E
Elmina Stoker Elder
September 6, 1865 – September 18, 1942

The life story of Elmina Stoker
 Elder
-----------------------------------
Written by her daughter
Golda Elder Mangum


     My mother, Elaine Stoker,
was born September 6, 1865, at
Summit, Iron County, Utah.
Her parents were Michael
Stoker and Polly Brittann
Hughes Stoker, both pioneers
who had crossed the plains
among the earliest to come to
Utah. In my mother’s family
besides her parents were her
 brothers, John, Dave, Charles,
and two daughters, Elmina (my
mother) and Emma, and a
brother Franklin who (both)
died in infancy.

     I shall try to tell some of
her earliest memories as she has
told them to me. She
remembered while very small
awakening from a sleep and
finding the house dark (no one
else at home) and how she went
outside, and on hearing music
coming from a log cabin not far
away, she went inside dressed
only in her petticoat. The
neighbors were having a dance
in this home, as they often did
in those pioneer days and she
remembered how embarrassed
her mother was when she came
 toddling in without much on.

In those days there were a
lot of Indians in Iron County.
Mother remembered how they
used to ride around and around
their house yelling as loud as
they could and of how
frightened it made her. She
would cling to her mother’s
skirts until they rode away. Her
mother and father must have
been good to the Indians as they
came often, or the squaws did,
to talk to her mother.

     It was my mother’s job as a
_______________________
little girl to sweep off the chairs
after the Indians left as they
weren’t very clean. Mother’s
father must have been generous
with the Indians as the Indians
used to say “Stove-pipe always
go taters.” Mother used to tell
how she often went down to the
banks of a stream and helped
the squaws wash their clothes.
They would double them up and
down in the water without soap.

     She remembered one time
an Indian came into their home
and her mother was churning
with one of those old churns
that sat on the floor and the dash
went up and down. As it came
up it would always bring cream
on the handle of the dash. An
old Indian took his old dirty
finger and wiped the cream off
the dash and licked his fingers
and her mother chased him
away with a broom.

     Another time, a young
Indian came into their home and
her mother was playing with her
doll. This young Indian liked to
tease her. This day he snatched
up the doll’s bonnet and ran out
of the door. She ran after him
crying, but he kept going to his
camp. A few days later he came
back laughing and gave her the
doll’s bonnet.

     An early memory was that
of Brigham Young coming to
Summit in his carriage, or coach
as it was called, and of how the
children would run to meet him.
They were so happy to have him
come. She remembered waling
up and down the tongue of the
carriage after the horses were
unhitched.

     She also remembered a trip
they took to Salt Lake when she
was about four years old. They
---------------------------------------------
Elmina Stoker Elder
went with a wagon and oxen.
Around the point of the
mountain they had to walk as
they sand was so deep. It was at
the time they were beginning
the Salt Lake Temple. She
remembered while they were in
Salt Lake walking around the
foundation of the temple.

     While they lived in Summit
her father made a living by
hauling freight from Pioche,
Nevada, to towns in Iron
County. When he would return
from a trip, she remembered
how she would always run to
meet him climbing up over the
wheel of the wagon to greet
 him. He would nearly always
have something new for her to
wear, cloth for a dress or new
shoes. The neighbors said he
was spoiling her bringing her
such fine shoes when most of
the little girls in those days were
wearing more coarse ones, but
he said he only had one girl and
he wanted her to look as nice as
she could.

     When she was about eight
or nine years old the family
moved to Monroe, Utah. While
in Monroe her father worked
with sheep caring for other
men’s herds, and in time he

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E   Elmina Stoker Elder
September 6, 1865 – September 18, 1942

acquired a nice herd of his own.

In Monroe mother spent
many happy days, which she
always remembered and talked
about. For one thing there were
more children her age, and she
had so many friends and such
good times playing the game
children play. She especially
liked the children’s dances they
used to have there.

      Mother was a good singer
and at a very young age began
to sing at entertainments in the
community and did so
throughout all her life. Her
friends and family loved to hear
her sing.

      After they had been in
Monroe for over three years, her
brother, Charley became ill. A
few years before he had fallen
down the cellar steps, and he
hadn’t been as well after that.
They thought that might have
been the cause of this later
illness.

