Life of
Mary Golda Walker Williams
(Mother of Pauline Williams McBride)
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| Golda Walker Williams |
I, like Nephi of old, was born of goodly parents who taught me of the learning of my father. My father, James Thomas Walker, was born the 11th day of Sept 1854 at Salt Lake City, Utah, son of James John Walker and Mary Ann Cox, both from England.
My mother, Christine Cook, daughter of William Simpson Cook and Christine Bowman was born at South Weber, Davis Co., Utah, 30 Jan 1866. My father had been married before, on 4 Mar 1877 in the Endowment house to Martha Alice Layton, daughter of Christopher Layton and Caroline Cooper. They had 2 sons, James Fredrick and Christopher John. Martha died shortly after the baby (Christopher John) was born and the baby died also, in Jan 1880. Ten years later on Jan 16, 1890 my father and mother were married in the Logan Temple.
My parents lived in one room of the house of the picture above [sorry, I don't have that picture], took care of Fred, her step son, and her brother‑in‑law, Dan Walker. His wife, her sister Lizzie, and child died just shortly before. My father was called on a mission 14 May 1890 to the Southern States, and Uncle Dan boarded with mother. My father and his 2 brothers had a store on the corner of the lot where they lived . Uncle Dan took care of the store while Daddy was away. He returned in May 1892.
On May 8, 1893 my only sister, Martha Christine (Mattie) was born, and on 29 Sep 1894 I was born.
At my birth, Mother was seriously ill, and almost lost her life. My father would take the horse and buggy to Ogden every day for some time and get Dr. Rich, bring him out and he would take care of Mother, then Daddy would take him back. One day when Dr. Rich was here, he told my mother it was too bad for her that the baby had died after all it had cost her. She told him I wasn't dead, just sleeping in the crib in the corner. He was greatly surprised because he hadn't heard me cry. Mother was down for about a year or more. Uncle Dan still lived here and helped around. They had to have hired help come in, and Grandma Cook, her mother, would walk up every day and wash and do what she saw needed doing.
My mother suffered all of her life from the results of that illness. I felt when I was old enuff [sic] to realize, that the only way I could ever repay her was to try to do the things she wanted me to do. I know I failed, but at least I tried.
I was baptized 30 Sep 1902 in the ditch in front of Grandpa Cook's house. I couldn't be baptized on my birthday because Dora Payne's funeral was on that day and it being Sunday too, my father thot [sic] I had better wait until Monday. I was confirmed by my grandfather, Wm. S. Cook.
I had a very pleasant childhood. Our parents were very strict with us. We were taught to be obedient and if we weren’t, we were punished.
My mother was washing one day at the back of the house. Cole’s lived across the street. Alice was their only daughter, but she had a number of brothers. Alice always had to do all the dishes. The dish pan was put on a chair and she would wash the dishes, put them in a pan of water on the table, then dry them. Where she spilt water on the front of her dress or apron would always be several shades lighter that the other part of her apron. I wanted to go over there one day and mother said “No”. Because she was going down to the factory after my father, he was working there. She was going down in the buggy after him, and we loved to go, and she said we could go with her. We thought we could watch when she went and hurry over, but we got to playing with Alice and didn’t see her go until she was down the road. We started after her, crying, went through the field thinking we could catch her there, but when we got there they had come home. We cried all the way home. When we got home mother got a spool of sewing thread and tied me to the leg of the washer. I didn’t dare break that thread. She kept her word, was kind but firm. When she thought I would remember, she untied the thread. I remembered alright.
We had all the children’s diseases, I always bring them home to Mattie. Never had a Dr. Mother doctored with sage tea, flax seed, quinine, rhubarb, sena tea, lemons and for canker, goldenseal or canker medicine grandma Cook made. I really liked that. Then in the spring, a spring tonic she made of salts, cream of tartar, lemon juice. We would take a tiny glass full every morning as a blood purifier. The only Doctor I had as a child was when I broke a blood vessel in my neck. One Sunday I was over to the neighbors. Coles had moved away and Thomas Schofield and family from Beaver had moved there. Lucile was our age, Emma younger, but we played together. They had an apple tree on the lawn that had a long limb straight out. We would take a hold of the limb with both hands and put our feet up between the limb and our hands. “Skin the Cat” we called it. We thought it was a lot of fun. Well my one hand slipped, let me fall on the ground. I could hardly get up. I went home , went to bed put in a terrible night. The next day Mother and Daddy took me to the doctor. My shoulder and chest was all black and blue. The doctor just put his finger on a spot that stopped the blleeding and it quit hurting, but was discolored for a long time. I had a cist (?) taken off my hand once, and before I was married a had a bad case of tonsilitis, had to have my palate cut off twice by Dr. A. Z. Tanner. Besides having my eyes tested once, that is all the medical attention I had before I was married. I was administered to several times by my father and he would give me a spoonful of consecrated oil and I knew I would be healed, which I was.
