfire down at the bottom of the hill when we got too cold, after
riding down the snow on sleds. I had a new Flyer and I had a friend, Theron Justison. We liked Commented [MR14]: This is a brand of sled, right? If so,
each other a whole lot and had different kinds of sleighs. So he would come out and we would let’s capitalize it
sleigh ride. He would take my sleigh or I would take his sleigh because we formed a “scooter”
going down the hill. That was a lot of fun. Then the rest of the gang would come with their sleighs,

10
so sometimes there were two dozen or more kids up on the sleigh hill, and that is when we would
build a fire.

Sometimes we didn’t have a fire, and Mother would invite us in to have chili or hot chocolate
when we got too cold, and she just kind of welcomed all the kids. They knew if they came out to
sleigh ride they would always be welcome at our house. Dad and Mother always liked us to bring
our friends home. They didn’t want us to go and stay at our friends’ house, but to bring them all
home so they could see who we were playing with and get acquainted with them and see that
everything went all right.

Dad was kind of strict in a lot of things: when he said no he meant no, and so did my mother. But Commented [MR15]: No need to capitalize
sometimes Mother could coax Dad into letting us do things. Well, after we graduated from school,
Howard and I went down to Snow College in Ephraim for a year. We lived in Sister Beale’s house. Commented [MR16]: Is this a brother?
She had an apartment on the east side of her home. She had a big home. Howard and I and a girl
from Fairview, Hilda Sanders, lived there. She came and lived with us so that it wouldn’t look bad,
so people wouldn’t talk if just Howard and I lived in the house. So Hilda came down and we
shared the apartment with her. She was a nice girl, and we had lots of good times.

Brother Hunter—I liked him very much, he was a good teacher and I learned quite a bit from him.
Another professor down there that we liked was Rulon Clark. He was wonderful in sports and
treated everybody equal. Everybody was equal with him. We had to work hard to keep up in the
sports area. Howard liked sports a lot, but he wasn’t so active in basketball. He liked skating a lot.
We liked Rulon Clark. He was a friend of mine throughout his life. Every time I would see him he
would always speak to me and treat me like a human being, you might say. After teaching, he
became a judge in Salt Lake. He was Lois’s husband’s (Lois Clark, married to Norman Clark,was
Aunt Mad’s niece) uncle. Commented [MR17]: If you choose to add footnotes in
other places, this might be a good place for one, too. If you
While we were at Snow we had a lot of kids come down from Moroni. They would come down say “He was Lois’s husband’s uncle” and then, in the
footnote, explain who Lois was and say “Her husband was
and spend the night with us sometimes when there was a basketball game or some other game Norman Clark”, you can avoid the awkward string of
going on. We always went to all the sports. We had a good year at Ephraim, and then when school possessives here.
was out Howard decided he wanted to go to Salt Lake and go to Henager’s Business College. In
the meantime though, Lil (my sister) and Ray McKinnon had gotten married, and they had a house
that had apartments in it, so when Howard decided to go to Salt Lake, then Mother decided that she
would have to go with him to look after him and take care of his cooking and that. So that left me
home with Wilford.

I had a job taking care of some children. The Rasmussens had had a new baby, so I told them I
would take care of the children as long as they needed me. I was there nearly a year helping take
care of the children, besides taking care of the home with Wilford. Wilford was good to do a lot of
cooking, but I did all the cleaning and the washing and the ironing and the canning of fruit.

By this time, Dad had passed away. Dad died of cancer of the jugular vein. Finally, after Dad had
had treatment on his nose, it spread down to his jugular vein. Finally, after about a year, I don’t
know or remember how long it was, he passed away. Before that Amanda had married and had two
children. She married George Colt and they had gone up to Vancouver, Washington, to work.

11
Junior was born Christmas Day. So in March Amanda came home with Junior, while George went
someplace to look for work. He was a plumber. The job they were on had finished, so Amanda
came home with Junior. He was the most beautiful child I had ever seen. He was just beautiful. I
think it was then that Dad had gone back again to see about his nose or something. Anyway, Dad
was still alive. He tended Junior a lot. He used to sing beautiful songs to him.

George finally found work in Ogden, and they went to live in Ogden. Dad went up there and
visited them and stayed a few days. He thought he needed a change, so Amanda invited him to
come to Ogden. Then he came home, and two and a half years later I went up to Ogden to stay
with Amanda while Lois was born. Lo and behold, I got sick with an attack of appendicitis right at Commented [MR18]: This should be “Lo”—it’s the
the time Lois was born, and Grandma Colt had to take care of both of us. I couldn’t take care of biblical homophone of “low” 😊
Junior. I didn’t want to go to the hospital, but Dr. Lumpky said I should. Grandma Colt said she
had a remedy for me and she give me something called Fruitola. That seemed to clean me out. I
was really rushing to the bathroom a lot. I was really sick. I got over that, and Amanda was able to
be up and about.

Lois was a sweet little girl. Oh, she was lovely. I used to love to take her and George Jr. downtown
in Ogden. They had a beautiful buggy, and I would wheel them downtown. Amanda would come
down later and meet us after I’d wheeled them around town. George liked to go downtown, and
Lois was good to go in the buggy. We would always stop by the old Tabernacle there in Ogden and
visit. That seemed like the best place to stop and rest for a while before we wheeled the buggy up
the hill.

Amanda came down to Moroni with the kids in September or October, and I went up to Clearfield
to peel tomatoes for six weeks. Amanda and the children were still there when I came home. I had
just gotten home, I think I was there a couple of days, and Father passed away. Amanda and I sat Commented [MR19]: Change to “sat”?
up all night changing the ice bottles. They didn’t have any undertakers or anything like that in
Moroni or anyplace in Sanpete County that I know of, so we had to keep ice packs around the body
day and night so that it would not decay until the burial. Mother felt too bad to make the burial
clothes so Viceeny and Celia Nelson made Dad’s burial clothes. Mother and her good friend
Viceeny usually made all the temple clothes for people who died in Moroni.

Uncle Johnny, Mother’s brother, came down from Newton for the funeral. He wasn’t well. The day
of the funeral Aunt Amanda died. That was Mother’s sister. So right after Dad’s funeral, Ethel and
Mother and Uncle Johnny went to Newton to bury Aunt Amanda. So we were home alone. My
sister, Amanda, was still in Moroni. Lil had married and she lived in Salt Lake. Jack and Oscar and
Frank were all married. Ken, Frank’s oldest boy, was just a baby when they came up to the funeral
in Moroni, and he cried and he cried and cried. It was pitiful. Oh, that poor little kid.

I don’t know how long Amanda stayed until George found work. I don’t know where they went to
work.

CAROL: After he had been up in Ogden, Mother came to Moroni—that is where Ben was born.
After that they moved to California.

MADELINE: I don’t know how long they were there before Ben was there. He was born in April.

12
Maybe she just stayed. Maybe your Mom was pregnant with Ben. The night Ben was born, I
hadn’t graduated yet from high school. That was in my senior year, and I took a few semesters in
acting and playing. Jim Prestwich had a class where we could learn to act and do a few little things.
The night Ben was born we were scheduled to go to Wells to put on this show. Amanda walked out
to the gate with me to wish me good luck. She didn’t feel very good and didn’t eat any dinner. She
did walk out to the gate where the kids come to pick us up so we could go to Wells to put on this
show. So while I was gone, Ben was born. It was just that fast. I couldn’t believe it when I got
home and Dad met me at the door and said that Ben was born.

So we had a busy household at that time.

That little George Jr. was the smartest little kid I have ever seen. He knew every record we had,
and if you put it in a different place, he knew where it was. He knew the names of all our records
that we had.

The boys (Aunt Mad’s brothers) at the time were down at Fayette. They took the cattle down to Commented [MR20]: Again, best in a footnote
Fayette in the winter to feed, because there wasn’t much feed in Moroni, and they had some good
feed down in Fayette. So Frank and Oscar went down to Fayette. They lived with Archie Miller for
a while, and then finally they bought them a sheep wagon and moved that down there, and they
lived in the sheep wagon. They would bring Archie Miller up sometimes and a few of the other
Millers. He had some cousins that were sweet on Lil (that was before Lil got married). Commented [MR21]: Period goes outside the parentheses.

I didn’t tell about your mother going to Salt Lake to school, and Ethel went to Salt Lake and
Ogden. Lil went to Logan to school. There is a lot to tell, but we’re kind of skipping around.

I’m going to go back to the beginning. Dad and Mother wanted a big family, I understand. That’s Commented [MR22]: Comma here
what they had. The two oldest were Arlie and Mada. Arlie was born first. He passed away in
infancy. I don’t know how old he was. It is written down, but the dates are past me. I don’t know if
Wilford was born after that or whether it was Mada. Mada didn’t live very long either. Then we’ll
say Wilford came next. Then Frank and then Oscar and then Amanda and John (I always called
him Jack but his name was John) and then Ethel and Lillian and me and Howard and then Nellie
May was the last one. She died also.

When Mother came here from Denmark she had kind of a hard time because she couldn’t
understand the language. She finally got a job working in a home cleaning and taking care of
children. The father was the postmaster. He was very good to Mother. She finally learned to speak
English, and after that she got a good job working in the co-op store as a clerk for a number of
years in Moroni. She wouldn’t teach us to speak the Danish language. She says, “I came to
America, and I am going to be an American, and I’m going to speak American language.” But she
and Dad used to talk back and forth when they didn’t want us to know what they were saying.
Amanda would say, “Ja, ja, we understand.” We used to laugh about that. Mother and Dad talking
and not wanting us to know what they were talking about. But we could kind of guess and gave
them a little hard time, but nothing serious.

Mother worked in the Church and was very staunch. She was really what you called a blue blood
Latter-day Saint. Dad was very active too until later in his life. When he was a boy about five years

13
old, he and his sisters were playing what they called Mumblepeg with a knife, and somehow or
other it hit his left eye. I think I told you that. So after he started wearing a patch on his nose, it
drained and caused a sore on his nose and he wore a patch. He never did go out to Church very
much, only on special occasions.

Mother kept very active. She was a reader of the gospel.

She loved the gospel. She loved the standard works and all the good books. She used to read to all
of us kids out of Shakespeare, the Book of Mormon and all the other Church literature. We always
had good books and good records. We had a phonograph, and we always had classical music. She
was active in Relief Society, Mutual and Sunday School. We used to have what they called
Religion Class in school. She and Molly Anderson were teachers. They would come and teach
Religion Class in school. That was a really wonderful time. I guess it was sort of like Mutual or
what the Boy Scouts have or something. It was really very pleasant and we learned a lot in that.

