Brigham Rees from South Wales

Brigham Rees

            Brigham Rees was born 9 April 1851 on North Crocket Farm, Walton Parish, South 
Wales.  His father was Thomas Rees and his mother was Rebecca Williams.  As a boy 
he worked on the farm learning farming as it was done there.  He also served apprentice 
as a mason, mostly in stone work.  There was a large family of them and all had to work.
Educational opportunities were very limited.  I believe he attended school parts of two 
years when a young boy and learned to read and write.  Later in life he was a student and 
quite an extensive reader of good substantial material, and developed quite a readable 
and pleasing handwriting.

            The family was converted to the doctrine taught by the Latterday Saints and like 
others had a strong desire to "come to Zion."  The way was opened up to send two of the 
family to the United States.  Brigham and his sister, Sariah, two years his senior, were the 
lucky ones.  They sailed the ship     ?           in       ?       and made their way overland over 
the Union Pacific Railroad then being constructed to somewhere in Wyoming. 

From there they walked on to Utah in the year 1869.  Mr. Rees carried his "blankets" across 
Salt Lake Valley to Bingham where he worked in the mines.  They were placer mining then, 
and the writer (his son) has in his possession a gold nugget which his father saved as a 
souvenir.  It is probably worth $30 or more today.  For several years Mr. Rees worked in 
mining camps in Utah and Nevada and at times helped to build houses in various parts of 
Utah.  He went to St. George to help build the Temple.  It was here he met the girl who later 
became his wife.  Her name was Isabella Maria Mansfield, the daughter of Matthew Mansfield, 
a member of the Nauvoo Legion and a Utah pioneer of '47 or '48.  Her mother was Johanna
 Winberg Peterson Mansfield, also an early pioneer.  They were the parents of nine children.

            Brigham Rees helped to build a number of homes in St. George, then when the Silver 
Reef Mining Camp was booming, went there to work for three years, more or less.  From 
here the family moved to Thurber, Rabbit Valley, and then, Piute County, now Wayne County.
There they pioneered for seven years when circumstances brought them to



Salt Lake County following the death of Matthew Mansfield and his wife.  Here they lived until 
it became their turn to go.  Mr. Rees worked at farming in Wayne Co. and in Salt Lake, but 
spent most of his efforts in building.  He helped to build the mental hospital -- this was in the 
80's.  Since moving to Salt Lake he helped build the Deseret News building, the Catholic 
Cathedral, the D.R.G. shops, the Sugar Factory at Sugar City, Idaho, the Smelter at Midvale, 
Utah and numerous other buildings large and small.  When the cement business threatened 
to drive the stone masons out of business, which it finally did, Mr. Rees took a trip looking 
for an opportunity to get a farm.  While on this trip he suffered exposure and caught a cold 
which developed into pneumonia and caused his death on 9 Jul 1914, his wife having 
preceded him eighteen years before. 

            Through his efforts mainly and mostly by money he saved and sent to his folks in the 
old country, the whole family came to Utah -- the last one coming about 1889 or 1890.  They 
were the parents of ten children here at the same time, some children had died in childhood.
They all had families some of them very large families, and the posterity of Thomas Rees, 
the father of Brigham, is quite numerous.

            While Brigham Rees worked hard all his life, he was handicapped by not having the 
opportunity of an education.  He did all he could to help his own family to have the 
opportunities he missed so much.

Excerpts from other story of Brigham Rees by Thomas M. Rees:

            Coming back to father's earlier life.  His parents and the children were early converts 
to Mormonism.  They had the spirit of gathering, but were too poor to emigrate, so two of 
the family - my father as the eldest son and his sister, Sariah, two years his senior, left for 
America.  He was 17, and it was in 1869  when they reached Utah before the U.P.R.R. 
was completed.  They rode by train to somewhere in Wyoming, and from there made their 
way into Utah as best they could walking most or all of the way.

            I went to Paradise two years ago next January to attend the funeral of Aunt Sariah 
(Miles).  She lived to be 95.

            Father went to St. George to work on the Temple.  It was while working there he met 
mother.  She was working at the place where he boarded.  They joined with the young folks 
in their parties, etc.  Father was a good singer and liked to sing in groups and at times alone.

            When our parents were married they came all the way to Salt Lake City by wagon to 
get married in the "Old Endowment House."  Returning to St. George they bought a little 
home of a Mr. Miles - not far from the Temple.  I was born in it April 5, 1880.  Father worked 
in St. George some time, and then went to Leeds, or rather Silver Reef - the new mining camp. 