     Charley wanted so to go
back to his childhood home in
Summit and see his friends and
relatives again. Two of
Mother’s father’s sisters lived in
Summit: Aunt Sally Davis and
her family; and Aunt Katy
Heulet and Uncle Vene and
their family. Also Grandpa
Hughes and Uncle Bill lived
there. They had gone to
California during the gold rush
but later came back to Iron
County.

     Grandpa Hughes had been a
sailor most of his life and told
many stories of the sea so
Charley was anxious to see
those he loved and knew so
well. And so more to please
him, they moved back to
Summit again. Charley died
about a year later and the family
was always glad they had made
his last days happier by moving
back.
---------------------------

     When Mother was about
fifteen, she had her first
boyfriend. His name was Bob
Dalley. They had a lot of good
times. It was about this time
that her parents decided to move
again this time to a new area
that was being settled – Junction
in Piute County.

     They built a log home
about three miles from the
settlement of Junction. The
Sevier River ran between their
home and the small town. Her
father again acquired a few
sheep and in time had quite a
nice herd and became quite
prosperous. He seemed to like
raising sheep better than
freighting.

     I imagine it was quite
lonely. There weren’t any close
neighbors but lots of snakes.
One time my mother was
looking under a little table
covered around with a cloth to
find her shoe and saw a big
snake curled up under there.

Two years after coming to
Junction her mother died of
 non-sumption. My mother was
 then seventeen years old.

After the death of her
mother, mother was very lonely.
Her father and brothers spent a
lot of their time at the sheep
herd. Her father would get
some little girl of the
neighborhood to stay with her at
nights when they were away.
So she would have a way to get
to town her father bought her a
pretty horse. She called him
Colonel. She enjoyed this horse
and had lots of fun riding him.
Girls used to ride sidesaddle
those days. It wasn’t considered
lady like to straddle over a horse.

     About this time it was a
style among the girls in that area
to wear a man’s dress hat. It
was on one of these days when
------------------------------------------
she was riding her horse
sidesaddle and wearing a man’s
hat that she first saw the young
man who later became my
father. He told her later that she
looked real cute that day.

     The fourth of July after her
mother died in March, the
people had a celebration down
by the river. They took willows
and made a bowery, and they
had a program and picnic and a
dance on the ground at night.
Mother was asked at the
program to sing, and she sang,
“In the Gray Old Churchyard” or
“My Mother Dead and
Gone.” Some of the people
wondered how she could stand
to sing that song so soon after
the death of her mother.

About this time she had a
boyfriend named Tom Jones.
She kept company with him
for about two years. He wanted her
to marry him, but she didn’t
accept him. She like[ed] him a lot,
but she didn’t feel he was right
for her to marry.

    By the time my mother was
nineteen years old, her brothers
John and Dave were both
married and her father had quite
a big herd of sheep and needed
to spend the winter out on the
desert with them. So her father
decided to take my mother to
Nephi to live with her mother’s
sister, Aunt Emma. So for two
or three years, she spent the
winters in Nephi and the
summers with her father in
Junction.

     She enjoyed these winters
in Nephi. She went to school
part of the time. My mother
loved to sew, and in Nephi she
got a chance to help a
dressmaker. Here she learned a
lot about sewing and became a
very good seamstress. She had
a lot of good times in Nephi.
Aunt Emma was so good to her,

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Elmina Stoker Elder
September 6, 1865 – September 18, 1942

Eli Elder
Son of Claybourn & Martina

and she had a cousin, Gustie,
about her age and two boy
cousins, Grip and Lester Taylor.
They all tried to make her feel at
home while she was with them.

      One winter while in Nephi
she and her cousin, Gustie,
worked at the Juab Station, a
small railway station southwest
of Nephi. The train stopped
there and meals were served to
workers and others who cared to
eat. Mother made 50 cents a
day or $3 a week and thought
she was making a lot of money.

While at Nephi, she kept
company with a young man
named Lydge Broadhead. She
came to think quite a bit of him
and would probably have
married him, but he contracted
pneumonia and died.

About this time, Aunt
Emma died also, so Mother
didn’t go back to Nephi
anymore. She was always glad
to get back to Junction to be
with her father and brothers and
her friends. They always
welcomed her home.