After they discontinued it, then Mother was called to be in the Stake Mutual, and she would have
to travel around the neighborhood—Spring City, Mt. Pleasant, Fountain Green, Milburn,
Indianola. Even in the dead of winter they would go in horse and buggy, nearly freeze to death, but
she said that was her job and that’s what she was going to do. There was a Dr. Rigby that moved to
Moroni, and he was on the Mutual Board too, and Minerva Anderson. They used to travel around
to all these towns with a horse and buggy in the wintertime, with hot bricks wrapped in paper at
their feet and all the warm clothes they could find. They didn’t have hot water bottles or anything,
they always had bricks. They would warm bricks and wrap them up in newspaper to keep them
warm. Sometimes she wouldn’t get home until almost morning if it was really bad weather. They
didn’t stay overnight anyplace that I know of. They just kept plodding along in their horse and
buggy. That was tough times. Cold business, but she enjoyed it.

She would always go to Salt Lake to the June conference. She would be gone about a week and
maybe a little longer. We kids were left to take care of the house and help Dad in the field. Howard
and I got a job thinning sugar beets for Mr. Munson, and I don’t know, there was another kid there
that got kind of irritated and didn’t like what Munson would tell him to do, so he talked us kids
into quitting. So we all quit and left him to get somebody else to thin his beets.

The money I earned I saved, and as soon as Mother got home I handed it to her and I said, “Oh
Mother, this is the first money I have ever made, I want you to have it.” I don’t remember how
much it was, but it was a little bit. I was just so proud. She said, “Well, we’ll go pay tithing on it,
and we’ll see what we will do with the rest.”

She was a very smart woman. She was beautiful. None of us kids got that beauty, but we survived.
She loved Relief Society too. She loved Primary. She loved the kids in Primary.

We always had a good time at May Day. We always had new dresses for May Day. We would go
up to Primary and have a party and braid the May pole and dance around the May pole and sing
and play games. It was just a happy time for us kids on May Day. We looked forward to having a
new dress after wearing the old drab clothes during the winter. We never had many clothes. We
had one set for school and one for Sunday School and everyday clothes. We took care of them. As

14
soon as we got home we would have to change.

We used to kid Mother when she was coming home from Relief Society because she had a dress
with buttons (little buttons all the way down to the waist). From the top of the hill, after she told
Minerva goodbye, she would start unbuttoning her dress so that she could hurry in to get dinner.
She was a wonderful cook. Very active.

Mother and Dad used to go to all the operas and shows that used to come down at the old Opera
House. They used to dance around. Dad was a good singer. Mother was a good singer.

When I was in seventh grade, we had to go down to the city jail for school. Our class had to go
down there because there wasn’t room up at the high school. Jack and Ethel and Lil and Howard
and I all graduated from high school. We didn’t have a high school when the other boys were
growing up. But Wilford went to Logan to the Agricultural College for two years, and then Oscar
went up there to Logan for a year or something. Lil went up there, too. Amanda spent time down in
Salt Lake going to a business school. She met some real nice friends down there.

Ethel went to Salt Lake to school, too. But then she started teaching school. She taught up in
Fairview for a couple years and then she went over to Lemington. Mother used to go over there
with her once in a while. One time they went over and got stuck in the Sevier River. They didn’t
know if they were going to get out or go down the river. Finally, somebody came along and
helped them get out of the Sevier River. They must have missed the bridge or something.

Ethel only taught school over there a couple of years. Then she went to Rexburg and taught up
there for a year. Then she went to Ogden and taught up there for a couple of years. Then Lil had
graduated from high school and was up in Logan going to school. After that they both taught
school up in Randolph. That is where Lil met Ray.

Before that, the boys (Oscar and Frank) were in Fayette. They were there for two years and finally
settled down there. Oscar married Ruby Robinson and Frank married Pearl Hill. Lil and Ethel
were engaged to two of Arch Miller’s cousins, Elgin Miller (Lil) and Ben Miller (Ethel). They
were both engaged to those guys. Ethel had set a date to get married. She had been up to Ogden to
teach and came home. Then she decided she didn’t want to marry Ben and broke the engagement.

When they were engaged, Lil and Ethel both had diamonds. They left them home one day, and one
Sunday night I was a little daring. I took their diamond rings and wore them into town to show the
kids their diamond rings. Then I got scared, and boy I ran home fast and put those rings back. I
was afraid that I would lose them. I didn’t tell anybody about that. I was scared. Mother would
have really scolded me if she had known I had done that. I don’t know, it was just an impulse that
came over me to take those rings. They fit my fingers just beautifully. I just thought, oh, that would
be nice to wear them to Church. I don’t know what Mother would have done if she had known I
had taken them.

Then soon Lil broke off with Elgin, and Lil and Ethel went up to Randolph to teach. That is where
Lil met Ray. Ethel came back to teach in Ogden after a while. She met Waldemer when she
attended a missionary party at Levi Swensen’s house in Salt Lake City.

15
In the meantime, Amanda had married. While George was courting Amanda they were building
the sugar factory in Moroni. They met at a dance, and I guess that was it. Amanda was kind of Commented [MR23]: Comma here, I think
smitten on a fellow, or he was smitten on her, Henry Christensen. But when she saw George, why,
he was the one for her.

This one Sunday when Amanda and George were courting, Wilford had bought an Oakland car,
and Mother and Dad and Howard and I went to Fayette with Wilford. On the way down we had a
little trouble with the car. The garage guy said, “Well, when it stops like that, give it the gas.”
Well, okay that went all right. We got home all right. It was kind of late at night and George was
just telling Amanda good night, and he says, “No, I’ll wait and see them drive in.” So we drove in,
got through the gate, and got by the potato cellar and the car stopped. Well, Wilford gave it the gas,
and boy did we shoot through the shed over into the other Christensen’s lot. The car took a post out
of the shed, and the shed took the top off the car, but none of us was hurt. I tell you it was a
miracle. We took one of those cedar posts out and the top off the car. Anyway, we got out of the
car all right. Commented [MR24]: Oh, what a story! Kind of like when
Chris took the top off your camper, eh?
George said, “Boy that was a good entrance!” George and Amanda came running to see if we were
hurt, but none of us was hurt, just shaken up. Mother had a hat on, and it was smashed down on her
head, but that was all. It was kind of funny after it was over, but it was real scary. Wilford didn’t
keep that car very long. He went up to Salt Lake with the car with no top on and traded it off for
another car. I don’t remember what kind it was, but it was a Pontiac or a Dodge. He was so
embarrassed to see this brand new car without a top. They couldn’t put a top on it, so he just traded
it in.

Wilford had several girlfriends, but I think maybe he was disappointed once, so he never got
married. He never talked about it. I guess we didn’t ask any questions. He just never married.

Jack was the first one married. He married Helena Christensen. He went to the Manti Temple to
get married. Nobody went with him that I know of. We were all sitting around the table having
dinner when they came home, and Helena looked at everybody and she said, “I didn’t know there
were so many here.” She said, “Boy, that’s a big family!” I guess we “squoze” over and made
room for them for dinner. I don’t think they had receptions in those days. They had dinner, and
Dad helped them get started.

Jack worked for Dr. Langball and took care of his farm. He lived down in the meadow and that is
where they went to live.

After Ben was born, Amanda and George and family soon left and went to California to live in
Harbor City. They stayed down there for quite a while. Mother and Lil and I went down to
California. That was the year the Mormon Tabernacle Choir went down there for a fair or
something. Anyway, they had cheap rates. Howard was working for the Bamburger Railroad, and
he got Mother a pass, and Lil and I could go for a cent a mile or something, but anyway it was
reasonable. Lil was pregnant with Dorothea. I was working, and Ray was working in the Walker
Bank, so we went down to California with the choir to visit George, Amanda and the children.
Roland wasn’t born yet. Then after Roland was born, Mother went down and stayed with them.

16
She went alone.

While we were in California (when we went with the choir), we had a lot of fun. We went to all the Commented [MR25]: Comma here?
beaches close around San Pedro and met lots of nice people down there. We had a good time in
California. I think we were there 10 days or something.

Mother, she always had to have a hat. She never went anyplace without a hat. After everybody had
left home and come to Salt Lake, if anybody would say they were going in the car, she would have
her hair combed and her hat on waiting.

On October 4, 1924, I came to Salt Lake City with Mother. Mother went to conference, and I went
with her. That is when I stayed. Mother and Howard had an apartment. Dad had passed away, and
I had finished my job with the Rasmussens. Wilford said it was all right, he could get along in Commented [MR26]: I think this is plural, not possessive,
Moroni, and so I went up at conference time. I didn’t know what to do; I didn’t have a job or right? So no apostrophe?
anything. Ethel saw a piece in the paper where James Ice Cream Company wanted some help. So
on Monday after conference I went up to James Ice Cream on 1st South and 7th East and applied.

He hired me right then, so I had a job dishing up ice cream to all the school kids at Bryant Junior
High School. I liked that very much.

In the meantime, Ethel and Waldemer had planned to get married. They were married on the 24th
of October. So when I was working at James we thought they would have to have a little open
house, so I asked Mr. James if he could make wedding bells and slippers and stuff like that out of
ice cream. He said, “Oh sure, I can do that.” I think we had about 36 people come. I ordered
frozen desserts that we could serve to the guests. Oh, gee, were they pretty! They made a nice
decoration with a nice piece of cake.

Howard and Ray used to come up to the ice cream store and take me home, so I would give them
ice cream on one of those big spoons that we used to dish up. Ray got his tongue froze on one. He
said, “I don’t want any more like that, can’t you put it in a cone or something?” I said, “No, that’s
just a little taste, I can’t do that.”

I worked at James Ice Cream until in January. They had a chance to sell the ice cream parlor, so I
was out of a job. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had to find work. Before the 13 th of
January I went down to the Owl Drug and applied for a job, and on the 13th I got a job working at
the Owl Drug at the fountain. That was 1925. I enjoyed that very much. I learned a lot—how to
dish up different kinds of dishes and make drinks and milk shakes and malts, and I learned how to
wash dishes and wipe dishes—fast. We had to work fast at the Owl Drug. I made lots of good
friends. Whenever some of them would come in, after I had waited on others awhile, they wanted
me to wait on them. So I had quite a few customers that liked me, and I think I worked at the
fountain for about nine months or so. Then I was transferred to be a cashier. I worked there for 18
years.