He was working at the "babylon" Mill down on the Virgin about 3 miles SE of Leeds, and it 
was here I nearly lost my life through drowning.  I fell into the mill rach (above the mill).
Father was off shift (night shift) and was sleeping in one room of the small house.  Mother 
and a neighbor were visiting in another room when Mother felt impressed to get up and look 
out the front door.  She noticed something floating down the stream which passed just in front 
of the house.  She was startled and screamed, and father jumped out of bed and got me out 
of the water.  They put me on the table and worked over me until I came to life again.  I just 
remember playing up and down the banks of the stream, probably threw something in and 
slipped in.  All the rest I remember from hearing it told a number of times.

(The family had spent at least 7 years in Thurber (Bicknell) and had just moved to Salt Lake after Grandfather and his wife died within a few days of each other.)

            Father very soon went on a mission to the Southern States.  He was depending on the 
money Uncle Matthew and others owed him to keep us and him in the mission field.  Very little 
money came, and he went very close at times.  I remember one letter he said he had only 
five cents left in his pocket.  It was a struggle to keep him out even the four months he stayed 
before he was released because of Mother's being sick.  My Mother had been in ill health as 
long as I knew her, even before I was born.  I was then eleven years of age.  Mother lost her
eldest child, my brother, when he was a baby.  The family record says Brigham Parley Rees 
was born 14 May 1878 and died the 6th of June following - being 22 days old.  It seems she 
never could get over it, and as long as she lived afterwards always had stomach trouble.  It 
must have been from nerve shock such as I have had since my wife died last May.

           

            Father had many missionary experiences during the four months or so he was out.  I 
remember his telling many of them from time to time.  He often mentioned Elder Gray, Clark 
and others in connection with them.  He was fond of singing and with some of these other 
missionaries enjoyed singing when they got together.  They had a quartet at times.  He often 
mentioned the long walks, tired and footsore, and shoes about gone.  I remember his 
describing a walk of forty miles one day.  He would describe the cooking at the houses 
where they were invited to eat.  Sometimes it was a colored woman who was cook.  The 
people were very poor and had but few dishes to use, sometimes only one pan which was 
used for dishpan, breadpan, to wash hands in, wash the baby and all.  Once a woman was 
mixing biscuits with her hands; the baby needed its diaper changed.  She quit right in the 
middle of mixing the bread, tended the baby and went back to mixing.  One of the elders 
tried to eat his meal of potatoes and avoided the bread, but finally gave in and ate some 
biscuits.  He said he never tasted better biscuits in his life.  Some of these women could 
spit tobacco juice clear across the room into the fireplace.  They were expert shots and 
scored a high percentage of hits.  One time one of them was mixing bread with the tobacco 
juice running down from both corners of her mouth and dripping into the dough.

           

(In 1914  Father (Brigham) went on a trip - overdid and caught a severe cold.)  While he was 
away I bought my first automobile--in 1914; they weren't too plentiful or too good.  While 
uptown I was surprised to meet him on the street.  He rode home with me and it literally 
fulfilled a dream in which I had seen him coming home with me in a car and getting out at the 
back of the house.  This was about the 2nd of July.  A crowd of us young people had planned 
a party to go up the canyon for the day, and I asked father to milk the cows for me not 
realizing how sick he was, and he never complained of being sick.  In fact his health had 
been excellent all his life.  I do remember when a boy, before we came up here, he had 
frozen his feet on a trip freighting over the mountain in the winter time.  Then when he was 
in his early 50's, he suffered sunstroke while working in the hot sun all day during the hottest 
summer days.  It took him some time to get over it so he could work again, and he never was 
quite the strong robust man he had always been before, but he went on working hard as soon 
as he was able.  The last few years of his life I heard him complain a little of rheumatism in 
his arms or shoulders.  He didn't mention it often, however.  Just now I don't remember of 
his having any other sickness.

