Thomas Rees from Wales - life story by his grand daughter

Thomas Rees    -   born 4 Jan 1820 in Pembrokshire, So. Wales.  Died 22 Nov 1885 
in Portage, Utah Rebecca Williams Rees  -  born Jan 1821 in Pembrokshire, So.
Wales.  Died 8 Sep 1892 in Thurber, Ut.

            As I don't know enough about my grandparents to give much of a life history, I 
shall tell what I know or remember hearing so it may come to me.  I never remember 
seeing grandfather, but remember grandmother.

            Grandmother was a small energetic woman, quite bossy and authoritative.  She 
moved rapidly and was a bit fussy in things she wanted done, etc.  Grandfather 
homesteaded a quarter section near Portage in Box Elder County, Utah at Washakie 
near the Indian settlement.  I believe some mistake was made and he built a home on 
the lower part when he thought he was building on the upper part  of his homestead that 
would throw much of his land above the canal so it could not be irrigated.  After he died 
(probably) it was sold to the Washakie Indians, I believe.

            Grandmother had an old setting hen that just hatched a brood of chickens.  She 
came fussing around for a place to put a little brood coop for them, getting after 
grandfather of course.  He replied, "Here is Beckie worrying about a place to put a 
chicken coop and there is a whole 160 acres to put it on.  He quickly went down and 
soon died.  It was so unusual for her to be sick or helpless.

            When I was teaching in Brigham City High School about 1906-1907, one 
Saturday I walked over the mountain from Brigham City to Paradise to see Aunt 
Sariah.  She treated us so well, me and the young boy (Alex Triggins) I had with me 
that he was wonderfully well impressed and often mentioned it.  Aunt Sariah lost her
 only girl (Ellen) some years before she died.  Ellen was a young married woman 
at the time.

            Aunt Sariah, Aunt Beck, and perhaps some others of the sisters worked in the
 flour mill in the "Old Country."  They used to carry sacks of grain up the stairs in the mill 
on their heads.  Maybe that is one reason they stood so straight and their neck and 
shoulders were so well developed.  Aunt Sariah was about two years older than father, 
and she and he came to the United States before the other members of the 
family.  Father was 17 and his sister was 19.  It was the money father earned and sent 
back to the family that enabled them to immigrate.  They didn't all come at once.  There 
was a large family of them.  I remember the ten children who came over here, when they 
were all over fifty and all alive.  Three of the girls lived to be over 90 -- Aunt Nellie (Ellen) 
(Smith) was the last of the family to go, she was 90 or 91.  Aunt Mary (Smith) the oldest 
of the family, died quite a number of years earlier in Butte, Montana at 92 or 93 and 
Aunt Sariah at 95.  Aunt "Let" lived to be 83 and was one of the last to go.  She was 
the youngest girl.  Uncle Tom died at 78 or 79 not very far from the time Aunt "Let" 
went.  Uncle Noah was around 70 and father only 63.  He should have lived much 
longer, but went out roughing it hunting for a farm forgetting that he couldn't do as 
he did in his teens.  He caught cold, took pneumonia and came home sick.

            Grandmother came to Rabbit Valley just a year or two before we left
 there.  Uncle Tom had moved there from the Portage country.  Of course I became 
acquainted with her the short time she was there before we left.  I met her first in 
1888 I believe it was - shortly after grandfather had died.  Father and our family 
took a trip by covered wagon from Rabbit Valley to Portage, Samaria, etc.  Thence
 to Logan where the family spent about two weeks working in the Logan T
emple.  I was 8 years old at the time, but I remember hearing and seeing them 
sitting around and talking together.  I wish I had remembered the things they 
talked about.  I would know more of their family history than I do know.

            On our way home we stopped at Aunt Sariah's in Paradise, some miles 
south of Logan in the south end of Cache Valley.  I remember the day or two we
 visited there.  One thing I shall never forget was how I asked for some kind of hot, 
spicy stuff, not knowing what it was.  It was too hot to eat so I left it.  But 
grandmother had it come back on my plate the next day.  Whether I ever ate
 it or not, I don't remember.  I did eat some of it, however.  That didn't make a 
very pleasant impression to remember of Grandmother.

            I saw cousin Ether, Uncle Noah's eldest son I believe, in Hotel Utah 
during a teacher's institute.  We talked over family interesting incidents a short 
time.  He said that when Grandfather and his family joined the Church, the Parish 
Priest got so angry that he burned the parish register, so it is, that we are having 
such a hard time to trace our geneology.

(Their son is Brigham Rees who married Isabella Maria Mansfield)