In the meantime, I saved a little money so we could go on a little vacation. In 1936, when Commented [MR27]: Comma?
Waldemer, Ethel and family were back in Chicago, Waldemer was graduating with his Ph.D. So
Howard got a railroad pass for Mother to go to Chicago, as he was working at the Bamburger. I

17
had saved enough money so I could pay my own way, if I could get off work. So I asked Mr. Die if
I could go for three weeks. He said, “Well, if you can get somebody to take your place.” So I got a
girl by the name of Leona Freeman to come and fill in for me. She had just quit her job there and
had gotten married and was going to stay home, but she said she would come and take my job until
I got back from Chicago.

So we went back to Chicago, Mother and I. We rode all night—I think it was two nights and two
days it took us. Anyway, it was a long time. I thought, “Oh, we will never get there.” They
wanted Mother to go back in the back car where people with passes were. I said, “Mother can’t go
back there. She needs me to help her, and I need her.” Somehow or other we got it arranged so that
Mother could stay up with me and wouldn’t have to go in the back car. I couldn’t go back there,
but Mother could come up.

We arrived in Chicago and Ethel, Waldemer, and the kids were there to meet us. Karen had been
very sick with pneumonia, and she had just gotten out of the hospital when we got there. Poor
little kid, she was just nothing but skin and bones. Her brown eyes looked so big. With our loving
care she got to feeling a little better. We visited many interesting places in Chicago. Waldemer and
Ethel lived close to Lake Michigan, where we could walk to the beach. It was a beautiful beach.
We’d ride the street car to downtown Chicago.

After school was out Waldemer said, “We are not going to go right home. Why don’t we go up to
Washington D.C. and up to New York?” He had an old Chevrolet that had running boards. We had
that so full of boxes and stuff. On the front fender, across the engine grill, we put Karen’s little
potty chair on. Everybody that saw us and saw our license, they would holler, “Hi, Utah!” Every
place we stopped we had to stop and send a big box of stuff home. Mother and I had never been
any place, so we took everything we owned. I had two big suitcases full of stuff. So we sent those
home on our tickets because we didn’t have room for them and all that junk we took. I learned
different since then—not to take too much on a trip.

We went to Washington D.C. and spent time there. We walked all the steps up inside the
Washington Monument, and Waldemer carried Paul all the way up and down. Karen and Ethel
didn’t go. Ronald, he was big enough to go by himself. But all those steps! When we got down
my face was so red, it was just like on fire. I didn’t think it would ever go normal. We stopped at a Commented [MR28]: This isn’t a word I’m familiar with.
great big market and bought some fruit and stuff to eat. I had never seen such a big place. We If it’s supposed to be “sore,” let’s change it, but if it was said
that way as part of Aunt Mad’s way of speaking, we can
visited all the points of interest we had time for. Waldemer was interested in seeing all the keep it!
government buildings. We went to the White House and the Capitol building. We had a nice time
in Washington D.C.

Then we went to New York. We had some crummy places to stay on our way. That was before
there were motels, and some of them were just little old rooms we could stay in, but we managed
somehow. When we got to New York we stayed in Croton-on-Hudson.

I will never forget that place. We took a ferry over to the Statue of Liberty and climbed up to the
top of that as far as we could go. That was wonderful to see. We went to Coney Island, where I
bought some beautiful material to bring home to make some of the kids some dresses, but I don’t

18
know what happened to that material. It never got home. Oh, it was pretty, and I bought enough for
two or three dresses. Anyway, we went to Coney Island. That was a treat; I have never been back
since.

As we traveled, we visited all the points of interest in the Church. We went to Palmyra and the
Sacred Grove, and then to Kirtland. We went into the temple there. When we were in the Sacred
Grove we all sang, “Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning.” Waldemer filled a mission in Missouri,
and Ethel served in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana, so we saw some of their old
mission areas.

All of us came home to Utah together in the Chevrolet, well and happy. The whole trip took us
about three and a half weeks.

While I was working at the Owl I had a lot of nice friends and a lot of nice experiences. They were
good to me. I got appendicitis while I was there, and Mr. Loin and Robinson the pharmacist took
me home. I doubled up in the afternoon, so they took me home and Mother looked at me and said
maybe I better go to the hospital. So they took me to the hospital, and I was operated on that night
for appendicitis. I was out of work for a little while, but they were very good to me. If I wanted to
take a day off sometimes I could. We had lots of parties. Mr. Loin would say some night after we
got through work, “Let’s go out to Beck’s Hot Springs.” So he would take us all out there that
could go, and we would go in Becks Hot Springs for a little while. It was fun. He would take us out
to Salt Air once in a while.

Sometimes we worked until 11 p.m. I would have to catch the bus home. Mother would always
come down to 1st Avenue and meet me at the bottom of the hill. I would walk up from the Owl
Drug to 1st Avenue and Mother would be there to meet me, and we would walk home. If it was a
winter night, then I would ride the bus home.

I used to have to work on Sunday, which I didn’t like. Finally, they worked out a deal where I
could have Sunday off.

Then I could go to Church. Before, I would just get into Sunday School and would have to leave
before the class was over. Byron Anderson was our teacher. He was a nice man, I liked him. He
was smart and fixed up lots of parties for us. We would go up to Pinecrest some Saturday nights
and have a fireside or get-together (they didn’t call them firesides then), and then we would have
Sunday School up there. Apostle Richard R. Lyman was up there several times to talk to us.

It was a lot of fun to stay up at Pinecrest. Minnie and I, we just had a ball. I met Minnie in 1935 in
Sunday School. We shared a song book and that is how we became very good friends and still are
good friends. Whenever the ward went anyplace we went with the ward. We were in the Mutual Commented [MR29]: “Mutual” is capitalized in other
and we taught Sunday School together. Sunday School would have quite a few parties, and then places in this history—maybe it should be capitalized here,
too?
the Mutual would have parties. We went up to Brighton several times and stayed overnight.
Pinecrest was our choice.

Oh, that was beautiful up there. We would all sleep upstairs in the big dormitory. Bishop Kimball’s
wife would go up there with us too. She was diabetic, but would say, “Oh, but I’ve got to have a

19
little ice cream, I can’t go without just a little taste.” We had good times up at Pinecrest. They
would have barbecues outside. We would hike.

After I left the Owl Drug, I went over to ZCMI. I left the Owl Drug so I could have weekends off
and more money. That was in 1944. I went to the ZCMI Drug. Soon after that the Owl Drug
closed—sold out. So it was a happy move for me. One of the girls that used to work at Owl went
over to the Wholesale Drug. She came and talked to me and said, “Why don’t you come over
there?” She said, “You will have better hours, and we don’t have to work nights.” She said, “Well,
think about it.” I talked it over with Mother and Howard and Lil and they said if I could get a job,
to do it. So I had nights off and weekends. That was a good move for me.

I met Gene before I left the Owl Drug. I had known him for quite a while. He was a salesman for
Hershey Chocolate. He was also in the Coast Guard. One night he asked me to go to the dance
with him. He seemed like such a jolly-go-lucky and happy fellow. He was always nice in the store
and talking to me. So I thought it would be all right if I went to the dance with him.

He was a wonderful dancer and we had a wonderful time. He was just very excited and wanted to
keep going with me. So we went steady. Then he asked me to marry him. I said, “Yes, I would.”
We went and picked out the rings, and we just had a wonderful time before we got married. We got
married in the Salt Lake Temple by President Joseph Fielding Smith. He was president of the
temple at that time.

We had a nice wedding and a wedding breakfast at Lil and Ray’s. The wedding reception was at
the church. Gene was from Ephraim. His two sisters and his brother were in the wedding line and
a couple of his nieces. Mother, Lil, Ray and Lois were also in the line. Minnie was my maid of
honor. We went on a honeymoon to Denver.

Everything was going just wonderful for about two years.

Then all of a sudden, I don’t know, he got drinking and became kind of mean. This New Year’s
Eve we were supposed to go to the ward with some of the other couples and then go to one of the
couple’s, Harvey Durrant’s, place, and have something to eat after the dance. Well, he had gone
with some of his chums and he came home drunk, and I didn’t like that, so I guess I must have said
something that made him real mad. I was mad too. We had some words and he just was mean to
me—he hit me. I didn’t like that. Then he got more mean, and I went in the bathroom and locked
the door and wouldn’t let him come in. He went out again. So I called Ethel and Waldemer and
they came and got me.

By that time I had terrible pains in my stomach. I went to work on Tuesday, but I couldn’t stand it,
I was just too sick. I slept upstairs with Karen. I came down and told Ethel I was in misery and
they had to do something. So they called Dr. Kimball and he told them to take me to the hospital.
So they took me to the hospital in an ambulance at about 4 a.m. I remember that real clear. Dr.
Kimball and his nephew operated on me. They removed one of my tubes. I guess I was pretty
dangerously ill because they had tubes all over me, and Amanda and Ethel came and stayed all
night with me for three nights. Gene would try to come in, but I told him I never wanted to see him
again, I didn’t want him around me.

20
CAROL: You also had some of your colon removed.

MADELINE: That was later. Finally, I guess all the infection inside of me came out, and I told
them to call Benjamin Spence. He was an attorney, and I talked to him and said I want to have a
marriage annulled or a divorce, and I wanted my single name back. He said, “Right now?” I said,
“Yes, right now. I don’t want anything more to do with him.” And I didn’t, I didn’t see him any Commented [MR30]: Haha! As sad as a broken marriage
more after that. I wouldn’t let him near me. He would call at Amanda’s house—I went up to is, I love Aunt Mad’s spunk—just out of surgery and with
her mind made up.
Amanda’s house to recuperate. I couldn’t keep much in my stomach, I couldn’t eat a lot. I would
get the burps and then I would heave till noon and pass out. I went down to see Dr. Kimball and he Commented [MR31]: Is this supposed to be “in my
stomach”?
examined me. He said, “Well, you have a lot of adhesions that have to come out.” More than likely
some of them had been sewn together. So on the 28th of September we had peaches to can. We
got all the peaches and I had to be down to the hospital by 4 or 6 p.m., but anyway we got all the
peaches done up. This was in 1949. I was operated on, and they had to remove about three feet of
my intestines. I still had a lot of trouble after that.