            When we came back from the canyon he was not well but didn't complain.  He had 
taken down with pneumonia and fought the usual battle the next few days until he lost as so 
many do.  I remember well those days.  The last two nights we had a trained nurse and not 
realizing the danger of the crisis I went home to get a little sleep but was called in the early 
morning hours.  Father left us and we were alone with new adjustments to make and new 
problems to solve.  Our oldest sister had left us something over a year before, and our other 
two sisters were still girls in school.  Mary had gone to high school a little, Ellen was just about 
to finish the eighth grade.  I well remember father's funeral and how my car wouldn't run, a 
puncture or something, and Bishop Eldredge had to give us boys a ride in his little buggy as 
we were the pall bearers.  As we lose our loved ones and the members of our family we are 
left deep feelings and memories that stay with us all our days and they greatly modify our way 
of thinking and our outlook on life as long as we live.  I know now father took sister's death 
very hard.  He didn't say much, and I didn't know then how hard it was for him.  I do now after 
losing my own dear wife last May (now Feb. 25).  I now realize the battle father fought when 
Mother died.  Children seldom feel those things so deeply as parents do.  Oh, yes, we missed 
mother and sister too, and I remember missing my other sister whom we lost just before we 
moved from Rabbit Valley up here.  I realized the responsibility that came to me and I tried to 
carry it in each of these losses.  I tried to help sister, then fourteen, be "mother" to the rest of 
the family, and in some respects be father, not so much in trying to support them as in trying to 
teach and lead them in their lives, in their church work, school work, etc.  Father had received a
hard jolt from the bishop when he refused to pay all the assessment made on grandfather to 
build and support a seminary.  He offered to pay a third of it as we received a third of 
grandfather's property.  But the Bishop said he wouldn't give him a recommend to the Temple 
unless he did.  This hurt.  It was unjust and left a wound that never healed, and it didn't help 
father to do with his family many things he could and would have done had it not occurred.  I 
tried to make up for the loss.  I know I did much.  I also know I couldn't do it all, and in John's 
case--well I just couldn't do what I tried so much to do.  John respects me very well and looks 
to me for leadership, but his companions pulled harder in too many ways in opposite 
directions.  I was always "old headed" took things very seriously, and older people liked 
to talk with me and admired me for my thinking and acting beyond my years.  I was always 
quite a philosopher.

            Father taught us to be honest.  He said, "If you owe a debt, or have borrowed some 
money, the first money you earn, use it to pay that debt or that borrowed money.  Then get 
out and earn a dollar for yourself.  The money  you earn doesn't belong to you, it belongs to 
the man you owe."

            Father would never go in debt if he could avoid doing so.  He lost many chances to 
invest with good possibilities of "making good" because of his timidity and strict sense and 
policy of being honest.  On the other hand he lost a large part of what should have been his 
(his property) because others were not honest with him.  He always helped anyone in need - 
would take the last dollar he had and give it to those who needed it more than he.  He didn't 
publish it to the housetop either.  Many is the time that no one knew but those he helped.  We 
found it out from other sources later.  Occasionally he would mention helping out someone 
in very hard circumstances, but we never did know of but a small percentage of such cases.

            Father had almost no schooling, perhaps five months, no more in his whole life and 
that during two or three years of his early boyhood.  He learned to write a good hand readily 
readable and became a great reader of good books.  He liked history and subjects that deal 
with people and their rights and betterment.  And he liked to discuss these things.  He could 
flash into eloquence in defense of right and the rights of those being deprived or 
mistreated.  He liked right and justice and was intollerant of dishonesty, greed, deception 
and trickery.  He builded well whatever he built; there was no slighting or covering up of 
defects, and he taught us to do the same.           

            Every winter saw a large woodpile enough for the winter, cedar for the cookstove 
and pitch, or pinion pine, for the fireplace or heater, and usually this wood was cut in size 
and lengths for the use intended so it didn't have to be done in the cold winter storms.  Always 
there was plenty of flour for the whole year each fall and a pit full of potatoes.  Then there was 
meat, especially pork, cured or fresh.  But we had but little fruit as none grew in Rabbit Valley 
at that time except what grew wild.  We picked bullberries down on the river bottoms and 
native currants and gooseberries in the canyons.  I remember some of the excursions we 
made - several families spent the day berrying.   These were preserved or made into jelly 
for winter.  The principal of bottling fruit and having it keep by being sealed in from the air and 
germs had not become common even if known.  It was but a short time before this, if not right 
at this time that the knowledge Pasteur gave to the world was becoming known, and all the
methods of preserving food by bottling, canning etc., had yet to be perfected, if not 
discovered.  On one of these excursions up "Government" Canyon, Uncle John's horse 
got sick with colic and we had quite a time getting home.  We were in the farm wagon.  Then 
we got pine nuts either by going after them or from the Indians.  Occasionally some venison 
was to be had.  Few people made any butter or cheese in the winter.  All this had to be taken 
care of in the summer, for most of the cows didn't milk all winter.  We hadn't developed the 
dairy cows, nor had we the feed to produce milk in the winter.  Alfalfa was scarcely known in


Rabbit Valley at that time.

