Grandma Boman wrote the following pages for me. She did this while she was living in the rest home in LaVern [sic] California. I have tried to type it as she wrote it except that I have added words to make complete sentences, and corrected spellings.
Dec. 1987 Christine B. Dent
I was born 05 January 1901 at Smithfield, Cache County, Utah. It was in the house of my parents. The night was cold and snowy, also a little white calf was born. They later sold it to pay Mrs. Kellsey the midwife. I got my name from a French lady that lived in Smithfield. However, it was spelled in French, Moiselle. The first name was one of Mother’s relations Lilla Thornley, however, I was called by Mozell.
I was the sixth child of twelve children. My father was John William Pitcher, called Willy, my mother was Mary Clarissa Thornely. [sic] I had five sisters and six brothers; Margaret Rebecca Pitcher Peterson, Henry Cyril Pitcher, John Harvey Pitcher, Pheobe Clarrissa Pitcher Boman, myself, Willie DeConn Pitcher, Elton Brown Pitcher, Melvin Bernard Pitcher, Bessie Bernice Pitcher Last, Vaudice Elva Pitcher Boman, Valden Thornley Pitcher, Bertha Pitcher Greave.
My early playmates were Isabel Karl, who played she was my brother Harvey’s wife. We played house out in the popular trees. Selma Holjism <Swedish> lived a block away, and my sister Pheobe and I liked to go there. She had so many nice and different play things. My sister Margaret, nicknamed Maggie, was a good friend of her older sister. Then my mother’s brother Ralph Thornley lived across the street, where we spent much of our time with Ethel and Ileen.
We lived directly across the street from the Presbyterian school. The teachers name was Mrs. Stalker. My father used to wrap me in Mother’s gray shawl and carry me across the street in stormy weather. I started school when I was five.
For many years I was quite small of stature. My friends used to tease me and call me little Mozell. I would always think they meant it and would say no it’s Lilla Mozell.
At age six we moved from Smithfield to Cornish Utah. My father bought a farm there. He would go and stay a week at a time, clearing it of sage brush and planting crops. He usually took Harvey with him. Cyril the oldest brother had to stay and help milk the cows. My mother disliked to move, as we had running water by then in Smithfield.
I then started school at age six in Cornish. We all met in a one room school. There were eight grades in the same school. It was easy for me to memorize the poems. My mother would get me to recite them to her. Her favorite was “I am only a little sparrow”. I was always the one to stay out of school. I missed the sixth grade. I wanted to promote with my class. There wasn’t a Junior High.
I recall my brother DeConn and I had the chicken pox at the same time. Our home had two rooms and a shanty on back of the kitchen. The bedroom was long. It had four beds in it. A big apple tree in the front lawn.
My very best Christmas in my youth was all the family spending the night at Grandmother Pitchers home. Grandfather had built a little cupboard out of a box for myself and sister Pheobe. Then Santa brought a lovely set of dishes that were white with little purple violets on them.
I was baptized on 05 September 1909 by my father in the Bear River at Cornish. In Primary I remember the one song I loved so much, “Because He loves me so”. I also remember the time we made ice cream and took it to the river bottoms to eat it. One teacher taught us how to crochet. She also taught us from the Book of Mormon, which she knew well. We didn’t have special books and lessons like they do now. Many times we had to walk the three miles to get to Sunday School. We had little red dresses trimmed in red ribbon and white lace. I recall practicing for Mother’s day, she wore a white carnation.
I was a Campfire girl, we received a colored bead and a buck skin string for each requirement. I had two lovely sisters as campfire leaders. They composed a song and a yell for us. We should take turns entertaining in summer with lunch and etc.
We did have the Lady’s Home Journal, which we enjoyed so much. Also we had a reading course. I always will remember “The 24 of June Freckles” and “The Girl of the Limber Lost”.
I served the church as a Primary teacher, Relief Society first counselor and secretary, a visiting teacher and NINE years as a temple worker in the Los Angles Temple.