Mattie and I would ger real lonesome for someone to play with and would pray that Mother would have a baby by morning. We had many disappointments. Mother’s health was poor and she had a lot of trouble in her life.
We loved to climb trees. Lucile and Emma were here a lot we would be to their place. We had a pond in the field which Daddy would fill with water from the well, and every other day turn it out to water his crops. We would go swimming. I took this picture [also missing]. Those suits are outdated today, aren’t they?
Then there were girls dances. Bro. T. J. Thurgood was in charge of the hall, so we as a MIA class of girls would ask him if we could have a dance, and if we could he would get us a 2 or 3 piece orchestra and we would sell punch or candy we made and have a dance. They charged very little, a dollar or so for the hall and $5.00 for the orchestra and we would advertise it among the boys and they were loyal to us and come to the dance. We never went behind on our finances. I guess if we did Bro Thurgood would pay it. He would stay until it was over. Sometimes we would help him sweep and dust. There was quite a group of us and we would purchase dance cards and before the dance started our cards would be filled. We never danced with just one partner.
M.I.A. would have dances and we loved to go to them. Sometimes if we didn’t have a partner, Aunt Maggie Wilson, Mother’s sister would walk up with us. After the dance we would walk home. We lived 1 ½ miles from the hall, she lived 2 ½ , and some of the other girls 3 to 3 ½ miles.
I was asked to teach a Primary class when I was in my early teens, there were three classes. Then the Branch Primary was started down here. It was held in a little school house ½ mile west of here in the lower part of Syracuse [1700 South and 4000 West]. The first Sunday School was held there. Also Sacrament meeting and other meetings. It was a one room building across the street from where Willard Bambrough now lives. There Thirza Hansen, Margaret Wilson and Christine Bodily were the presidency of the Syracuse Primary. I played the organ and taught the oldest class. After a few years I got married. The class for activity hmad [sic] a rug, and when I was married they gave it to me.
We lived about 1 mile from the Great Salt Lake. There was quite a resort down there. A car ran down the track from Clearfield bringing a number or people to go bathing. There were concessions here and the tank you see [in another missing photo] was a tank that heated the water for the bath rooms to wash the salt off. On the tank are Thirza and Ida Hansen and Elma Cook. When the water receded the resort was abandoned. Some of the piles that held the bath rooms up are still there I believe. The dance pavilion that was down there, after the resort was dissolved, was pulled up the track ½ mile and used as a warehouse for the canning factory.
At the canning factory tomatoes were canned, catsup made, apples, peaches, pears all peeled by hand and canned providing work for a lot of people. Later a new canning factory was build about 2 miles east aloang the track and the old one was abandoned, torn down and moved away.
I started school when I was 5 so I could go with Mattie to the little school house on the corner ½ mile from where we lived. 8 grades were taught then. When the school house was crowded, there being a school just north of the store and mile and a half east of here, the school board said all over the 5th grade had to go up to the other school. There was some protest so they continued in the little one room school about another year and then the older grades were sent up to the other school. My 3rd grade teacher was E. W. Fisher, my 4th grade teacher was Lizzie Anderson, 5th grade teacher I believe was John Thurgood, 6th grade teacher was Mary Hendrickson, 7th grade was A. O. Soderburg, 8th grade was Ella Tolman Dibble. I graduated from District School in May 1908. Then from High School in 1910 with D. R,. Tolman as teacher in a one room building up by David Gaileys. Went to school again in the same school house with H. C. Paterson as teacher in 1912-13. The school was enlarged and two more rooms added on. I graduated in spring of 1914. There were 4 of us: Eugene Page, Russell Call, Ivie Singleton and myself. I didn’t have a picture of Ivie, only in my year book Really enjoyed my school years. When I was in the 1sr grade of high school I was offered a scholarship to the University of Utah. But my parents didn’t want me to take it. At the completion of my 3rd year in high school I graduated and then in Dec of that year I marred Lionel E. Williams in the Temple (Salt Lake) on Dec 16, 1914. Lon didn’t have a mustache when we were married, he had shaved it off. Isn’t he handsome?
My life as a girl was very full and happy. Alice Coles, a little older than Mattie and I , lived across the road from us and we loved to play with her. The Schofields moved in and bought the home and Lucile and Emma were our dear friends. We would play house together, climb trees, hunt bird’s nests, play store. Then as we grew older, we worked in the canning factory together.
My father had a farm, so Mattie and I did hoeing, picked up potatoes, mowed hay, ran the derrick horse, tromped hay, thinned beets and would pile them at night and stack enough for Daddy to top while we were at school and then we would help load them in the wagon so he could take them to the beet dump 1/4 mile from our home.