            When we came to Salt Lake in 1891, spring, the country was in the depression (panic) 
of the 1890's.  Work was scarce, wages low, and things not hopeful.  Father had sold out his 
holdings in Thurber, but never did get paid for most of them especially by Uncle Matthew.  He 
went on a mission but could stay only four months because there was no money for him or 
the family at home - it didn't come as anticipated.  Grandfather's estate was settled, each 
child, Mother, Aunt Mary, and Uncle Matthew received about 10 acres, one third of the land 
he had left.  There was also cash so that each received $1200 or more.  With mother's 
money father built a very fine home for the time, never quite completed it.  We lived in it 
not over two years when mother died, but a promise in her blessing was fulfilled, that she 
should have a very good home, though not for long.  I helped to build the house being just 
14 years of age and not very large or husky.  I carried brick and some mortar all the time it 
was building.  Father mixed the mud, carried it and laid the inside brick, and toward the end, 
outside brick too.  The other bricklayer was Chas. Platt.  The carpenters were Swensen and 
Noble, the plasterer was Davis who had helped plaster in the Salt Lake Temple.  The home 
still  stands; it is two storied made of the best brick made in that day from shale hauled by 
team from Parley's Canyon, crushed and ground and made into a deep red brick by the 
presses.  These brick weighed nearly twice what ordinary press brick weighed.  The 
shingles stayed on the roof 37 years or more before the house was roofed again.  This 
lasted only a few years when it was re-shingled. 

            Father and Mother wanted the children to go to school and learn all they could.  Father 

wanted them to get an education so they wouldn't have to "work as hard as he had to."  His 

pioneer hardships earning his own way by the "hard way" in a new rough country had influenced 

his attitude.  His meaning was right.  They should take advantage of all the opportunities 

possible to be able to earn a living, live a life, be of greatest value in terms of service, and 

not have to be limited to hard manual labor under a boss.  We should want to be able to 

work harder and more intelligently, accomplish more, and do the most useful and worthwhile 

things we are capable of doing in the most effective way.

            Father was a very stroping, husky man for his size.  He weighed about 160 to 165 
pounds usually but had no extra auverdupoise as he alway worked hard physically and didn't 
put on extra weight.  I have seen him handle very large stones alone, trim them up and put 
them in the wall, also help others to put in place a heavy window cap or sill, etc.  I remember 
him shouldering and carrying very large cedar posts or poles.  He knew how to do it which 
enabled him to do more than those of us who don't know the knack of it.  Father was a hard 
worker with the shovel too.  He kept at it steadily and did a very great deal of work.  In many 
other kinds of hard work besides building, farming, shoveling, I have seen him do more work, 
much more and better, more conscientious than most other men.  He always perspired 
extremely profusly and his clothes were saturated.  He drank great quantities of water of 
necessity, and because of excessive perspiration and drinking water, he sometimes  became 
weak before the day was over.

 

"Bess" by her husband Tom

Bess

            Mother's Day 1946 and the anniversary of my wife's being taken away are close together, so were they a year ago.  Memories come, and I can't help myself, and for some days, a week or more, I have felt depressed.  I have felt sad.  I can't be reconciled to her being taken; I don't understand.  She had prepared herself throughout her whole life to be a help to women and was now just beginning to realize her ambition.  Why should she be taken before she could do the work she has worked so hard and so long to be able to do?

            I will find my thoughts related to her.  I am doing things to please her, for her approval.  Unconsciously I have her in mind when I do this or that or when I plan or think of doing anything.   My life became tied up with her in her aims and ambitions.  I hoped for her success.  I was always in sympathy with the things she was doing.

            Last Friday I attended the dance to take charge of the meeting at intermission because no one else could do it, but I didn't dance.  Usually I can't resist the music.  It wasn't hard at all that night.  It was just a year since she went to the hospital.  I didn't know she was so sick and in such a serious condition.  I couldn't realize she was so soon to leave me.

            When she took down so sick at Maevonne's, I went up and took care of the children for her.  I should have gone the next day and the next and the next.  I should have kept her from trying to work at all.  She didn't ask it, and I didn't know.  I had my work to do here at home but should have arranged to spend all the time unnecessary here, with her up there.  As ever in her life she kept at it when she should have rested for several days until Maevonne came home from the hospital.  When she came home weak and sick she tried to do things, even clean house.  I had to insist she shouldn't do it.  She went uptown to do some errands and attend to some business and walked several blocks, quite a lot of walking.  She never should have done it.  She went to the Capitol, then a number of places downtown, including Bailey's where she bought a couple of apple trees and brought them home.  She always wanted to plant more trees.  Even if she didn't enjoy the fruit of them others could.  They sold her two dead trees.  I planted them, but there was no sign of life in them, and they never grew.

My wife usually took good care of herself by resting whenever she felt under par, but this time she seemed not to do as she was wont to do.

            When I attended "Mother's Day" program in Sunday School today, my thoughts were of Mother's Day last year, a tragedy too, and of other Mother's Days in years gone by.  Many of them she was not present.  She was away from home teaching school to help keep Matt on a mission, or in college, or to get finances to further her own program, or even to help others whom she considered in need more than she.  What we miss in life!  If we only knew sometimes, we might plan or do otherwise.  So many times what we do proves not to be worth the price.  We miss so much at times we cannot regain or make up for, and our memories are of regret.  We sacrifice, and it is later proved we have lacked wisdom sufficient to have justified the efforts we made.