     I think my mother must
have been quite nice looking.
She was tall and slender with
black hair and blue eyes. Her
father always saw that she had
nice dresses as she was the only
on he had to buy for. She made
-----------------------------------------------
all her own clothes. She had
lots of good times I am sure.

When we lived in
Johnvalley, when I was a little
girl, she used to spend hours
when we were along telling me
of the different boyfriends and
good times, dances in the log
meeting houses and homes,
plays, sleigh riding, and etc.,
 that they had in those early days
in Junction.

There was a Danish
woman, a widow, came to live
at Kinston – a little settlement
three miles from Junction. She
had four boys, three nearly
grown. She was Marina Elder.
These boys from the very first
they saw her seemed to admire
my mother and pay her a lot of
attention. At different times she
 kept company with three of
them. Their mother once made
a remark that she was sure
“Minnie Stoker would marry
one of her boys, but for the life
of her she couldn’t guess which
one.”

Eli was the oldest, and
mother kept company (as they
called it in those days) with him
about two years. She used to
tell me what good times they
had together. Eli was always
telling jokes and how they
would laugh together, always
seeing the funny side of
everything.

     In those days the young
couple would do their love
making (sitting up as it was
called) in the same room where
the rest of the family would be
sleeping as they often only had
one room, and they told this
joke on my mother. That one
night she had been sitting up
with Eli, and she got tired. So
she put the churn in this arm (
one of those tall round ones
with a dash) and went to bed.
Sometime later he realized he
--------------------------------------
was loving the churn and not the
girl.

     It seemed like some of the
young fellows sort of tried to
make trouble for the Elder boys.
They used to call them “the
white headed Danish men.” Eli
used to tell them “a Danish man
was as good as a white man as
long as he behaved himself as
well.”

     Anyway, Eli stood as much
as he could take from one of
them fellows named Lyman
Johnson, and they got in a fight.
Eli gave him a good licking, and
in the fight Eli bit out a chunk
of Johnson's ear.  They got the
officers after Eli and tried to
cause him quite a bit of trouble
so he decided to go away for a
while.  He went to Colorado to
work.

     Mother thought quite a lot
of Eli, but he was gone away a
long time, and she liked good
times so she started to go with
Eli’s brothers. She went with
Alfred a few times, but she had
the most fun with the third Elder
boy, Claybourn. He liked to
dance and play his violin and
sing.

He loved horses and took
her horseback riding. He had a

Claybourn Lorenzo Elder
Son of Claybourn & Martina

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Elmina Stoker Elder
September 6, 1865 – September 18, 1942

[picture caption]
Children of  Claybourn & Elmina Stoker Elder
(L-R): Barlow, Claude, Lorenzo; (seates): Leo and Que

fast trotting horse and cart, and
he would call for mother and
take her for a fast ride. Some of
the women of the neighborhood
would say “Minnie Stoker will
be killed if she doesn’t stop
 riding with that reckless young
man.”

     After Eli had been away a
year or more, he came back and
wanted mother to marry him,
but she said, “No, you went
away and left me, and Clabe has
been good to me and has asked
me to marry him. So I think I
will.” Elmina was twenty-five
years old and still not
particularly anxious to marry,
but most of her friends were
married and had several babies
so she decided if she was every
going to marry it better be now.
She married my father,
Claybourn Elder, December 1,
1890 at Junction, Utah. John
Morriell married them.

     Elmina made her own
wedding dress of white wool
Delaine with red dots and water-
wave white ribbon sash. They
had a wedding dance that night.
It was the custom for the
bridegroom to pay for the music
for the dance and furnish the
refreshments which, on this
occasion, were cider and
doughnuts.

     For the first year of their
marriage they lived with my
mother’s father Michael Stoker.
While living here their first
child Leo was born November
14, 1891. Soon after this they
decided they would like a home
of their own so my father
bought some land in Kingston
and built their first home.
Claybourn made a living by
farming and herding sheep for
his father-in-law and brother-
in-laws part of the time.

Their second son, Claude,
was born June 12, 1893. The
-----------------------------------------
day he was born they felt quite a
severe earthquake in Kingston.
Mother told how it shook the
house and bed a few hours after
he was born. She often told me
about the yellow roses that grew
near her bedroom window, and
she could see and smell them as
she lay in bed. She loved
yellow roses and always
afterwards when she saw them,
-----------------------------------------
they brought back memories to
her of her first home in
Kingston and the birth of
two of their boys during the month of
June.