By that time ZCMI Wholesale had moved out to 1700 South and Redwood Road, where the arms Commented [MR32]: I think it might make more sense
plant used to be. I met Grace Goff out there. She was my boss at that time. I was down in her office (especially for those unfamiliar with the Salt Lake area) to
write “Redwood Road and 1700 South”—otherwise, it may
checking invoices. She would take me home a lot of times on Friday nights. She said, “Do you feel not be clear that these are both part of the same address.
well enough to go to southern Utah?” I said, “Well, I think so.” So we would make some trips
down to southern Utah. On this one trip Anna Rasmussen, she worked out at the wholesale, and I
went into a motel, and they had just painted it. That was the end of me. Oh, was I ever sick. All the
way home, all night—heave and pass out, heave and pass out. Grace said, “Don’t you come to
work for a few days until you get feeling better.” Amanda had a hard time with me. I still get them
once in a while, but not like I used to. They were terrible. I never want to go through that again.
I’m sure these problems I had with my stomach were related to my operation.

In 1950 I got my divorce. Mother died in 1951. The Stake President at that time advised me not to
get a temple cancellation. I don’t use the name anyway. It is still on the temple records as Holster
but I still go with my recommend as Olsen. In the meantime, I liked Gene’s two sisters. They were
very nice to me. I had contact with them, but I never did see Gene. After that he lost his job, and he
went and herded sheep for President Judd. Judd liked him. He was my Stake President at that time.
I told him about it, and that I wanted a temple divorce, and he said, “No, just leave it as is right
now.” He advised me not to do it. Faye called me, that was one of his sisters, and told me he had
diphtheria and was very sick. They didn’t want me to go near him or anything. Then she called a
couple of days later and said he had died. But they didn’t want me to go to the funeral or come to
the mortuary. I didn’t want to go either. This was in 1950 after my divorce, but before 1951 when
Mother passed away. He used to call up at Amanda’s but I would never answer the phone. I never
talked to him or seen him after that one New Year’s. He was buried in Ephraim, but I don’t know
where or anything. After that I didn’t see his sisters very often. I would meet them once in a while
in ZCMI.

We didn’t have too much in common anymore. So I don’t know what’s happened to them, whether
they have died or not. One of Faye’s sons, Spencer Greer, has made a name for himself. I think he
is a mission president or something someplace. He used to be with KSL. I would never recognize
him because he was just a little fellow, maybe 12 or so when I knew him.

21
Anyway, I think it was after I got my divorce that Waldemer and Ethel said, “We are going to go
to Moroni—do you want to go?” I said, “Sure.” I think we brought Mother up then. That was
before April conference of 1951. Mother came up and she said that would be her last visit there.
While she was there she got sick. She was there from after conference until June 2 when she died.
She was up and about for about three weeks before she died. She didn’t want to go for very long
rides. She would like to go out for a little bit, but she didn’t want to go very long. Then three Commented [MR33]: I could be wrong, but I think this is
weeks before she died she was pretty much bedfast and especially the last week she was really, a single word, unhyphenated.
really bad. Lil and Ethel and Amanda were there.

I went to work, I worked all the time. That night when I came home I went in and said hello to
Mother and she said hello. Then I went in the kitchen and said hello to Ethel, Amanda and Lil. I
went back in the bedroom and she was gasping for breath.

I called Ethel to come in quick. When they got there she passed away, but she stayed alive until I
got home. She was 88 years old. She had been well most of her life. When she came up she said,
“Well, I’ll come for the last visit.” I was thankful I got home before she passed away. I didn’t get
home until going on 7 o’clock because we worked until 6 on some nights out at the wholesale.
Some nights it would take that long to get home, waiting for rides. Some of these would get held
up. I was so thankful that I got home in time. Ethel and Waldemer used to sit up a lot with her.

Waldemer was so good to me and to all of us. He was so thoughtful and kind. Whenever they went
any place they would call and want to know if I would go, or sometimes they would come out to
the wholesale and pick me up. Amanda was just wonderful to me. We had lots of good times
together. We took a few nice trips with Waldemer and Ethel and with Wilford. I remember one trip
Ethel didn’t want to go, but Waldemer went with us—Wilford, Amanda and me. We went up in
the northwest, up into Canada through Seattle, and then we came back the other way. We had such
a good time. Whenever they would stop at a Dairy Queen, Amanda and I would order a banana Commented [MR34]: Supposed to be “at,” perhaps?
split, and the others would have milk shakes, but we wanted a banana split. I tell you we got our
share of banana splits that year. The last one was so big—I had never seen such a big one. I think
we gave one of them to Waldemer and Wilford, and then we ate the other. They were huge. Commented [MR35]: This should be “gave”
Wilford joked and said, “Well, I hope you got your fill of banana splits.” But we had a good time.

We were riding around Seattle and we saw 10 pounds of sugar for 59 cents, so we made Wilford
drive around till we came to that store again,so we could buy some sugar. We each bought 20
pounds of sugar. I think Waldemer took some home, too. Wilford hated to backtrack. We went to a Commented [MR36]: comma
Danish pastry once and bought some beautiful Danish pastry, great big buns and stuff. We lived
high when we went on a trip. We had a delightful time in Canada. They were good people to go
with.

Most of the time I was married to Gene we had a good time. We would go to Yellowstone on long
weekends and fish and just enjoy ourselves. We would take one of the ladies that had a sister that
lived up in St. Anthony. We would take her up to visit with her sister while we went to
Yellowstone, and then we would stay that night with them. “Remember Ethel that worked down at Commented [MR37]: “at”?
the wholesale drug, it was her.” She would ride up with us so she could get to see her sister. We Commented [MR38]: Maybe better punctuated like so:
met a nice fisherman up there that helped us catch a lot of fish that we would bring home and “Remember Ethel that worked down at the wholesale drug?
It was her.”

22
freeze or give away. Then this man came to visit us one time when he came down to Salt Lake
City. I don’t know just where he was from, but he wanted to come down and see Salt Lake, so he
came down and we took him around. We had a bedroom and a living room with a pull out couch.
He didn’t stay there with us, but we cooked dinner for him and took him around Salt Lake and
spent the weekend with him. The next weekend was a long weekend, so we went up to
Yellowstone again and didn’t have such good luck fishing, but we had a good time.

We used to go to shows and all the dances. Everybody liked to dance with Gene. He was a good
dancer. We had a lot of fun at the dances. Burt Price and his wife Ardis and Bill DeBroom and
Nellie and Harvey Durrant and Lucy and a whole bunch of kids were there. We changed partners.
We didn’t dance with one person all the time. We changed partners, which was good. They don’t
do that now, I don’t think. I think they just dance with the same one. I don’t know whether they get Commented [MR39]: comma
close together or not anymore, the way they dance. We used to love to dance. They would hold a
dance over in Woodbury Hall in 18th Ward. Then we used to go to stake centers to dance. We
would go to shows a lot. It was a happy time, but it just ended in a sad situation.

I guess it was all for the best because I am very happy now. I guess he is too, I don’t know. I hope
he is. I hope he is reforming a little bit. Mother was kind of upset, but she got over it. It was hard,
but we all lived through it. I wouldn’t want it again.

Mr. Rasmussen was a nice, older man. He was a few years older and was the husband in the family
that I worked for in Moroni. This was while I lived at the Kimball apartments, after Mother passed
away. He was an old friend of mine that used to be the station agent down in Moroni. His wife had
passed away and he had moved up to Bountiful. He was a cousin to Etta Rasmussen. Etta told him
about me and gave him my phone number, so he called me up and we talked several times on the Commented [MR40]: gave? (Although the more I run into
phone. I thought that was all right to talk to him on the phone because I wasn’t interested in things like this that I think are mistakes, the more I wonder if
that’s just Aunt Mad’s way of talking. If so, it’s up to you
anybody. He made a date with me one night to go to the show. We went out to the Villa Theater in whether to fix it; I think it’s just fine to preserve people’s
Sugarhouse. Well, I enjoyed the show all right, but they had a little intermission and after vernacular, even if it’s not technically correct in the lexicon
intermission he wanted to hold my hand. Darrel Rasmussen was his name. I couldn’t stand that. I of Standard American Edited English.)
didn’t want to hold his hand. Then we went out after the show and had ice cream and then went
home. I told him good night at the door. He said, “I’ll call you.” I said okay. I went out again with
him. This time he wanted to get a little more close, a little more friendly. I told him I wasn’t
interested in going steady with anybody or wanting to get married. He was on the verge of asking
me to marry him. I thought no, I can’t go with that anymore, so I told him I didn’t think I would be
interested in going out anymore. He called me a couple of times, but I told him I was busy. I don’t
know what ever happened to him. Years later I did see where he had passed away. But I don’t
know if he ever married again or not. He was nice to talk to on the phone. I like to talk to people on
the phone.

When I was working at Owl Drug, I went out with Ben Spence quite a few times. We just went to
different banquets and special occasions. He wasn’t interested in me nor I in him, but it was just
nice to be friends. He knew Ray and Lil long before I knew him. He was much older. But he was a
nice man. I liked to go out with him, but that was all. We were still good friends until he died a few
years ago. We used to talk on the phone a lot. He was my attorney. He fixed up the things I wanted
him to take care of, so I was thankful I had that all taken care of. I don’t need to worry about that.

23
I never was too close to anybody after Gene. I just couldn’t make myself. I am happy for all the
good friends I’ve had.

Dr. Bischoff, that’s another one. I was his first patient when he came back from Germany after
being on a mission and was starting his dental practice. I was having a little trouble with my teeth,
so I thought, “Well, he’s all right; he’s in the building.” He was in the Walker Bank and I was
working at the Owl. He was my first real dentist. I kept him until, I don’t know when, in the
1970s. He took care of my teeth, and I had some gum trouble. He wasn’t able to correct it, so I lost
most of my bottom teeth. In fact, I only have one now. I knew his wife and his family. They were
all good to us—Mother and I, Lillian and Ray. They would come up to visit with us. He would
come up to the house sometimes at night after work to take care of my teeth. His wife would come
with him. She was a lovely lady. He had three nice children. They used to go to Yellowstone a lot,
and we went up there quite a bit. This one time we were all there together, and he likes to fish, so
he gave us some fish, and we cooked some fish. Then when we wouldn’t go fishing, he would
bring fish up to us.