            It looked as if the time had come when we could begin to live more for each other and with each other.  The winter of 1944-45 my wife undertook the tremendous task of offering a course in obstetrics.  She thought to have the women come to our home at first, but finding that couldn't work, she prepared the lessons and taught by correspondence having personal contact whenever they came to Salt Lake.  This was a big undertaking.  Each lesson took a week to prepare.  She was up early every morning and worked hard and long to prepare her text (lessons).  These were typewritten (by someone she hired usually) sent to the students and their papers corrected.  She outlined a wonderful course of lessons.  I believe no other woman in the State could have done so thorough and comprehensive a job, and very few doctors (men) could have done as well.

            Bess read everything on the subject of obstetrics she could get her hands on.  She read more than 99% of the physicians in the state, and read the books in Spanish, French, and German as well as English.

            In addition to doing this immense work, she made three trips away from home for long periods of time.  She went to Paris, Idaho for 5 weeks or more and took care of Fern when her baby was born and did all her housework to spare her as long as possible.  Fern had inflammatory rheumatism just at the time she graduated from the normal school (course), and we wouldn't let her teach.  She isn't too well or strong and must be careful.  This was in the autumn.

            My wife wasn't home long from this trip before she went to Panguitch to help Mirl, as Mirl is not too well either.  After a three week's stay, Mirl and family took her on to Leeds where she spent a week or more with her Mother, the last time they were to see each other.  Coming home about holiday time, she stayed during the session of the legislature.  I was extremely busy.  So was she, but we went to quite a number of shows together, and she enjoyed them so much.  She also went with me to several banquets and other entertainments.  We enjoyed them together.  This was the first time she was home during the regular sessions of the Legislature that I have attended as a member, except a special session that came in late May and June.

            She wrote a bill which I presented for her and fought for.  I secured its passage through the House, and the next day it was killed by some lobbyists during the night.  The bill aimed at restricting and regulating unnecessary cesarean operations by crooked and unscrupulous doctors.  And they did the lobbying or paid for it.  I was so taken by surprise I couldn't put up the defense strong enough.  I wasn't quick witted enough to expose to the members what had been done.  This was an effort to prevent women innocently to be imposed upon by unscrupulous physicians and others (including mother-in-law and husband, in the case of a niece of my wife's).  This brought the matter so forcibly to my wife's attention.  Her sister's daughter, Jarma, was tricked and forced to undergo a cesarian against her consent and in opposition to her will and good judgment, not even being remitted to consent (without even consulting) and of her folks or relatives.  In fact she wasn't even told about it until she was strapped down on the table.  Her mother-in-law and husband didn't want many (or any more) children, and no one knows what else they did to her at the time.  It was a crime, nothing less, and they get by with it.

            Just two days after the legislature adjourned, my wife went to South Dakota to take care of our daughter, Winifred, when her baby came.  She stayed two weeks and was called home to take care of Maevonne's children while she was in the hospital.  The journey home was long and hard.  The buses were over-crowded, and for a large part of the way, she didn't even have a seat in the bus.  She came home tired but went immediately to Maevonne's to take care of the home.  Louis had stayed home one day.  It was here she took sick.  She thought she had made a stew of some tainted meat that had been in the refrigerator some time, and got Ptomaine poisoning.  Whatever it was that caused it, it was very severe, and I am afraid it proved fatal because my wife tried to work when she should have rested.  Yet there are other strange things about it.  I had noticed she had appeared worn and tired for a year or more.  She wasn't as spry and full of life as she was wont to be.  She walked more slowly and tired more easily.  I know she had over-worked, especially when she was attending the medical school.  They mistreated her there, were so dishonest, crooked and unscrupulously determined not to let her graduate.  She received the rawest deal and the most dishonorable treatment ever accorded a student at any school, and this in spite of the fact that she was already three times a graduate of the University, and I graduated there three times, and all six of our children are alumni of the school.

            This uncalled-for indescribably dishonest and unfair treatment hurt her.  She never got over it.  I believe it did more than anything else, or than all other things combined to break her down.  It shattered her faith in doctors and in humanity beyond repair.  It stole from her the goal she had worked for all her life since she was a girl - yes since before she was fourteen.  It crushed her life, and she and what she could have done for women were sacrificed to the greed, unscrupulous dishonesty, the lying bickerings of quarreling bickering, curious jealousies of little, indescribably little, men supposed to be honorable physicians.  They were too small, puny, and puerile to have anyone honestly differ with them in any particular, but posed themselves as all wise, omniscient and above question.  Yet they quarreled among themselves and differed in petty ways like a lot of grade school kids.  Someday I shall try to write up what little I can remember of the raw deal handed out to my wife and the inexcusibly devilish treatment they accorded her.  I surely wish I had written it at the time when I could remember the names of these disreputable creatures and the details of the infamous things they did.