Shortly after Leo was three
years old, their third son,
Lorenzo Michael, was born
December 26, 1894. Then two
years later a fourth son, Barlow,
was born December 20, 1894.

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Elmina Stoker Elder
September 6, 1865 – September 18, 1942

Then two years and a half later a
fifth son, Oliver Que, was born
on June 18, 1899. When Que
was born Grandmother Elder
was the midwife. When she
saw the baby she said, “another
darn boy.”

     I remember hearing mother
say that all it cost to have a baby
in those days was about $3 for
the midwife (as they were
called). Just one of the neighbor
women who was handy in
caring for the sick was all the
doctor they had when their
babies were born. I remember
hearing her say that when Ben
was born they gave the midwife,
Mrs. Allen, a stand of bees
(honeybees) to pay for her help.

      My father was thoughtful of
my mother and always hired
some girl to come and stay and
help with the work for at least a
month after the babies were
born. And when he went away
to herd sheep, he always hired a
girl to stay with her while he
was away.

     Dancing was about the only
recreation the people had in
those days. The people liked to
dance by the music my father
made so he played for most all
the dances in Kingston,
Junction, and Circleville for
many years. Mother often told
about taking her five little boys
to the dances and making a bed
for them along the all. The
older ones would stay awake as
long as they could and watch
the dancers and listen to the
music and then lay down and go
to sleep. Mother always
enjoyed these dances.

     During these years when
the boys were small, my father
was away from home often for
as long as three and four months
at a time. During the years that
he herded sheep for Grandpa
Stoker and boys, he took sheep
-------------------------------------------
for his pay and soon had quite a
nice herd of his own. He would
take them on the west desert
near Milford during the winter
months.

During these months when
mother and the little boys were
alone, she was glad her father
was living near in Junction just
three miles away. He came
often to see them in his black-
top buggy and brought candy
and other nice things as he had a
store in Junction. The boys
thought a lot of their grandpa.

     About this time my father
bought a new black-top two-
seated buggy for the family. In
those days to buy a new buggy
was as wonderful as it is to buy
a new car now days. I am sure
they were all proud of the new
buggy. My father loved horses
and took care of them so
he had some fine horses to pull the new buggy.

One winter about 1902 or 1903, my father went to the west desert to winter his sheep and had sheep for other people to winter along with his own. The winter proved to be a severe one on the desert. The snow got so deep the sheep couldn’t find anything to eat. He tried to get the sheep out of the desert but found he was snowed in and nearly all the sheep died of starvation.

Losing his own sheep was a great loss, but the fact that he had lost sheep whom other people had put in his care worried him most. So being a man who always tried to do what was honest and honorable, he felt he should pay for the loss of their sheep. After losing his sheep, all he had left was his home and farm in Kingston. He sold both and paid the owners for their lost sheep.

The family then moved to Junction to a small home on the south edge of town. In September 1904 my mother’s father, Michael Stoker, was killed. He was leading his horse to water when the horse kicked him in the back, and he died a few days later.

Just a month later, October 2, 1904, a baby girl was born to my parents. I think my parents and brothers were happy to think at last they had a baby girl. I was the youngest of the family and the only girl my parents ever had. I was given the name Maud Elmina. My father was away when I was blessed. When he returned he said he didn’t like the name.