After Milton went to Logan to school, he sent me a picture of him. I was surprised to receive it. I use to take it in the bedroom and kiss it everyday. I had had other fellows I met from other places and letters, yet I never did answer them. I recall Vaudice and Bessie reading a card from a Cornish boy. He had gone to California for a while. He underlined “answer this!”. Then one Butler boy tried to get me to go with him. He was talented in music, playing the Trombone. I just couldn’t stand him.
I would like to pass on to my family some of the accidents and illnesses I have had. At the age of fourteen I cut my thumb off topping sugar beets. I had to have the joint removed a little to get enough skin to sew up together. However, some way the doctor left a little bone sliver inside. It took weeks for it to heal. It gathered (became infected) and broke the thread it was sewed with. In those days there wasn’t aspirin or pain reliever to give to people to lessen the pain. My father used to get up in the night and walk the floor with me holding my weight with his arm under my shoulder. We always had a baby it seems. It fell to me to hang out the clothes. They froze as you put them on the line. The intense cold would cause severe pain in my thumb.
One of the little children got on the electric fence, and couldn’t let go. My only thought was to wade through the ditch water. I had to grab hold of the wire. That released him, but I couldn’t get loose, the barb wire was in my hand. I had long hair. I passed out and as I hit the water I came to enough to keep from drowning. It was twenty minutes before I received help. I had to have a doctor as the pain from my leg was unbearable. I recall I was so afraid of a heating pad because of the electricity. All I would have is hot water bottle.
Another time I took my young son out in the yard to see a little new born calf. The calf was staked to a pole, and well it got frightened or something. It knocked me out and got the boys arm wrapped tightly to the post. The rope went through his mouth. One other small son got another to get a milk bucket and coax it back around the post until it loosened it. I then got up and went to my sisters place and told them about it. It was about two in the afternoon, and I was with my husband when I seemed to come out of it. My head seemed to sort of spin before I came out of it.
I had many more accidents. Yet another one was the infection I got in my right eye. I was 41 years old. The pain was excruciating. The doctor had me go to the hospital where they put hot packs of Boric Acid on it every hour, day and night. Finally they had to remove it. There was an abscess on the back of it. If it had happened today when there were antibiotics they may have saved it. Also my nose was broken three times.
Then I got a bad heart. I got arteriosclerosis in my left side. I went on that way and other arteries became blocked. I collapsed on my chair about 9:30. I went to the emergency hospital, then to my daughters for three weeks. The second week they found me on my face on the floor, unconscious. They called the ambulance, which I do not recall anything about. I came to in the hospital. I do wish they had just let me go before I became a burden to my children. All the doctors said there isn’t any hope of a cure for it. I am so weak and helpless. I can’t clean my own room or anything. I feel like a burden as it upsets their way of family life. The doctor told them to give me anything to make me comfortable just so I didn’t take tranquilizers to [sic] close together, because maybe I’d fall and break a leg or something. I know enough not to take too many yet I have to do what they say and suffer needlessly. I’m sure they think it is for the best, yet for hours I am so distressed with the muscles of my stomach tightening up. It did improve in my throat and shoulders. Yet, there is my stomach and it’s so very hard to cope with.
Also all my days since my eye was removed I have had to take it out at night and insert it in the morning. It made extra things to take along when I go anywhere.
I can’t make my bed or anything like that. I can take a bath though. It seems the hardest thing not to have a small place where I can cook a little for myself. I feel I just wanted the children to know a little of what I am going through. I hope and pray it never comes to them.
I did really enjoy the years I was in the Los Angles Temple working. My Patriarchal Blessing said I would do much work there. I had one very bad time a little over a year back. I got infection in my only eye. I had to go to two eye doctors, before it stopped. I was so worried I would be blind. I got so I could walk down to Westwood and do the necessary things. I was independent. Then this most serious illness came to me.
I have never been strong. When I did the dishes I had to hold them up against me, my dress was always wet. Then my sister could milk a cow just as well as the boys while no matter how hard I tried, I could just get a little stream. Also I was slower than most so it was hard for me to get through my work. I used to break so many dishes so my mother scolded me all the time seems. Of course, she didn’t know then that I couldn’t help it. I did love to cook and got so that I could make delicious cakes and pies. Mother would get me to make the layer cakes, caramel icing with walnut halves on it. I loved to sing so I guess I drove everyone wild singing so much. I would memorize all the words to the songs.