            Two things that stand out are the fact that they made her read a certain book text, that should have been done in Jan. or Feb. just before the final exams of the spring quarter.  They required it of no other student.  She had already taken the course, passed it, but didn't have quite as much credit as they now required.  Neither did some of the others.  It was deliberately required of her at a time when it would do her most harm in hindering her preparation for final exams.  She did it successfully.

            Another dastardly thing was...they refused to give her her report card and credits in June or July when the others got theirs, but gave them to her eight months later when they had studiously agreed among themselves to fail her in just enough subjects so she couldn't register at the University again.  It evidently took them eight months to get enough of the teachers to so purjure themselves as to mark her a failure in their classes, when they knew they lied, so as to get the required number to kick her out of school.  This will be mighty hard to explain especially as she was one of the most capable, brilliant, independent, and self-directing students that ever entered the University.  No other student, man or woman, has made a better record and accomplished more under as great difficulties, many of which were deliberately imposed upon her by members of the teaching force at the school.  Besides all of this, she accomplished since we were married more than anyone else I knew of or know of.  And all this while doing her own housework, taking care of her six children, helping to see them all through college, one of them through a mission, most of the money for which she earned and sent him.  She also saw her brother through a mission by teaching part of the time.  She bought his automobile, and then sold it to me so he really was paid twice for it.  Then of late years she went away from home to teach to get the money for these purposes and also for her own use in going to school.

            During the depression following 1929 to the second World War, it was hard for her to get work teaching at home, and it was impossible for me.  No teachers over 50 years old were hired except they were already in the system, except in out of the way schools hard to fill.

            When I went on my first mission, we had saved up several hundred dollars each, and I had a few hundred coming in from real estate sales.  It so happened that I had sufficient to keep me on a mission, and she spent her money attending school and for the children (all six of them under fifteen).  She attended the University the year I left.  The next year she took all the family clear to Kanab in southern Utah and taught under very hard living conditions--house, lack of furniture and things to do with.  The people generally were kind to her and helped her quite a lot.  When I came home she was going to the University again, and I was broke and out of a job from about Thanksgiving when I arrived home until the next February when I went to Hinckley to take the principalship of the grade schools, Mr. Judd, the principal, having died.

            It took a woman with a real purpose in life, an iron will, and an ability to do things under next to insurmountable difficulties to do the work she did in the case I have mentioned, and also at other times, too, which I may describe at another time.  Our letters and other things may give some details on these things.

                                                                                    TOM

Letter about Bess to Tom

Cedar City

                                                                                                                        May 9, 1949

Dear Tom,

            I should say "Honorable Representative" but we always did forget formality, didn't we?  I am thoroughly ashamed of myself that I have been so slow getting the little information together that I finally have collected.  Lyle Olsen's address is :  Mrs. William D. Sullivan, Hurricane, Utah; and her sister, Mame, is Mrs. Alex Colbath, Leeds (live at Silver Reef).  Their younger sister, Mrs. Herbert Haight, just told me all she could remember.  She said when she went to play with Bess's younger sister she would very often see Bess sitting in the top of an apple or apricot tree with a book.  She said, "We all knew how much smarter Bess was than the rest of us and we didn't think anything of her going bare-foot longer than most girls because she thought it healthful.

            "Whatever Bess learned about health she put into practice right now; it didn't matter what the conventions were, she did what she believed to be right and everyone respected her for living her convictions.  To wear corsets was a sacrilege, though everyone else wore them.

            "I remember she would bring old calendars and wrapping paper to school to do her algebra problems on because they took so much scratch paper.  She went on with lots of advanced work, under Mr. Reese's supervision that the rest of the eighth grade was not prepared for.

            "So far as I remember, she never went to dances or cared to participate in the usual social events.  She was too studious and those things were a waste of time.  She was a brilliant, lovely girl with the highest ideals and she lived up to every one of them.  Everyone I knew loved Bess."

            I can say amen to all of this.  I was dumber than Bess; I was only in the grades when she was at the BNS.  But I remember what a stir she made at school because of her decided individuality; her freedom from all convention; her determination to accomplish all that she set out to do; her bewitching personality; and the love and respect that everyone had for her.

            Just yesterday, Mattie Booth (as we took a trip to Zion) told me of an incident that happened as their class was about to be graduated from the BNS, which Mattie said was just like her -- always making the best of everything in a philosophical way.  For some reason someone had decreed that no diplomas were to be given until they finished more work at the U. of U., I suppose.  They would go through the graduation exercises and be congratulated as graduates of the BNS, but no diplomas.  Willard Gardner was so furious about the situation that he lay on the floor and kicked like a spunky little kid.  Bess said, "Now, look here, Willard, go and buy you an inch-thick steak, cover it with onions and fry it; by the time you've eaten that you'll feel better."