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Elmina Stoker Elder September 6, 1865 – September 18, 1942 Maud as there were so many horses named Maud. So they decided to change my name. My mother’s cousin, Lester Taylor, had just returned from California. He came to see Mother and asked he asked why she didn’t name the baby, “Goldie”. He said he knew a nice girl by that name in California. My parents liked the name and thought it appropriate for their only girl so the name was changed to Golda Elmina. About the year of 1906, my father became rather discouraged and felt the urge to take his family and move somewhere else to see if he couldn’t find a more suitable place to raise his growing family of boys. The older three were about 12, 14, and 16; and there wasn’t anything for them to do in Junction. Not wanting them to grow up in idleness, he felt he should find something to keep them busy. It was about this time that a man by the name of Sil Riddle hired my father to go to Johnsvallay (a new valley that was just beginning to be settled) four miles south of Junction and run his farm for the summer. He wanted him to care for his crop, put up the hay, and milk cows. The log house on the ranch had three big rooms so we were quite comfortable as far as room for the family of five growing boys and a little two year old girl was concerned. The house was built just a few feet from the most beautiful mountain stream. The water was so clear and the bottom of the streambed was covered with the prettiest colored pebbles that could be seen through the clear water. All the hours of the day or night you could hear the water, such a pleasant sound. Surely a babbling brook. They milked about fourteen cows. My mother made cheese and butter and my father and boys put up a lot of hay, mostly wild hay. In the valley, wild hay grew everywhere that it could get water. It was a lonely valley covered with sage and rabbit brush. The valley was about 15 miles long and 5 or 6 miles wide. The east fork of Sevier River ran along the west side of the valley. In the spring of the year there was quite a lot of high water. Later in the summer there wouldn’t be much. There were three or more mountain streams running into the valley. At this time there were only about three families in the valley and they were miles apart. This ranch was on the road between Marysvale, Tropic, and Escalante. Occasionally there were travelers through the valley, people going and coming from Marysvale where they would get their supplies. Marysvale was the end of the railroad. These campers would camp over night at the ranch where they could get feed for their horses. When fall came we moved back to Kinston and rented a house so the boys could go to school. My father would haul freight from Marysvale to Kanab to make a living. When he was home, he played for most of the dances together with Leo and Renl who were getting to be pretty good musicians themselves. The next spring we returned again to the “Riddle Ranch”. Sometime during this summer of 1907, my father filed a homestead of 160 acres of land nearby and later filed on more land until he had 320 acres. My father built two-room frame house, and was there for sixteen years. In this two-room home my parents raised five boys and one girl to manhood and womanhood. I am sure my mother must have felt lonely at times leaving all her friends and relatives and coming into the only valley where she rarely saw a neighbor, but she never complained and always tried to make her family happy. There was no school in the valley and for four years we moved back and forth to Kingston to school. Mother worried about the boys not getting enough schooling for by the time crops were up in the fall it would be late October before we could move back to Kingston to school and have to leave early in the spring. In the fall of 1911 or that winter (l-r): Leona (Elder) Stratton – daughter of George Henry Elder; Golda (Elder) Mangum ¹ Lorenzo Michael Elder

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E
Elmina Stoker Elder
September 6, 1865 - September 18, 1942

Anyway, the first school was held in the valley. It was held in the largest room at the Riddle Ranch. Inez Sudweeks was the teacher.

Each year brought a few more families into the valley to file on homesteads and to make their homes. Mother was very glad to have neighbors and especially happy when the first Sunday School was organized. She was glad to walk two miles through the sagebrush to the home of one of the neighbors where it was first held.

Later all the men and boys of the valley worked at the sawmill getting out the logs and helping with the cutting and sawing and taking lumber for pay for the first meeting house in the valley. It was quite large and had a nice floor and was used for church, dances, and school as the years went by. My father and brothers played for the dances they began to have as time went on.

After we had been in the valley a few years, my mother’s brother, John Stoker, and his family also filed on a homestead in the valley. It was a mile or more away but mother was so happy to have them near and often walked through the brush to see them. They had a family of growing boys and girls, and their coming made it happier for all our family.

It was a lot of hard work for my father and brothers to get the land cleared and ready to be plowed. Often the sagebrush was as high as a man’s head and great big gnarled stubborn roots that had to be hacked out of the ground with a grubbing hoe. After a few years we got a grubber that could be pulled with horses that made it a lot easier.

Often on a summer afternoon, mother and I would walk through brush holding hands picking wild flowers, (such beautiful ones grew in the valley), and go where my father and brothers were working. They always seemed happy to have us come. Maybe they would be burning sagebrush, and we would stand around the fire talking.

The snow would be so late going off in the spring, and the frost come so early in the fall that it was hard to plant crops that would mature. Wheat always got frozen. Oats and barley would ripen, and we could usually get one good crop of hay. Water was the big problem. Some of the men and boys of the valley built a dam and a canal across the river. It was a lot of hard work, but they built the dam and a canal across the valley. Then we could get the high water in the spring, and if they could get one good irrigation turn on the land, they could raise a good crop along with the summer rains that came about in July. In time we had one of the best in the valley. We used to put up at least 100 tones of hay a year and thresh thousands of bushels of grain.