I guess my worst trouble and still is that I was so full of fear. I was just two years old when they would tell of Clary Saxton who was crazy wild. She carried an ax, as she would go to a door, and say, “1,2,3,4, in goes your door”. It must have stayed with me as I was so afraid after dark. When I carried buckets of water up the steps I always knew someone was right behind me, ready to grab me. Then I’d have bad nights. I was sure there was someone in the same room. I’d get so weak and my heart would pound, and I would break out with sweat.
Grandma Boman recited this poem from memory on Thanksgiving Day 1983. She was 82 years old, she was living in the rest home in La Vern, [sic] California.
Old Speckled arose from her nest and crackled with much vigor.
As if to say that egg is my best, no hen could lay no bigger,
And little Johnny standing by in mute contempt was gazing,.
You think your smart, God made that egg, you couldn’t help but lay it.
Grandma spent her last weeks in life in a convalescent hospital in Covina, California, becoming very weak and frail before the blessing of death came to her. She died 19 May 1984. At the time of her death, her great-grandson Aaron Dent was in the Primary Children’s Hospital fighting for his life. He was only three months old at this time. Was her life ended so that Aaron could live? Grandma lived up to the saying that is used by many people, “She will be late for her own funeral”, because of delays in releasing her body to be flown to Utah, the service was held without her body. No one could deny that she was there in spirit anyway. This is a testimony for us. She was buried in the Lewiston, Utah cemetery, near to her sister Pheobe Pitcher Boman and her grandson Terry LeRoy Boman.
Memories of My Father
By Mozell Boman
My Father’s name is John William Pitcher. He was born on 13 June, 1871 at Smithfield, Utah. His father’s name is John Pitcher and his mother’s name is Rebecca Levell Brown. The memories of my father are very precious. He was a good kind father. He enjoyed his children so much. He would get down on his hands and knees and let them ride horseback around the room. He was always playing with them and enjoying them as well as his grandchildren. He loved a good garden, which he and Mother would plant together. He often would let me drop the corn seeds as he made the holes. He would dry my long hair after a bath in a round wash tub. He could sing well and would entertain us by the hours in the evenings. He could also play anything on the Harmonica. I especially enjoyed “Listen to the Mocking Bird”. He would play “The Bear went over the Mountain” and he would sing “Little Brown Jug”. It was a joy to hear him sing and cord [sic] to “I’ll never shall play the wild Rover again”.
He only went to school until he was still quite young. Then he had to take the cows into the hills and herd them all day. Yet, he was self educated. He could talk with the most learned men. He read books, he loved that, and mathematics. He was efficient in that. He was a director of the West Cache Canal and a road supervisor. Also, he was superintendent of the Sunday School. He loved to sleigh ride. Also he could butcher a pig. He would scrape it so clean, that there was not a hair on it. He would saw up the head for head cheese so expertly. He always ran the washer whenever possible. We had one with a stick that stood up. You pushed it back and forth.
He would always be by the door to call, “Christmas, come and get Your gifts”. He would not allow us to use bad language. His example was the best. He loved to have his mother and family there for his June 13th birthday. I recall one year we had new potatoes and green peas from his garden. For entertainment they played horse shoes. He always inspected the garden of which he was so proud.
Then the livestock, which he looked after he loved too. He had many pigs and some cows. He had sheep for a while, which had to be herded. It seems I took my turn with all of them. Haying time was a joy, it smelled so aromic. [sic] We would turn the two ends where the rake wheels went over and make piles. Also he had a grind stone and would sharpen his own mower knives, while we turned it. He was a kind generous man. He never turned anyone away. He would always put them up for the night. He always considered for minute when we asked to go with some friends. He usual [sic] answered yes. Of course we had to mind and a few times we got switched. He would always tell us before that he was going to do it. That was worse than the real tingling of the switch. He always had time to make us a whistle from the small willows.