Dr. Bischoff liked Mother; he liked to talk to her. He said, “She is an educated woman. She knows
what she is talking about. She gives me some good pointers.” Then a few years after that his wife
died. She told me once when we were talking—we were good friends—she said, “I hope you will
marry Fred if I die.” I said, “Oh, don’t talk about that now, I’m not interested in Fred, only as my
doctor and as a friend.” She said, “Well, he kind of likes you too.” So when his wife died he
always talked to me about marrying him. I told him, “No, I wasn’t interested in marrying.” He
would ask me to go to the High Priest’s party with him. I said, “Oh, goodnight! I couldn’t go to Commented [MR41]: Some kind of punctuation here?
that.” He said, “Why don’t you marry me? I love you. I like you and I want to marry you.” I said I Exclamation point, dash, or semicolon, maybe?
wasn’t interested in him that way.

I didn’t go out with him at all. I just kept him as a good friend and as my dentist. The last time I
saw him was about two days before he died. He had taken care of my teeth. He said, “I will call
you.” I said that will be all right, and he was on his way to work and stopped at a Church there on
2nd East and 2nd South and had a heart attack and died. That was about 1974. He was really after
me. Oh, he wanted me to marry him. But not for me. We were good friends. He used to kid me a
lot and I would kid him. So that was another period in my life that has gone by.

There was a man from Fayette; he was a relative of Pearl’s. We started going together down in Commented [MR42]: Semicolon instead of comma
Fayette. He would come up every so often and we would go down to see Oscar and Frank and the
kids. Then he said he wanted to come up and spend Christmas. So he came up and spent Christmas
with us. The first night we went to the dance—that was fun. He had on this ugly suit. It was a sort
of green plaid. We had a good time. Then we went to another dance. I said to Howard, “I can’t go
anymore, I can’t be seen with him. I just don’t like that suit and he didn’t have any other.” He
wanted to know what was wrong and I told him. He went home soon after that. It was an awful
suit. I just couldn’t stand it. Mother thought I was kind of funny not wanting to go out to the dance
with him. I said, “Mother I can’t go, I just can’t.” She said, “Well, try!” I said, “I went twice and
that was it.” I said, “If he wants to go to the dance, he can go with Howard.”
Commented [MR43]: Comma here
When I went down to Snow, he had an aunt there in Ephraim, and I saw him once in a while up
Commented [MR44]: No need to capitalize

24
there, but I don’t think he ever wore that suit again. I never saw it again. He was a real nice, clean
boy. I thought he was the right one, but no. I guess I am kind of funny. I was friends with him. He
married a girl from Manti. They moved up to Manti. He was a forest ranger. He just wasn’t for me.
He lived next to Oscar Moody.

His cousin Barbara lived across the street from Oscar. She and I were very good friends. We used
to write and see each other once in a while. Then she got married, and the last I heard she was in
Springville. That was a few years ago. I think one of the boys said she passed away, but I didn’t
know. It was a lot of fun. I guess I was a little too harsh, but I just couldn’t do it. He was nice
looking, though, and he was clean. Commented [MR45]: There should be commas on either
side of this.
After I left Moroni in 1924, I lived at 253 Third Avenue in Salt Lake City with Mother and Commented [MR46]: It’s a bit visually confusing to have
Howard. My sister Lil and her husband Ray McKinnon were living on the other side of our these two numbers separate but right next to each other.
apartment. It was a beautiful old home that had been made into four apartments. We lived in the Could we say “253 Third Avenue” instead?

two downstairs apartments. Eventually Howard and Ray purchased the whole house.

After Howard got married they lived upstairs in one side, and Amanda and George and their family
lived in the other side. Mother and I and Lil and Ray continued to live downstairs. While Howard
lived there the twins, Bryant and Byron, and Stephen were born. All three of Lil’s children were
also born there, Dorothea, Dixie and Rachel. Amanda had four children when they came there,
George Jr., Lois, Ben and Roland.

Ethel and Waldemer lived across the street on B street. They already had Ronald and Paul. Karen
was born while they lived there. It was wonderful to have everybody in the family so close. It was
one big happy family. We used to have some good times! We’d all get together many evenings, or
go on picnics, and the children were always together. The twins and Rachel had a hilarious time.
They used to get dressed up in dresses and high-heeled shoes and parade around the block. They
were a scream.

It was a glorious time being all together. The grown-ups played a lot of Rook. Waldemer was
always the winner. Jack and Helena lived in Salt Lake for a short time, and they would join us
often at 253 Third Avenue. Commented [MR47]: Again, if you feel it’s okay, let’s
change this to Third
In the early 1940s, Amanda and George bought a house at 475 D Street. Soon after that Virginia Commented [MR48]: Comma
was born. George died in October 1945. Virginia was about two years old. That was a sad time—
especially for Amanda. Lois and Norm Clark were engaged to be married on November 7. Even
though George died, they were counseled to go through with the wedding. After they were married
they left to go to Washington D.C., where Norm reported to the Navy. Later Norm was sent to
Hawaii and Lois came home. I helped her get a job at ZCMI at the Wholesale Drug.

Then Howard and Ella bought a home. The two apartments, vacated by Howard and Amanda and
families, were rented to people outside the family.

On April 26, 1946, I was married to Gene, and we lived at the Wesley Apartments on 3rd Avenue.
Lil and Ray and Howard sold the house on 3rd Avenue in 1946. Lil and Ray moved back to
Moroni, and Mother went with them. During the time we lived on the avenues, Oscar and Frank

25
lived with their families in Fayette. Oscar died in 1933. They don’t know what happened. He may Commented [MR49]: Is there a date missing here? You
have been thrown from his horse, but they found him unconscious on the ground. He regained might want to check the original, as it’s possible that the
PDF reader didn’t pick it up.
consciousness, but he never recovered. He died of peritonitis in the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake.
Oscar and Ruby had one daughter, Enid.

Frank and Pearl had eight sons, and Frank had decided there was no future for his boys in Fayette,
so they moved to Springville and bought 10 acres of land with a house on it.

Frank didn’t like farming too much. Frank died of cancer in 1940. Pearl was left with eight Commented [MR50]: Again, there’s a date missing here.
children to raise. Six months after he died, their four-year old was hit by a truck and killed.
Another son died while serving in the military. The six boys that remained, Kenneth, Ben, Lee,
Don, Darwin and Jim, all had to get jobs as soon as they were old enough. They pulled together
and saw that all graduated from high school and went to college. They really helped each other.

When Lee was a boy he was injured in an accident. They had to amputate above the knee and he
has an artificial leg. That didn’t stop him from doing things. He learned to play various sports and
has done well in life. The brothers pooled their money and sent two of the boys on missions,
Darwin and Jim.

Darwin went to New Zealand and Jim went to Germany. Soon after Jim came home from his
mission, his mother died. He went to BYU and then to dental school. He has been my dentist for
about 10 years. Every year, all of Frank’s boys get together on Memorial Day with all their
families. Lee has a timeshare with a houseboat on Lake Powell. He sees that all his brothers and Commented [MR51]: I think “timeshare” is just one
families have a trip to Lake Powell. I have been with him three times on the houseboat. They have word, no hyphen.
been wonderful times. All the boys have been good to me. In 1949, I had a very sick spell and was
operated on, and I recuperated at Amanda’s house on D Street. I lived there with her until she died
in 1961. Then the house was sold. I moved to the Kimball Apartments on Main Street, just across
the street from the temple, and lived there about four years.

In 1965, Ethel had a stroke. I went back and forth from my apartment to her house to help. Finally,
Waldemer said, “You’d better just move up here, instead of paying rent and going back and forth.”
So I moved to 1253 First South. I changed my work shift and began working from noon until 9 Commented [MR52]: Change this to “First”? Same
p.m. at ZCMI. I have lived there at 1253 ever since. I helped Waldemer take care of Ethel until he reason as before.
died on March 17, 1975. Then Paul moved home from Northridge, California, where he was
teaching, and helped me take care of Ethel until she died, March 20, 1980.

In 1938, Wilford was going back to Detroit to buy him a big truck and drive it home. Ray and I got
to talking and we decided to go in together and buy a Ford sedan for Wilford to bring home on the
truck. He got home all right with the truck and the car. We had to try it out, so we all went for a
ride. Then Wilford went home to Moroni.

Later in the summer, Wilford decided he wanted to go to Yellowstone Park, so he put a top on the
truck like a covered wagon. He filled the truck bed with hay and put in a tent. Wilford, Jack and
Helena, Christie and Olive came to Salt Lake and asked Mother and I to go with them. We took
Lois with us. Mother, Jack and Wilford rode in the front, and the rest of us rode in the back. That
was the first time I had been to Yellowstone. It was an exciting trip. We’d stop to see the bears.

26
Wilford went fishing a little. At one campsite Wilford and Jack met a mother bear and two cubs.
She started to chase them, and they ran back very fast and climbed into the truck. We had a lot of
fun. On the way home, Mother got sick from going around many curves in the road. We met Bob
Barns and his Scout troop. Bob was a neighbor of ours on B Street. The Scouts had caught a lot of
trout, so they gave us half their fish. We cooked those for our supper that night. They were very
good. Wilford really knew how to cook them. It was a wonderful trip, but we were glad to get
home.

Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve participated in the Church. When I lived in Moroni I taught the
kindergarten children. I enjoyed being with the little children. They all seemed so innocent and
sweet.

In those days when we had stake conferences, they’d have them in Moroni, Mt. Pleasant or Spring
City. They were held every three months. We’d travel to conference any way we could go—
buggies or wagons. Our ward choir sang in a lot of the conferences. We had a good choir. There
would always be a general authority. I remember Joseph F. Smith coming. We went over to Mt.
Pleasant to see him leave on the train. There were many others who came.

We attended seminary in high school. We had a wonderful teacher, a Brother Dorias from
Ephraim. He taught at Snow College, too.

After one year at Snow, we moved to Salt Lake. I didn’t go to church much at first because I had
to work most Sundays at the Owl Drug. We lived in the 18th Ward, Ensign Stake. Bishop Thomas
A. Clawson was our bishop. Sometime in the ’30s the ward was divided. We were in the North
18th Ward. My records have been in that ward ever since. In 1935 I met my good friend Minnie
Christenson in church. We shared a song book, and we became good friends from then on. Soon
after we met we were called to be Sunday School teachers. We taught the 10 and 11-year-olds
together. Oh, we had some good kids—and some not so good.