It was quite a job for Mother preparing enough food for her family of seven especially with five growing boys and my father all working hard. There was always plenty of milk so she made butter and sometimes cheese and always had pork in the wintertime and a garden in the summer time. For other supplies we went twenty miles to Coyote usually in the buggy. It would take most the day. Sometimes one of the boys would go on a horse with a gunnysack tied back of the saddle to bring back what the family needed most. Usually we bought flour, sugar, shortening, beans, dried fruit (apples or apricots), and she could season beans so they tasted so good. She used to make hot biscuits twice a day and usually there would be enough left over that could be eaten with bread and milk for supper.

The winters in Johnsonvalley were cold and long. Lots of deep snow, which came early in fall and stayed until late in spring. Lots of cold winds from the North and blizzards and big drifts of snow.

My father had a blacksmith and in the winter there would be a big drift of snow from the top of this log building to the ground extending twelve or fourteen feet. The snow would crust on top until a man could walk on top. We had a big old heater and plenty of pitch pine wood, which would make a very hot fire. There were winter nights when it was so cold we

Leo Elder
Son of Clayborn & Elmina
Serving a mission

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Elmina Stoker Elder
September 6, 1865 – September 18, 1942

Cold see our breath while standing over this hot fire.

Our Kitchen wasn’t as warm as the front room. One of my memories of my mother was of her coming in from the kitchen where she had been preparing a meal on one of these cold days and putting her feet up on the heart of the heater to warm her feet, and her saying how cold they were.

Mother loved flowers. We used to gather the wild roses that grew along the bank of a mountain stream called Birch Creek and take them home for a bouquet to brighten our home. One of the neighbor’s wastewater ran past our house, so with this water to irrigate it, Mother had a flower garden in front of the house. The climate was cool and some hardy flowers did right well such as Sweet Peas, Poppies, Buttercups, etc. I can’t remember all of the kinds she planted but they were beautiful.

Claude was the first of the boys to go away to work. He went to Escalante to herd sheep. It was hard for Mother to let him go. She was such a hand to worry about her family if any of them were away from home. If any one came loping their horse real fast along the road toward our house and any of the family were away from home, she was always afraid they were coming to tell us some bad news about the absent one.

Our milk cows used to stray three or four miles from home through the tall sagebrush, and sometimes it would be after dark before the boys, usually Barlow and Que could find them and bring them home. Mother, on these nights, would stand outside and listen until she could hear them away off coming nearer, and then she would feel at ease. I can remember how she would listen for the hoof beats of the horses if my father was absent after dark or later than he should have been.

The lightening was very bad in the valley, so many electrical storms, and she always worried for fear some of the family would get struck. One time the lightening did strike a post just a few feet from the front door. The house was full of neighbors who had been traveling along the road and came to the nearest ranch house to get in out of the storm. Fortunately, no one was hurt by the lightening.

Mother always tried to encourage her family when they would get discouraged and lonesome. In the summertime she was the first to get up and start the fire and get breakfast, and then wake the family and get them going at whatever task had to be done that day. She always sang at her work and used to sew on the old sewing machine and sing at the same time. She always found time to help other people. Besides patching overalls for her own five boys and my father, she used to mend overall for her cousin Crip Taylor and his boys whose mother didn’t come to the valley with them.

Our home was a happy one. We used to sit around the table after supper and sing all the old favorite songs. The boys and my father all played some kind of violin except Claude and he could play a harmonica. Most of the time there was music by some member of the family.

Reno was the first of the boys to marry. He married Cassie Adair when he was twenty years old.

In the year 1918, Mother’s heart ached to see two of her boys go to war. Claude was in the 145 Field Artillery, a group or division of Utah boys. He went to France in October and was close enough to the battlefield to hear the fighting and would have been in actual fighting in two weeks when the armistice was signed.

Barlow went to Camp Kearney, California. He was very sick with the flu during the epidemic the fall of 1918. Because of the armistice, Barlow didn’t have to go overseas. Mother felt the Lord has answered her many prayers when her two boys returned from the war unharmed. If it had lasted two months longer, Leo and Que would have been called. In fact, they were called but their calls were cancelled because of the flu epidemic and later the armistice.