He never gave the boys wages, but always gave a generous check when they took their girls out. Also if any of his brothers or uncles were in need he saw to it that they were taken care of. One of his uncles was a bachelor and lived with his mother and aunt. When he died, Father was the first one to arrange about a funeral, even though he didn’t have much himself. He was sort of a prophet, I guess. One night he dreamed his younger brother who was serving a mission in Texas needed shoes. The next day he sent him a five dollar check. Sure enough, there were holes in the bottom of his brother’s shoes. He would hitch up the white top buggy and drive us the twenty miles to Logan to the circus. He knew it would be something we would never forget. They paraded the animals from the circus trains around. Grandma Pitcher went with us. She bought us a treat. I was four about then.
We had a reunion on his 100th birthday. He had such a posterity. One of his grandsons who is a really good singer said “My grandpa had six sons and daughters, and none of them smoked or drank, so I have decided to pattern my life after him”. Father went on a mission to England. He couldn’t stay the whole time as Mother became ill. He also loved fishing and flowers, nice colts and horses. Also most of all he enjoyed his children. We worshiped him. He always stood so straightly and looked well in his clothes, even with his bald head of so many years. He died young, at sixty-eight of a heart attack, 16, December, 1938 in Cornish. He was buried 19 December 1938 in Smithfield Utah.
MY MOTHER
BY MOZELL BOMAN
My Mother’s name is Mary Clarissa Thornley. She was born on 27 April, 1873 at Smithfield, Utah. Her Father’s name is John Thornley and her mother’s name is Margaret Stringfellow. Some memories of my mother are that she was a kind and ambitious woman. When we were ill she would make custard and tea and serve it on little dishes. She would make mustard plasters and spread it on a cloth and apply it to our chests and throats. Her great joy was to please my father. I recall how she always made home-made mince meat, and a row of pies and always a plum pudding. Then to our great joy together we would make molasses candy, then dozens of ginger snaps.
They would drive the twenty miles to Smithfield to shop. They usually charged as most everyone did. Each time they paid up the grocer would give them a bag of candy. I can still see her knitting stockings while she nursed her babies. She always made father’s lunch. When he had to irrigate she would let me take it to him. He usually shared it with me. She would help all of us get ready to go to church in a white top buggy. Then she was so swift, she could comb her hair and change so quickly.
Her father died when she was quite young. He told her “now Mary, be good to your mother”. By this time her mother was sort of an invalid, so Mother took good care of her. She also milked the cows and did the chores. She had this to do each night and morning. I have heard her tell that Mother did most of the courting of Father, while she was out doing chores. They were married in Smithfield and were later sealed in the Logan Temple in 1896. The children they had were sealed to them at time. They went to work for the railroad. Mother cooked for the workers on the railroad. Father became a fireman and pumped a hand car with the help of the section hands. They just had a board house. It got so very cold, I recall them telling of water freezing in a tin cup on back of the stove.
After quite a few years they moved to Smithfield on a small farm, but good soil. Mother always kept her cook stove shiny, the nickel work clean and the top blacked and shined. After a few years, when Father bought the farm in Cornish, Utah she would cook grub to last him the whole week while he cleared the land of sage brush. She would take care of the family and see that the chores were done and the cows driven to pasture. It was with an aching heart that she left Smithfield. We had water hydrants outside and she disliked to leave that. Yet, she wanted to do what her husband felt best. I am told she would stand by the window that looked toward Smithfield and cry, she was so homesick. Also the water had to be pumped, it was so hard. She would have to take lye and put it in the boiler and skim it off, before she would wash. She made her own soap and washed clothes on a wash board until we got a washer. Some how it always came to me, to stay home on wash day and help. I also remember her singing at her work . “Earth with her Ten Thousand Flowers” was a favorite hymn.
There were two rock rooms on the front of the house, one for a living and sleeping room and another for her and Father’s bedroom. There was one bed in there where we three older girls slept together in a straw tick. Usually four times a year fresh straw was put in them. I believe she had a feather mattress. She sewed carpet rags for carpets, I would sit on the floor and help her. The carpet came up every house cleaning time and fresh straw put under it. Dad was good to help her. They didn’t clean one room at a time then. The whole house was redone. Father would white wash the kitchen, then Mother would scrub every door and window afterward. It was a joy to have all clean and fresh. There was a small pantry between the log kitchen and front room, where she kept so much, I don’t see how see did it.