Through Minnie, I met her two sisters, Mable and Bernice. We all became very good friends and
went many places together. We went on vacations together. Over the years we went to Canada, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and Hawaii. In 1936, Minnie and I were called to serve
as stake missionaries for two years. Our main mission was to get people active. We saw that
several children were baptized. We visited with many people who were not members of the church.
There were many non-members in the area. It was after the Depression, and there were WPA
workers in town. We would find the wives home in the day time and had many good discussions.
Some of them came out to Church. I don’t remember if any were converted. Minnie was not my
companion. I was with Agnes Manookin. Judge Oscar McConkie, Bruce R. McConkie’s father,
was our mission president.

After Minnie and I were released from our mission and from Sunday School, we were called to
teach in Mutual. After two years of teaching the Laurels in Mutual, Minnie was called to be the
president of the Mutual. I continued teaching with Ardis Price. We became very good friends. She
was almost like a sister at times. Ardis and I went to a party, and there she met Burt Price, who
became her husband. And now they are serving as temple president and matron in Samoa.

27
Minnie and I used to go to all the Mutual activities. We went on the weekends with the girls up in
the canyon to the MIA home in Brighton. In Sunday School we had a wonderful teacher, Byron
Anderson. He would organize a weekend for us to go up to Pinecrest and hold Sunday School up
there. Richard R. Lyman came up several times and would help us hold Sunday School. That was
a lot of fun. Really and truly, we looked forward to those activities with the ward and being with
the girls.

For many years I sang in the choir. While they lived in the ward, Lil, Ray, George, Lois, and I all
sang in the choir. We had some noted choir directors—Albert Southwick, Marlowe Nielson,
Richard Condie, H. Frederick Davis. We had a big choir, and we put on concerts all over. We even
put on a concert with Marian Anderson, the noted black soprano. She was one of the first blacks
that became a famous singer that I know of. Oh, she was a sweet person. Apostle Albert Bowen
and his wife Lucy Gates, a noted singer (they were in our ward), had Marian Anderson stay with Commented [MR53]: Let’s move this comma to after the
them when she was in Salt Lake. None of the hotels would allow her to stay there. parentheses that follow it.

The Ensign Stake was noted for a lot of the leaders that came from that stake—President Heber J.
Grant, Stephen L. Richards, Joseph Fielding Smith, J. Reuben Clark and Marion G. Romney. Next
door to us on B Street lived the Richard L. Evans family. He wasn’t married at that time. His
mother and my mother were good friends. I met his sister Florence at church. She taught Sunday
School at the same time I did, and she used to go places with us. Richard L. Evans would see that
she had tickets to go to concerts and things, and she would take me with her. Sometimes we would
sit in the back of the Tabernacle Choir seats after they were seated.

The last wife of President Joseph F. Smith lived next door on 3rd Avenue (our house was on the
corner of 3rd and B). Her name was Mary Smith, and there were still children living at home.
President Smith died in 1918. There was a large picture of him in the parlor, and you could see it Commented [MR54]: I suspect we’ll want to go with the
through the window. Apostle Rudger Clawson lived in our ward, and President and Sister Benson American spelling here, “parlor.” The Brits are the ones who
throw a U in there.
have been coming to our ward about twice a month during the past few years. His daughter lives in
our ward.

When I moved up to live with Ethel and Waldemer, I became a visiting teacher, and I’ve been one
ever since. I’ve also been called to be a greeter at Relief Society.

Over the years we had many family get-togethers. Sometimes we’d get together and decide to go
up to Brighton or Mill Creek or Tanner Flats on a Saturday. We’d take our picnics and freeze ice
cream with the snow. We had a hand-crank freezer. There were the Colts, the McKinnons, the
Olsens and the Reads, and sometimes some friends. While some of the women stayed at the camp
and got things ready, all the men folks went hiking with all the kids. That was a fun time. We
enjoyed the picnics and being together.

When we didn’t go up the canyon, Waldemer and Ethel had a beautiful backyard with a patio,
beautiful rose garden and vegetable garden and flowers. Most of all they had a lovely patio with a
barbecue. Oh, did we have many a good meal out there—and a good time. They were really
wonderful people and we had lots of good times there. Sometimes we went to the Colts or the
McKinnons or the Olsens, especially when we were going to be indoors because of the weather.

28
Every once in a while there would be a surprise party for me on my birthday. Ron or Waldemer
would pick me up and take me for a ride and then finally take me home to the party.

I went on lots of trips with Waldemer and Ethel and Ronald and David. Sometimes others went
with us—like Rachel and Karen. Sometimes Wilford would go. It might be a long weekend or a
regular weekend. We went up to the Coolie Dam when it was being built. Waldemer liked to go to
Idaho and Montana. We went up to Canada and Colorado, Yellowstone and the Tetons. When
David was older we went to Southern Utah—to the canyons and to Vernal. We went to the Uintas
and picked bullberries. Sometimes we just went to Mirror Lake. That was a very pretty drive. Commented [MR55]: Is this different from “blueberries”?
Waldemer, Amanda and Wilford and I went up in the Northwest to Portland and Seattle. Just checking.
Commented [MR56]: We went there this summer before
In 1955 I met Chi Terazawa at Amanda’s house. One of Amanda’s friends, Mildred Sloan, wanted the eclipse trip! Mirror lake in the Uintas!
her to go to the Rose Parade. Amanda couldn’t leave but she said, “Maybe my sister would like to
go.” So Mildred said she would bring Chi over, and Chi would tell us about the trip. This was a
Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s. I had to wait and see if I could take an extra day off
work. I found out Monday morning that I could go, so I called Amanda and told her to tell
Mildred I could go.

That was the first time I went on a tour with Chi. We left two days before New Year’s and drove
all night to get to Los Angeles, where we stayed the night. We went to the horse races the next day
and to watch them build the floats as it was New Year’s Eve. We had New Year’s Eve dinner and
had to get up at 4 a.m. to get to Pasadena to see the parade.

Chi and her sisters, Hede and Taru, made us sandwiches to eat at the parade, and then after the
parade we had a box lunch to eat on the way home. We rode all night and arrived home in time for
me to go to work. But, oh, what a wonderful time we had. Chi was just starting in her business as a
tour agent, and we became very good friends from that day on. Every Saturday from that day on I
would have my hair done, and she would pick me up and we’d go down to Payson and Springville
and Provo and visit people she knew and talk up her tour and get them to sign up. I went on many
little trips with Chi, but I’ll tell mostly about the big ones.

In 1958 I went with Chi on another tour to the Northwest and to Canada. It was a wonderful bus
load of people. Marvin J. Ashton’s mother was on the trip and was a diabetic. She asked me if I
would help her. I met lots of nice people on those bus tours.

In 1964 Wilford and I went to the World’s Fair in New York City. We stayed at the Waldorf
Astoria. On Chi’s tours we had nothing but the best. We went to Radio City and saw the Rockettes,
the Statue of Liberty, and they had just finished building the Chase Stadium. We had our choice of
seats, so we sat in the box seats to see how it felt. Oh, the fair was magnificent! We palled around
with Thurza (a girl at ZCMI) and her husband Lynn Strong.

We wanted to spend another day at the fair, but Wilford and Lynn didn’t want to go, so they took a
tour around New York. Thurza and I and some other ladies and Chi went to eat lunch at the
Indonesian Pavilion at the fair. That was beautiful. The building was beautiful and also the way
they dressed.

29
After people had been on four trips with Chi, she invited them to a big dinner. The dinner would be Commented [MR57]: Attending?
held in a LDS cultural hall. There would be hundreds attending. Her sister Hede would do most of
the cooking. At one of these dinners I won a trip down to Monument Valley. We stayed at a lodge
and ate at the restaurant there. They had wonderful food. We took trips in a jeep down into the
valley with Indian guides. The guide we had stopped at his hogan, and we went in and met his
grandma and mother and father. The grandma was sitting on the floor weaving a beautiful rug on a
loom. The hogan was spotless even though they had dirt floors. Their bedding was rolled up
around the sides of the hogan. The scenery with all the red sand and rock was really beautiful.

In the mid-’60s we went back to the Palmyra Pageant—also to Philadelphia, Chicago and Kirtland
and Nauvoo. We spent a night in Cleveland, and 13 of us went to a baseball game—the Cleveland
Reds and the Chicago Cubs. That was the first and last professional ball game I went to. When
they hit a home run, all of a sudden there were sirens and fireworks, and I wondered what was
going on. I have always loved sports, though, and I’ve listened to the games on the radio and seen
them on TV. I went to a lot of University games with Waldemer, and to a lot of baseball games to
see the Salt Lake Bees play with Minnie, Mable and Bernice, and Waldemer sometimes. We sat in
box seats. You have to have box seats! For a few years we had the same seats.

In 1967 Wilford and I went with Chi and a bus load of people to the fair in Montreal, Canada. I
roomed with June Brewer, a good friend. In New Hampshire we went up to White Mountain on a
clog railroad. It was a beautiful sight up there. We tried to get hold of Karen and Jim Epperson, but
they were not home. The next year the clog railroad burned down, and I still have the clipping
from the paper telling about it. We went on into Canada and stayed in the famous hotel in Quebec.
I can’t remember the name. I went with some others on a ferry across the Hudson River. We saw
some beautiful churches. The day before we left Quebec, we had to leave the hotel early because
DeGaul, the president of France, was coming. We were out watching his ship come down the
Hudson on the way to Montreal.

In Montreal we stayed at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, while there we saw them roll out the red
carpet for Princess Grace Kelly and her son. We got to see them come down the stairway. That was
quite a thrill. Then we spent three days at the fair. We heard DeGaul talk in the big square. He was
very tall and straight.

We went to Canada several times. Twice we went to the stampede in Calgary. Boy, that was wild!
It was like a rodeo, but much rougher. They had chuck wagon races, horse racing, dog racing,
barrel racing, trying to catch greased pigs and all kinds of competitions. The second time we were
there, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip were in Calgary to open the ceremonies. We stayed at
the same hotel they were at. The mounted police were all out in uniform. In their uniforms they
looked so handsome.

It was a wonderful sight. We were right behind them and could almost have reached out and
touched the queen and the prince. They were elegant.

I had a flashback to the time Minnie, Mable and Bernice and I went to Canada. We stayed at the
Vancouver Hotel and shared one great big room with four beds, four dressers, and four wardrobes.