            Though Bess refused to wear corsets, she always looked just as nice as the girls did who wore them for she had such a lithe, well-built figure.  She always seemed to be fairly bursting with vigor, sunshine, and good humor.  Never had a minute to waste, yet always had a good hearty laugh for the smallest humorous trifle.  It was a joy to see her; she was always so radiantly happy.

            Father used to say:  "Bess is the cutest darned little kid I ever saw, her pink ruffled sunbonnet, her brown wavy hair, her sparkling brown eyes, pink dimpled cheeks, hearty laugh, and mind as sharp as a whip."  She always laughed with her eyes as well as her mouth.

            Ruth Sterling Porter told me that Bess loved cats and had one she called "Scooterie-Ann."  She organized plays and took the leading parts in little plays from Shakespeare and the Bible - just kids' play.  She never cared to ride horses or play ball; liked better to read, study, and write; loved her father tremendously.

            Mrs. Etta Mariger (Leeds) wrote:  "Bess was probably  my best friend; we had a grand childhood and girlhood together, tending babies, reading books, etc.  When Karl and Truman were babies and Georgianna was a little crippled child, we spent our days tending them.  We had a small express wagon; they had a baby buggy.  Every fair day we,  with Edward, Jennie, and Charles in tow paraded to some place in our lot, in their lot, to the old Leatham place, or to her Grandma Wilkinson's.  We had play dinners, and read stories, and then dramatized them for our child audiences.  As we grew older, we decided to read the Bible.  Every day for goodness knows how long, we read the Bible for an hour, first her place and then our place.  We lay flat on our stomachs and read aloud, first one and then the other.  We read (all on our own) a little science reader that Mother picked up somewhere.  Then we used a magnifying glass to examine plants, flowers, bugs and so on.

            "Also a great summer sport was getting about a quart of gooseberries, or a few bunches of grapes and taking them to "Devil's Hole" up on the side hill where we could look all over Leeds.  We would also take our quilt blocks or our books, and there we would sew and eat, or read and dramatize and eat.  Two books we read at Angell's home were:  "The Picture Bible," a huge but attractive book; and "With Livingstone in Darkest Africa."  At our house, we read the bound volumes of the Juvenile Instructor, "Hills Manual," Star Speaker, International Speaker, an Encyclopedia, and other choice books.  We wrote many letters to Children's Corners, conducted by the Montreal Star, and Mother's Housekeeping Magazine.  We each had several letters published and got us a whole flock of correspondents from girls of other states.  We participated in various children's contests in the two publications mentioned above.  Bess took no less than four prizes.  I took two.  One of her prizes was a grand book, we thought.  It was about Queen Amytis and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

            "Once we walked to Harrisburg and spent the day with grandmother and Aunt Mary.  We had a grand dinner--hot biscuits, chicken, cake--a real grandmother dinner.  I never saw Grandmother and Aunt Mary more pleasant, in fact highly amused.  Bess was as enthralled as one in a new world.  I was always in my glory there.  We both had a yen for cats, but Bess was always more able to select artistic names than I was.  We also started out very bravely each spring to make a garden of our own--one for each of us, but they usually fizzled out.  I cannot reconcile myself to Bess's death even yet."       Etta

           

            Awfully sorry I didn't get this little write-up done long ago.  Mrs. Haight said that Lyle would be the sister of hers that could tell you most of Bess because she was the same age, and ran in the same crowd.  Thanks for your suggestions concerning a write-up of Father's life.  He was a unique character, as Bess was, and I have a good deal of material gathered now, but I should get what other people thought of him, as you are doing about Bess.

            I talked to Mabel Dalley (Parley's wife) and she said Bess had likely told you of when the class lower than Bess's put on a "take-off" on Bess's class representing each member in some sort of silhouette; so they had Bess as the "Angel looking at the Record" giving the idea that her grades were so extra fine that she couldn't wait to see them when the cards came out.  Mabel said another time (after her marriage) she was going to Leeds to see her mother, and rode from Cedar to Toqueville with Mabel and someone else.  That night she slept with Mabel and they told her to wait until after breakfast and they would take her to Leeds, but long before anyone else was up, she took off afoot and walked the full distance to Leeds.  Typical of her independence, isn't it?

            Well, Tom, I hope these few bits are of a little help.  When I was in the 8th grade, I heard so many interesting things of Bess Angell at the BNS that she became the Angel or the Star to which I hitched my wagon.  I thought she was the nearest to perfection that I had ever seen on earth.  A number of people have mentioned how she roomed alone so that her study would not be interrupted; how she propped her book up on the table and studied while she ate.  I think there never was a person who could make better use of her time, than Bess.