[Photograph Caption: Barlow Elder, Son of Clayborn & Elmina]

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E
Elmina Stoker Elder
September 6, 1865 – September 18, 1942

In the fall of 1919 Leo was called on a mission to the Central States. He spent most of this time in Arkansas. Mother was happy and proud to have Leo go on a mission. By this time Ren had two children and when the third one was born, a little girl whom he named Cassie, his wife died. Ren brought the two children Marjorie and Dee and came home to live. His wife’s sister took the baby. Marjorie was two years old and Dee three. Mother took care of them in the same loving way she cared for her own. They lived with Mother and Father until Ren married Catherine Green about seven years later.

The same spring Cassie died (about a month later) Barlow Married Iris Pope. A year later Que married Sadie Beebe. About this time we left the ranch in Henderson which had been our home for seventeen or eighteen years and moved to Widstoe for a short time. The reason we left the ranch was that my father had mortgaged it to get money to buy one hundred heads of cattle. The cattle increased until we had a nice herd. The price of cattle fell for a while and you could hardly sale them at nay price. It was hare to pay the payments on the mortgage. Another discouraging thing was that it was hard to get enough water out onto the farm to raise enough feed to winter the cattle. Then a sickness came among the cattle and about fifty head died. I think my father could have managed somehow to save the farm, but the boys were getting discouraged and wanted to try something else, so father said that if none of the family wanted to stay with it he would give it up.

Golda (Elder) Mangum
Daughter of Clayborn & Elmina

In the fall of 1924, Leo married Dorothy Goodno. This same fall our family moved to Millard County spending the winter at Hinckley. In the spring of 1925, we moved seventeen miles north of Sugarville. Here my father and brothers rented a big farm where they raised alfalfa, beets and alfalfa seed.

My mother enjoyed living in Sugarville. There was a fine ward and wonderful people. It was about five miles to the church house, but we usually got a ride. Mother always saw that Dee and Marjorie got to Sunday School. Going to church in Sugarville Ward has left a happy memory with all of us who lived there. While living in Sugarville, I married Leroy Mangum on September 30, 1925.

After three and a half years, my father and mother moved to Orem buying a fruit farm. While they were living in Orem, Ren married Catherine Green and Claude was married to Ethel Barker, a young widow from Ogden.

From Orem my parents moved to the Uintah Basin living about a year in LaPoint and in Roosevelt about two years. While they were living in Roosevelt, Claude died in a veteran’s hospital in California of cancer. He was sick about five months. Claude’s death was a terrible blow to mother. She lost weight and couldn’t sleep at night and wasn’t well for a long time.

In the fall of 1935, my parents moved back to Orem. Mother was feeling better by then. Except for this one time, she was always blessed with good health. I can only remember once when she laid on the bed because she wan’t feeling well when I was a child at home. There may have been times when she didn’t feel well but she never complained and kept right on working, devoting her life to her family.

In Orem my parents rented a home where they lived about a year and then bought a small piece of ground where they lived for about a year. While living here a cherished dream was realized. Father and Mother and all of their children went to the Salt Lake Temple and were sealed as a family for time and all eternity. I have always been proud of my father to think that when he was nearly seventy years old he had the courage to quit tobacco which he had used since a boy, because he wanted to take his family to the temple. Six months later my father died December 8, 1936. He was ill only three or four days. It seemed just as if his mission on hearth was finished with his going to the temple.

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E
Elmina Stoker Elder
September 6, 1865 – September 18, 1942

Mother came to live with me, staying with us about two years. Then she moved into her own little home nearby. She seemed quite happy during the next few years. Her children were all living near and that was what she wanted. She never felt that she could stand to be separated from them. By this time she had 26 grandchildren whom she loved and always tried to give each one a gift for Christmas and for their birthdays. The granddaughters who were old enough would take turns staying with her at night. I think they all liked to stay because they never complained.

Mother loved to go to the temple. I used to go with her often and she did quite a bit of temple work. She seemed well and walked the mile and a quarter to church. About nine months before her death her eyesight began to fail. We found she had cataracts growing on her eyes, and with her failing eyesight her health seemed to fail too, but she was well enough and plucky enough to care for herself and her little home to the end.

She was seventy-five years old on Sept. 6, 1942. On Sept. 18th, she got up and dressed, ate her breakfast, and as she arose from the table she suddenly passed away. She was buried in the Provo Cemetery beside my father Sept. 21, 1942.