30
We made friends with the doorman. Every day when we’d go down, he’d say, “Where do you
ladies want to go today?”

He would tell us the nice places to go and the nice places to eat. One night when we came home he
asked us if we would like to see the queen’s suite. So he took us up and we went through the
queen’s rooms. We saw all her china, silver, linens, and jewelry and everything. It was really
elegant. Then he took us in to show us where the prince stays when he’s there. It was a handsome
suite for a man. He had his own set of china, silver and linens. That was something everyone didn’t
get to see. The doorman liked us and took good care of us. We always had flowers and a little treat
in our room.

The next big trip I took with Mable and Bernice, we went to Hawaii with Chi. That was in 1970. I
met my good friend Thelma Steggell on that trip. We have been on trips together ever since. We
were in Hawaii for 10 days and went to all the islands. We stayed about a block from the beach and
went to the beach often. We went to some concerts at a place they called The Pearl, where we
heard Hawaiian music. One of Chi’s friends invited us to his house and two grandmothers cooked Commented [MR58]: Heard?
us a nine-course dinner. They had an elegant house. We had to take our shoes off and we walked
on their elegant carpet. His name was Mr. Fong and he was a member of the Church. We went to
the Polynesian Cultural Center and saw the temple and visitor’s center and BYU-Hawaii. We also
went to Pearl Harbor. Everything they could think of they took us to.

Minnie didn’t want to fly over the water to go with us, but she said she’d fly to San Francisco to
meet us, so we stayed about a week in San Francisco. My nephew Bryant lived in San Francisco.
He had us to his place for dinner and took us sightseeing. We spent some wonderful days in San
Francisco. We liked it so much we went back the next year for our vacation.

In 1974 we went back with Chi to see the fall colors in New England. It was gorgeous. Lots of old
friends were on that trip. I roomed with Ellen Steele. Wilford was with us, and we went to the open
house of the Washington D.C. Temple. Wilford and I were both very impressed. It was beautiful. I
said, “I hope I get back here to go through it.” That’s the trip when we went down to Tennessee.
David and Carolyn had just moved there.

I called David on the phone. We went through the Smokey Mountains. I’ve never seen such
beautiful colors. We went to Nashville to the Grand Old Opry. They had just opened the new opera
house.

In 1976 we went back to Philadelphia for the Bicentennial. We saw all the interesting historical
buildings there. I went with June Brewer and Wilford. We went to Boston and through Lexington
and Concord, where we saw the little red schoolhouse.

We went to Ithaca to the college, and to Corning, New York, where we saw the Corningware Commented [MR59]: I’m pretty sure this is spelled
factory. It rained so hard we didn’t get to go to Boston and walk the Freedom Trail. We went “Ithaca”
through a session in the Washington Temple.

Wilford and I with various friends went on a lot of little trips. Wilford went on some big trips all
by himself. He went to the Mardi Gras three times and Caribbean cruises. At first he didn’t want to

31
go with Chi on a bus. He wanted to do the driving. But after the first trip in 1964 to the fair in New
York, he decided that was the only way to go. The last trip he took was to Alaska. He wanted me
to go, but I couldn’t leave because I was taking care of Ethel. Waldemer had died. He said, “This is
going to be my last trip.” He had a little cold when he left Salt Lake, but Chi said she’d take good
care of him. He didn’t seem to be able to shake the cold, and on the way home from Alaska, he
took very sick. They pulled in at Fort Charles, Canada, and took him to the hospital. They called
me and wanted me to come up to be with him, but I couldn’t leave, so Howard went up. One of the
ladies on the bus stayed with Wilford until Howard got there. Howard was there about three days.
Wilford was unconscious and finally died in the hospital. There was a lot of red tape to get the
body shipped home. But that was a good way for him to go. I feel very thankful that he didn’t have
to suffer much.

Several times we came with Chi to the Rose Parade. We always came to San Diego and went to
Sea World, the zoo or wild animal park, and Tijuana. I would call Ronald and they would come
down to the hotel room and visit. We always stayed in the Holiday Inn by San Diego Bay.
Sometimes Ronald and Helen would pick me up and take me to their house to visit. The last trip to
the Rose Parade was in . In November we had gone to Elko with Chi. We went to Elko every once Commented [MR60]: Another date missing here.
in a while. I roomed with Thelma, and we were at a casino. Thelma came to find me to tell me she
had a good machine. We both won $600. I said, “We’re going to the Rose Parade.”

On that trip, Chris came and got Thelma and me at the Holiday Inn in San Diego. He said he was
taking us to a wedding reception. It was one of Helen’s friends that had a son get married. Matt
sang on the program. Allen was taking pictures and Helen was helping serve. After the wedding
we went to Ronald’s house to visit.

I think it was 1986 that I took my last big trip. I went with Chi to Florida to Disney World, the
Epcott Center and Cypress Gardens. We toured Orlando, but we spent most of our time at Epcott.
It was wonderful. The China building and the France building were both outstanding, but I loved it
all. Canada and the USA had fantastic buildings, too. We liked the Kraft building where they had
the herb gardens and a revolving restaurant. Hede and I roomed together on that trip. Chi took us
all to a Chinese restaurant at Epcott that was really something. The whole thing was just fantastic.

I’ve had many trips to Disneyland with Norm, Lois and their family. I like Disneyland better than
Disney World, but I really like the Epcott Center. We spent five days there.

My first visit to spend the winter with Ronald and family in San Diego was in 1985. I had a private
room. Christiane Pauls was there that year. She stayed in Karen’s room and I stayed in the north
bedroom. She was busy, busy going to school and getting ready to get married, but we did a few
things together. They also had another person occupying the downstairs bedroom, David Taylor.
He was renting the room. David is quite a character. You never knew what he was going to do or
say next. He was really a fun person. He lived with them two years.

Christiane and Steve had an exceptionally nice wedding and reception in March. I stayed for the
wedding. Her parents and grandparents and sister came from Germany and we did some nice
things with them. We went to the zoo and Disneyland and the desert. Christiane’s mother loved

32
desert plants and flowers. It was a wonderful time with them. We had them come to dinner a
couple of times.

In the first four years I came to San Diego, we’d go up in the mountains several times. Sometimes
we went over to the desert to see the wild flowers. We’d also buy some delicious grapefruit. One
year we went up to Cuyamaca to see Halley’s comet. Lots of people came up—Matt, Eric, Allen Commented [MR61]: Capitalize—it’s part of the title
and friends, Christiane, Steve and David and his brothers. We all got a good look at the comet. I
made a great big pot of chili. I thought it didn’t taste too good, but it was all gone.

I was a little apprehensive to come to San Diego. I was worried about how I’d get along with them,
but they made me feel so at home. Ron works long hours at the hospital. The first part of the week
we hardly see him, but when he’s home he is busy with his garden and the yard. He has some of
the most wonderful raspberries and tomatoes. It’s a beautiful garden. He has some cactus flowers
that are the most gorgeous you have ever seen. He also spends a lot of time working on the
computer. He is very kind and very generous.

Ronald and Helen, put out a church newspaper that takes a lot, lot of time. When the paper is ready
to mail, we all help get it ready with labeling and binding and sacking. Helen is on the go all the
time, going this place and that place, interviewing people, getting stories and pictures.

After the first year I didn’t know if they’d ever want me to come back, after putting up with me,
but they held their arms open and welcomed me back the next year. I couldn’t resist the invitation
to go back. Besides all the work they do, they have sent their five children all on foreign missions
(one went to Hawaii), which is so wonderful. At two different times they had two children out at
once. Commented [MR62]: I love reading these memories of
hers that have to do with our family!
In 1988 and 1989 Helen’s father, Seymour Jensen, was staying with her while I stayed with them.
The first year we went to the temple in Los Angeles many times with him, and we usually did
about four sessions. One day we did five. The second year he was very ill most of the time. He had
pneumonia twice and also had a stroke. He was well enough by his birthday in April to have a little
open house, so we all helped give him a party for his 93rd birthday. Helen and Ron lovingly took
care of him for about seven months before he went back to Utah. He died in August in Salt Lake.

I have shared Karen’s room with her the last couple of years. She is the most generous, kind,
loving niece, always doing nice things for me. We have spent many nice evenings going out and
getting ice cream or going for a ride. She is a very busy girl going to school and working and busy
with a boyfriend. She is such a wonderful girl. I want the very best for her.

I would like all my nieces and nephews and families to know how much I have appreciated all the
nice things they have done for me. You have all taken good care of me, and I’ve certainly enjoyed
all the good times we have had together at different occasions. You have all invited me to be part
of your gatherings, which I really appreciate.

I want to thank especially Lois and Norm Clark for all the good times and trips they have invited
me on. I’ve kind of helped the boys grow up at Disneyland. I’d like them to know how much I
appreciate all they have done for me. They have been very generous in inviting me to go with them

33
on trips. Especially Lois has always been there for me when I have needed her. She has helped me
through a lot of hard times, and is still there when I need her—with her time, generosity and
concern to see that everything I need is taken care of. Lloyd and Virginia have also been very
good to me in many, many ways, and I do appreciate their love and concern and I love them very
much. When we’ve needed anything, Virginia and Lloyd have been there to help us. Dorothea and
Roy have also been thoughtful and considerate and very kind. Now that they have retired they have
taken me to San Diego and come and taken me home, as well as going on some other little trips.

The last 15 years Paul has shared his home with me and has taken very good care of me. We have
a happy life. He’s very busy in the yard and other things, but he’s never too busy to help me when
I need help. I just couldn’t get along without him. I’m very happy to have a home to live in. Paul
and I have had a lot of good times together when the families have come. He is very thoughtful and
kind and appreciates family members when they come. Everybody is welcome at our house. Paul
gave up a lot to come live in Salt Lake. He was teaching in California, but he gave up his school to
take care of his mother after his father died.

And thanks to Carol Clark for making this history possible. She is very outstanding in all that she
does, and she was the motivator and the inspiration for doing this, and saw to it that we taped it and
transcribed it. I’m very thankful for all who helped with this history, including Ron and Helen who
helped type, edit and print the final product.

34
ETHEL ELIZABETH OLSEN READ

Ethel Elizabeth Olsen was born in the family home in Moroni, Utah, August 21, 1896, the eighth of
twelve children. As a young girl she carried her share of the many chores that needed to be done in a
farming community, working long hours in the yard, on the farm and in the house. As a teenager in
high school, she nearly died with appendicitis. She was in the hospital for weeks with peritonitis. In
those days there were no antibiotics and the doctor was very surprised when she pulled through.