She was sustained treasurer of the Relief Society. That was when they collected money or eggs or anything one could spare. This was done by the visiting teachers. She had a special book that she kept a record of this in. Also the gleaning of the wheat was recorded. Each year end the secretary would come to our house to make out the annual report. When Mother was released they gave her a set of lovely teaspoons.
Mother died 7 October 1916, in Richmond Utah and is buried in Smithfield, Utah.
June 12, 1971 (newspaper clipping included in account, transcribed by Susan Carey, Aug 2013)
Over 175 members of the late John William (Will) Pitcher met to celebrate his 100th birthday. He was born on June 13, 1871, in Smithfield, two years after his parents John and Rebecca Pitcher had immigrated to Utah from England.
He and Mary Clarissa Thornley, daughter of John and Margaret Stringfellow Thornley were married March 23, 1892 in Smithfield. Their marriage was solemnized in the Logan Temple in March 1896. Twelve children were born in this family. They were Margaret, Cyril, Harvey, Phoebe, Mozelle, DeConn, Brown, Melvin, Messie, Vaudice, Valden and Bertha.
Early in their marriage Mr. Pitcher was employed by the railroad as section foreman. They moved from Thatcher, Idaho, to Camas, Idaho, and then to Smithfield. In 1906 they moved to their farm in Cornish. In 1912 they built a large two story white brick house of nine rooms and a basement. This was home for a growing family of children and grandchildren and a place for parties and dinner for their numerous relatives and friends. Will was a good provider and Mary was a good cook.
Mr. Pitcher served several years as assistant superintendent and also as superintendent of the Sunday School and as ward teacher in the Cornish Ward. In November 1920 he was called to serve an LDS mission in England. Two of his sons served on missions.
Mr. Pitcher died December 16, 1938, at his home in Cornish. Members of the family include Margaret Petersen, (deceased) H. Cyril Pitcher, Logan; Harvey, Cornish; Pheobe Boman, Lewiston; Mozelle Boman, Los Angeles, California; DeConn, Cornish; Brown (deceased), Melvin, Lewiston; Bessie Last, Bountiful; Vaudice Boman, Lewiston; Valden, Cornish and Bertha Greaves, Cleveland, Ohio.
Members of the family arranging for the reunion were: H. Cyril Pitcher, general chairman; Valden T. Pitcher, program; Melvin Pitcher, DeConn Pitcher and Carol Gregory, food; Pheobe Boman, recreation; Bessie Last, publication; Kristine Dent, Vaudice Boman, invitations.
Frank Last of Bountiful served as master of ceremonies for the following program: Julie, Linda and Diane Pitcher played “Stars and Stripes Forever” on the piano; harmonica solo, Grant P. Petersen, vocal duet by Joseph L. Myler and Douglas Myler, “Silver Haired Daddy of Mine”; vocal duet by Larry Pitcher and Darlene P. Post, “You Are My Love,” vocal solo by Marcell Pitcher accompanied by Dan Pitcher. Suzanne Boman, Diane Pitcher danced a can-can dance. There was a skit put on by Melody Boman, Jeff Boman and Bonnie Boman. Verdin Dent sang a vocal solo accompanied by Kristine Dent. Geniel Pitcher sang “Mr. Sandman” accompanied by Julie Pitcher. Vickie and Cherri Gregory of Wellsville played a guitar duet followed by a recitation by Sandie Gregory. The final number was a quartet composed of Joseph L. Myler, Boyce Pitcher, Grant Petersen and Douglas Myler accompanied by Avis P. Myler.
Mrs. Maude Hyer of Lewiston decorated a birthday cake designating the 100th birthday anniversary and presented it to the family.
(digitized by Susan Carey Aug 2013 from 8.5×14 pages in possession of Gary & Rebecca Walker)
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