We would also work at the store and after they built the store 1 ½ miles from us we both worked there several years. Before the new store, as it was called, was built there was only one telephone in the town and that was in the store by us, and Mattie and I would deliver telephone messages down to Millers who had a fruit orchard 1 ½ miles for 25 cents, down to the resort l mile 15 cents. We did a lot of delivering telephone message to various people. These pictures were taken in front of the store by the hitching posts and in the store. Thirza Hansen is in the 2 pictures at the left. She worked in the store at that time. This is me on the right.
This picture is myself, the colt and dog taken at the back of the store. The fence back of us is the east fence of our lot, the row of trees was against the ditch west of the fence. [Sorry, that picture is lost]
Our summers were very enjoyable. We, with Bp. David Cook and wife Hannah ( their 2 daughters, Lydia and Tessie, would go along until they got older ) would go to Weber Canyon. What a wonderful time we would have going along in the covered wagon drawn by 2 horses. The wagon bed was filled with hay and grain for the horses, the grub box, cooking utensils, a trunk with our clothes, towels, etc., the bedding a bunch of magazines, croquet set, etc.
We would stay 10 days or 2 weeks. Mother would bake bread and cook in the dutch oven and we really ate good while there. The men would catch fish (suckers or carp) but they were good. We didn’t ever have trout then. Quite often Lucile would go with us, and Bodilys, Walkers, Cooks and a lot more families would all be up there at the same time
I think this is Mattie taking Bp. Cook across to the other side of the river to fish., on old Gracie. This other one is 2 of the girls going after milk. [I've really got to find these pictures]
The boys would come up and sometimes stay and we would go hiking, etc. Lon came up once or twice. Once he came up to bring us back to be pall bearers to our friend Katie Payne’s funeral. She died as a result of burns after we left home.
Lon and I got married. We had a very lovely courtship and he bought a new yellow geared buggy and we were very proud of it. We had a home reception after we were married, so many lovely gifts we received.
(Here is the story of their wedding day. Lon and Golda and their mothers, Christine Walker and Grace Williams went early in the morning to Layton to catch the Bamberger to Salt Lake to the Temple. After the temple ceremony Lon and Golda went to get something to eat and their mothers were going to go home. They had just got started eating when their mothers appeared. It seems Lon had their Bamberger tickets in his pocket and so they were forced to leave also.)
We lived with his folks for 3 months. During that time he worked at the store and built us a little home north of them, two rooms, pantry and clothes closet. We were very comfortable and happy in it. We moved in 1 Apr 1915. He drove a well but it didn’t flow. He was working the farm and working in the store. His father was working in Farmington so they wanted to sell out and move to Kaysville because it was closer to his work. We bought the farm. We moved from our little house to this on Oct. 1915.
Dorothy was born 13 Dec 1915 here. Owen Willey and Anne Green got married and moved in the front room and a bed room upstairs the night Dorothy was born. Aunt Esther Session was with me. We were so thrilled about our baby but so nervous. I hadn’t been around babies very much. I had played in Sunday School on Sunday before Dorothy was born. Aa\unt Esther said to Elmer, "I am going down to Lon’s tonight. Golda has a baby girl.” Elmer said, “It can’t be. She played in S.S. this morning”. “It is though” Aunt Esther said. She stayed with me 10 days. Then in 2 years and 9 months Reed was born. Dr. Tanner had me stay in bed 10 days and I was really enjoying the rest. Ida Hansen was my nurse. Then Christine was born on 6 Sep 1920. She was so little. She was a twin, but her twin never matured. Pauline came next in 2 years.(29 Dec 1922), Jim (James Thomas, 14 Jan 1925) then Mary (31 Dec 1926). Then we began having difficulties. Allan was 2 ½ months premature, born and died 16 Dec 1928; Fred lived 3 days and died (5 Dec 1930 to 8 Dec 1930); Martha was born and died 29 May 1933. Besides three other miscarriages that is our family. We are so grateful for them and the three that died are an anchor in Heaven for us to live to be able to raise them. We planted trees around our home and had flowers and shrubs and we always had a good garden. Lon worked the farme, was a very good farmer and we all worked, as the children got old enough to go into the fields to help.
We remodeled the house twice and it was very comfortable. Dorothy had married in 1937 and gone to Ogden to live. Reed was in the service, went on our 25th (?) wedding anniversary, 16 Dec 1941 (?) Christine was working in Ogden, Pauline at school in Logan.
On Dec. 5, 1941 Lon sold our home and land to Victor Waite, so we moved down to the home where I was born. Mother had deeded part of it to me. Lon was buying the lower 30 acres. I really hated to leave the home where my family had all been born, except the last. Lon sold it too soon, we could have received more for it because it was as good a farm as any in Syracuse and he had worked so hard on it.
We moved done here on 1 Apr 1942, and he started to remodel the house. Finally when he did finish it, it looked like this.
I have had many wonderful experiences in the church.
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