            Mother and Gilbert join me in sending our best wishes. 

                                                                        Sincerely,

                                                                        (signed) Myrtle Janson

Story of Charles Wilkinson

Story of Charles Wilkinson

Born at Girton, Nottinghamshire, England

October 14, 1815

            At the time when the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints 
converted Charles Wilkinson, he was living in a comfortable little home of his own.  There 
were his wife, Sarah Hughes Wilkinson, his son Joseph and the two little daughters Sagah 
and Mary.  Of the 8 Wilkinson brothers and their 3 sisters, Charles was the only one to join the 
Church.  The gathering to Zion that naturally followed his conversion cost him all his 
possessions on earth, in the end, except his oldest son and his faith in the gospel.  The two 
little daughters were buried in one grave long before they reached Salt Lake City.  This Wilkinson family joined the handcart company of 185?  When they reached the
Platte River, it was very cold.  Old people and sick people only could ride.  Strong ones 
were expected to wade across.  Sarah Hughes Wilkinson, to avoid burdening the others, 
although she did not feel able, was one of those who waded.  She never knew a well day 
afterwards.  Six weeks after they arrived in Salt Lake, she died following the birth of a 
stillborn infant son.  Her husband asked her on her deathbed if she regretted having 
emigrated to Utah.  She answered, "I'd do it again for the gospel's sake."

            Our sire, Charles Wilkinson, must have been as great in character as he was small 
in stature.  His son Joseph relates that at one time during those days of grief and deprivation, 
he, a little 10 year old boy, was walking from Provo to Salt Lake City through a blinding snow 
storm.  He held on to his father's hand but found it hard to keep on going.  He began to 
hang back and say he couldn't go any farther.  His father explained that he was too heavy 
to be carried, and that he would freeze if he stayed where he was.  Finally reasoning and 
kindly persuasion were not enough.  The boy began to cry and refused to go on.  In this 
serious situation, the naturally kind father became severe:  "Get up, and keep on going, 
or I'll beat you to death," he said.

            In Salt Lake City, Charles Wilkinson, a farm hand from England, learned to become 
a capable wheelwright.  He married Jane Bentham, and she, also, died after giving birth 
to a stillborn baby boy. 

            A third marriage resulted in the birth of a baby girl, whose mother afterwards 
returned to her former husband.  This man renamed the child Harriet Rebecca, and she grew 
up as a member of the Keyser family.  In later years she came and lived with her own father.

            A patriarchal blessing was given him in which he was told that the Lord was mindful of
 him in his great trials: but that through his faith, he would yet be greatly "blessed in his basket 
and in his store," and many names of his posterity would be recorded in honor on the 
records of the church.  Again he married.  The new wife was Ann Denton.  She became 
the mother of a girl and a boy before she died of a fever at the age of 29.  The daughter, 
Rebecca Ann, survived, a lonely little girl whose father had to leave her with neighbor friends 
while he was at his daily labor.  Her half brother Joseph was 16 years older than she and 
always busy.

            Charles proposed marriage to Anna Maria Blom, a widow and convert from Sweden, 
who accepted him.  Four years later, in order to live the principle of plural marriage, he 
married another widow convert from Sweden, Marie E. Anderson.

            He lived in Salt Lake City, then Salt Creek (Nephi), the Muddy River Country, St. George,
 and finally came to Leeds in 1874.  Here, through their combined industry, a substantial 
two-story brick house was built, planned to suit the personal need of each wife.  Later, a 
separate comfortable and smaller brick house, with an equal-sized acre and a quarter lot 
was obtained for Marie E. Anderson Wilkinson situated across a lane from the larger 
house.  He became the owner of a general store, and during the boom days of the Silver 
Reef mining camp, he was indeed blessed in "his basket and in his store."  He was known 
as an honest man in all his dealings to Gentile as well as Mormon.

            After he became prosperous, in his later years, he made a trip to his old English 
home.  It was his hope to convert other members of his family to the gospel.  One sister 
and two brothers were living.  His nephew, John, was the only one who joined the Church 
and came to Utah through his efforts.

            The habits of Charles Wilkinson were thrifty.  He arose at an early hour, ate his 
meals at regular times, and was orderly in his home, both inside and out.  He cultivated 
choice fruits, and kept a weedless garden.  He was prompt and regular in paying tithes 
and fast offerings and in his Church attandance.  His children say that he was almost "father 
and mother in one" because of his loving thoughtfulness and efficient providing.

            Although he was married 6 times, only 3 children survived.  One daughter was 
childless.  Twelve children of Joseph grew to maturity, and Rebecca Ann reared 10 of 
her 13 children.