Ethel liked school. She graduated from Moroni High, after which she went to Salt Lake City and
attended The University of Utah. In 1918 she left to fulfill a mission in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois
and Indiana. She then returned to the University of Utah, after which she taught school in Moroni,
Fairview, Rexburg, Idaho and Ogden, teaching both elementary and high school.

It was while she was teaching in Ogden that she met Waldemer Read. Levi Swenson, a missionary
companion of Waldemer’s, introduced them at a social function. Soon they made plans to marry.

On October 24, 1924, they were wed in the Salt Lake Temple. They began married life with Waldemer
teaching school in Manti and later Tooele, and finally teaching in Salt Lake.

As the years passed, along came the children. Ronald was first (1927), then Paul (1932), then Karen
(1934), and somewhat later David (1942). In Salt Lake City, Waldemer was offered a job teaching at
the University of Utah. He went on to graduate school and finally received a doctorate at the University
of Chicago. During this time, Ethel devoted her life to her husband and children. Though she enjoyed
many outside interests, her family was foremost.

Ethel was an active, busy person most of her life, with a great deal of strength and stamina. This is
perhaps seen by the way she carried on in spite of her illnesses and disabilities.

In 1965 she had a stroke, which was followed by one or two others. Gradually she became confined to a
wheelchair. In healthier times she baked bread, canned food, hung wallpaper, laid linoleum and painted
walls and, furniture. She also helped her children manage four paper routes every morning for a period
of years. She did her share of the work.

But especially, Ethel loved working in the garden. She knew how to make things grow. Waldemer and
Ethel were up before dawn almost every morning out working in the yard. Much time was devoted to
gathering soil, rocks, bulbs, seeds and seedlings. Ethel made a point of collecting a rock from nearly
every place she traveled. For the two of them, working in the garden was their hobby, their outlet, their
fulfillment and their time to be together.

After the family was established in Salt Lake, they lived on the Avenues near three sisters and a brother
and their families. There were the Colts, McKinnons, Olsens and Reads. Grandma Olsen was there, too.
They were one close-knit, congenial family, sharing holidays, picnics, canyon trips and work projects.
Cousins were more like brothers and sisters.

Ethel’s interests were varied. She loved literature, art and music. She taught the literature lesson in
Relief Society for many years and was always reading a good book, magazine or newspaper.

At one time she held a position with the city library. Naturally she encouraged her children to get an
education. They all took music lessons and some took lessons in art. She was always up on current
events and interested in politics. She was active for many years in the Democratic Party, serving as a
precinct captain and delegate. She assisted in counting many ballots many times.
In later years Ethel became concerned about and involved with her grandchildren. They were a great
joy both before and after she was confined to a wheel chair. She always had time for them, always
happy to see them and was anxious to share their successes. She and Waldemer redesigned the
backyard to include a swing and sandpile for the little ones.

After she became an invalid, she remained cheerful and interested in life. She continued reading as long
as possible, was interested in world affairs and everything that went on around her. She loved to watch
the birds come to the porch, especially hummingbirds, looking for the food she encouraged others to
put out for them. Waldemer would bring flowers in from the garden almost every day to delight her.
Her favorite activity during those years was a ride in the canyon and perhaps a picnic.

For ten years after her stroke, Waldemer took care of her.

Part of that time, her sister Madeline lived in the home with them and assisted in her care. When
Waldemer died in March, 1975, Paul came home to help. During the early part of 1980, Ethel’s health
began to seriously deteriorate. She died after slipping into a coma on March 20, 1980. Funeral services
were held March 24 and burial was in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.
Eulogy given at the funeral of Ethel Elizabeth Olsen Read — March 1980

By Ronald F. Read

I know that Mother is pleased that we are all gathered together here today to pay our respects to her.
She loved nothing more than being with her family and friends. For our family (my brothers, sister,
Aunt Mad and I), we would like to thank you for coming to share these last few moments with her.

It seems appropriate that we begin today by remembering some of the highlights of her life and some
of the special attributes that make her unique to all of us. Her history begins thus:

Ethel Elizabeth Olsen was born in Moroni, Utah, in the family home on August 21, 1896, the eighth of
twelve children. Her parents were both immigrants. Grandmother Olsen came from Denmark at the
age of 15. Grandfather was just three years of age when he arrived from Sweden, coming to Utah with
a handcart company.

As a young girl, Mother carried her share of the many chores that needed to be done in a farming
community, working long hours in the yard, on the farm and in the house. As a teenager in high
school, she nearly died of appendicitis. She was in the hospital for weeks, but she surprised the doctor
and pulled through.

Mother liked school and graduated from Moroni High School. Afterwards she came to Salt Lake City
and attended the University of Utah. In 1918 she left to fill an LDS mission in the states of Wisconsin,
Michigan, Illinois and Indiana. She then returned to the University of Utah and received a teaching
certificate.

She taught both elementary and high school in Moroni, Fairview, Rexburg, Idaho, and Ogden. It was
while she was teaching in Ogden that she met Waldemer P. Read. Levi Swenson, a missionary
companion of Dad’s, was the one that introduced the two of them at a social function. It was not long
until they made plans for marriage. On October 24, 1924, they were wed in the Salt Lake Temple.

They began married life with Dad teaching school in Manti and later Tooele and finally in Salt Lake.
As the years passed, along came the children. I was first, then Paul, Karen, and somewhat later David
arrived. In Salt Lake City, Dad was offered a job teaching at the University of Utah. He went on to
graduate school and finally received a doctorate at the University of Chicago. But as for Mother, she
devoted her life to her husband and children. Though she enjoyed many outside interests, her family
was foremost. Her husband—she loved, admired and supported his work. Always she praised him to
others. Not long after he died, she requested that we address her letters as Mrs. W.P. Read, rather than
Mrs. Ethel Read. They worked together side-by-side—he for her and she for him.

Yesterday, the four of us children with Aunt Mad sat in the living room where Mother had spent the
last years of her life,

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and we shared with each other the memories we have of her. These are some of our thoughts:

Mother was an active, busy person for most of her life, with a great deal of strength and stamina. This
is perhaps seen by the way she carried on in spite of her illnesses and disabilities. But in healthier days
she canned food, baked bread, hung wallpaper, laid linoleum, painted walls and furniture, and helped
her children manage four paper routes every morning, doing her share of the work. But especially,
Mother worked in the garden. She loved the garden and knew how to make things grow. I remember
that Mother and Dad were up before dawn almost every morning, out working together in the yard.
Much time was devoted to collecting soil, rocks, bulbs, seeds and seedlings. Mother made a point of
collecting a rock from every place she ever went. Our yard was full of many kinds of flowers,
vegetables, grapes, fruit trees and berry bushes. There was little room for grass. For Mom and Dad,
working in the garden was their hobby, outlet, fulfillment, and their time to be together.

After our family was established in Salt Lake, we lived on the Avenues, near three of mothers sisters
and a brother and their families. The Colts, McKinnons, Olsens and Reads. Grandma Olsen and Aunt
Mad were there, too. We were a close-knit, congenial family, sharing holidays, picnics, canyon trips
and work projects. Cousins were more like brothers and sisters. My mother was an important part of
that picture, working, planning the fun, and teaching the young ones what they needed to know.

Mother’s interests were varied. She loved literature, art and music. She taught the literature lessons in
Relief Society for many years and was always reading a good book, magazine or newspaper. At one
time she held a position with the city library. Naturally she encouraged her children to get a good
education, and we all took lessons in music and some of us in art. I remember many times that she sat
close to the piano, supervising our practicing.

Mom was always up on current events and interested in politics. She was active for many years in the
Democratic Party—serving as a precinct captain and delegate, and she assisted counting ballots many
times.

Mother took time to care about her neighbors—sharing their joys and sorrows and sending gifts and
food at special times. She loved them and they loved her.

In later years, our memories of Mother chiefly concern the grandchildren. They were her great joy,
both before and after she was confined to a wheelchair. She always had time for them, always was
happy to see them, always anxious to share their successes. I asked our children what they
remembered about their grandmother. Our oldest son Matt said, “She was always proud of us. She
even had our pictures where everyone could see them.”

Our daughter Karen replied, “I think I’ll always remember how happy she was when we came to see
her. And then it was sad for all of us when we had to leave.” Allen’s comment was: “She was always
kind and did well with her handicap—most of the time we didn’t think about her having one.” Spencer
commented that her greatest characteristic was her optimism and her love for her grandchildren. “She
had all our pictures up and she knew about all of us and all the pictures.”

Mother also displayed the children’s art work and even today there are pictures in the kitchen created

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by the grandchildren. She and Dad re-designed the backyard for the little ones, putting in a sand box
and a swing set. When our daughter Karen was about one and a half years old, she stood at the big
mirror in the dining room and patted it with gooey hands. The handprints stayed there for a week or so.
When someone offered to clean the mirror, Mother said, “No, not for a while. I enjoy looking at them
there.” Later she cared for her granddaughter, Karen, three afternoons a week while my wife taught
preschool.

The grandchildren were so important to both Dad and Mom that once Dad was being interviewed on
TV and was asked what his hobbies were—he overlooked his gardening and replied, “Our
grandchildren.”

After Mother became an invalid, we were delighted with her interest in life and the many things
around her. She was almost always cheerful, and she continued (while she could) her reading and
interest in world affairs. She loved to watch the birds come to the porch—especially hummingbirds—
looking for the food she encouraged others to put out for them. Dad would bring flowers in from the
garden almost every day to delight her. Her favorite activity was a ride in the canyon and, if possible, a
picnic. Many times when we visited in the summer, we took her to the canyons. It was only the last
year or so that she said she was not strong enough to go. We deeply regretted when that time came.
Seeing her slowly become weaker and less able to show her enthusiasm was difficult for all of us.

I would like to say now, for all the rest of the family, a very special “thank you” to Aunt Mad and Paul
for their care of Mother—day and night—during these many years of illness and confinement. They
have provided love, emotional support, comfort and, of course, untiring nursing care. We owe Paul
and Aunt Mad our undying gratitude.

I would also like to remember my father, who took great of her until five years ago when he passed
away. He literally spent day and night with her. Also, thanks to Lois Clark and many other relatives
and friends who were very kind, thoughtful, loving and helpful to Mother.

Mother struggled hard for a long time. Now she is peaceful and at rest. And I am happy to have this
opportunity to say “Goodbye” to her, to remember the life we shared, and complete my experience
with her here on earth. May I suggest that we all take a look at her great strengths and let them be an
example for our own lives. I ask the Lord’s blessings to be upon us to this end.