EuniceMc1

VISITS WITH EUNICE McKENZIE

Carol Back and Steve Richardson

INTRODUCTORY NOTE: These interviews were recorded on tape, then a transcript was made later. The reader should be aware that Eunice's references to "your father" and to "Milt" can be referring to either Shadrack Milton Richardson, Carol's father, or to his son, Milton E Richardson, Steve's father.

<<11 January 1986>>

Eames

I didn't know them, only I did know the three children there was George and the one that lives in Payson and the one that lived in Springville. Becky was the one that I mean. She married Brimhall, Bill Brimhall. I don't know that she has died. She was older. I detested Bill, but don't put that in your history. He was a character, and some characters imprint themselves very graciously, and then others don't. And that was just the difference between them. There was no love lost either way. But Becky was the one that I knew, whether she was of the other generation or not. Becky herself lived with my parents for a long time. She had to come back home to see momma. I knew her when she lived there; she called it home, she had to come home to see the family. Her children I know are still there, I know the two boys. I'm talking about names in my memory. They did stay in Payson for the rest of their lives. There was one daughter--how far back I don't know--her brother was a sister to Becky. She was writing music she came in a covered wagon with one or two of her children and they parked and lived in the back of our home there in Benjamin. So that's a hundred years ago, and she did some writing while she was there. That was Becky's sister's daughter but she had lived at mommas.

Answer me one question, in going through the family traits that you have in this, what did you think about the families? You got into the Ames, but I mean in the Richardsons. Were they the energetic push ahead Mormon type or were they the ones who were waiting for the Millenium? As far as I know they were farmers, close to the farm, but I never knew of any of them doing any of it, and thats why I'm asking such a stupid question.

[Note: The following is about Shadrack]

Eunice: I think he was a farmer at heart. He was raised on the farm and he always knew the farm was there. He didn't stay on the farm, he was next to the oldest ones, but I'll tell you what mother said, he had to have money. Money wasn't on the farm, so he had to go to where the money was, and you know on the farm you have to wait until things are sold and then subdivide it and he was a sport and he was a sporting man and he wanted to go where he could get it right now. And that was why he got to work in the mines, and worked individual, he didn't work for a company. Therefore the company did nothing for him when he went down. He worked his own contract was the understanding I got. To tell you the truth, uncle Charl Hickman, momma's brother who lived in Benjamin there--he died in Benjamin, by the way, but his son worked up there all the time, and his son worked individually. But his son left and went up north here someplace as an electrician, and he wasn't able to work for a long time, maybe he's dead now too, that's what happened to all my friends. I had my funeral all planned out, they told me they'd take part in it, they're all dead of old age. But he was telling about how much better it was to work individually then you could make it pay if it was there and if it wasn't you wouldn't stay anyway. That was Wallace that told me that part, but that was after he was out of there.

Carol: You asked what we thought of the Richardsons. I thought they were great. I was always proud to be named Richardson and mother always told me you've got a good name and you live up to it she was very proud. Dad was sick but he came from a good family and Im proud of it and the kids at school were always good students they were cousins that I was proud to be a cousin to.

Eunice: I'm glad to hear you say that. I have a daughter that is proud of it she says she's got her kids up here, she says the meanest thing I could do is take them away from all their cousins--they never will though, and she said they should remember the originals. They were a good family and by asking that question I didn't mean to belittle them, but I'd just like to know what, over the generations, what changes have been made in the Richardson families, because they were always poor as far as I could tell, I wrote up histories on them while they were still back in England. On that side of the water they weren't in England and the prospective countries around there but I caught the early family trait then, but that was when my father was alive, and my father died when I was 13 years old, but I got that history and wrote it up so poppa could hear it and read what we had got from those other people that had come in. But there was so many things happen that was important to me but I lived past them.

Carol: But you know Donna and Betty and Walter and Tommy and Maxine and Patsy they are just top notch people they haven't had easy lives, none of them, and I think Betty and Patsy have been just monuments, you know because their marriages failed and they carried on with their families and raised good families, and Betty said "I could throw my husband in jail, but it would be a disgrace to my children" and she went out and worked for it and she has a great family. And Patsy, every time I see her she's got two jobs, they're smart, they've got everything on the ball and as far as I know they're doing wonderfully well.

[Further comments on Maxine, who was so smart she didn't have to take tests in school because she always got a 100.]

Eunice: She has got the stamina that the Richardsons are known for. There weren't many of us that got very far in education. That part, they didn't have time for it they were too busy on the farm.

[Reading of Dad's history, comments by Eunice:]

About Richard Richardson:

[He lived and worked around the mines and mills at Eureka, after he retired he moved to Benjamin] right across the road from Arrowhead [a resort right in Benjamin], he built a little one room [sounds like "shape"] and lived there until he died. He was short, in fact he was kind of on the hunchback side. Your mother named Vernon after him [Carol: Because he asked her to.]

Reading of Dad's Personal History [click here to compare], Eunice's comments.

Eunice drove them up to SLC for sealing of husband to wife kids. Uncle Les [or Wes] stood in Shadrack's place.

Shadrack's Eye:

The one eye was a natural blue eye, the other was a pink eye. There was no expression. I was a kid, I can remember I was afraid to look at him, I felt if he saw me looking at him he would think I was making fun of him.

Schoolhouse:

Shall I give you a little more personal information? When we moved down there, of course we figured if there are no schools there is no schooling. I say we--when the folks moved down there, no schools, no nothing, and they decided they had to have schools, they decided to have schools set up around in town and then the women that could teach did teaching in their homes and that was done.... My father gave the place for them to build it there on the corner of our lot, and that was our home, they built it. We lived there until the central school was built up in town. And Poppa got the home back again, they remodeled it, and that was where we lived. But we moved into that one when I was five years old. So I think of it as our place, but I was five when I moved up into that and I've been down in that home where you think your father was born. By the way, your father got down into that home just in time to be born in it.

Mushrooms: You know, that's something I've never heard before. I never knew there was the moisture there that they would raise mushrooms in that large amount. I know it was a quagmire all down in there before they brought it into farming, but I never knew they grew mushrooms in there.

Student: I heard he was brilliant, Momma said that he was her most brilliant youngster, and he was the best looking baby she had. That was something because I thought that was a good looking family, then they got down to me and ran out of material.

Seizures: I never heard of his having any more after that.

Boy who passed away: Fletcher!

All I remember is that he had a very pronounced nose. I remember just bits of kids. Some people might not notice it. The nose usually is the focal part of the face. That's the part I usually remembered....[she added that since now she can't see beyond the end of her own nose that she has difficulty now remembering names.]

Grandfather Richardson: White hair, just white, white, white. By the way, his hair mother said was snow white before he was 20. In his 18th year he started going white, and he was white haired from then on. She said his hair was black as coal before that. His mustache come and went, quite often, he'd shave it off for some reason or other--I never did find out why. I know once or twice--once I cut it off, that time I remembered cause I told him I was sick and tired of kissing hair that tasted like coffee, and if that was what it tasted like I could cut it off, and by golly I did. The other side of me said I cut it off, I can't remember why, I guess I had a reason, I always did. Wasn't a good reason most of the time, but I had one.

Table with chairs: Something else about that table with the chairs all around it, we always got up together to have prayer before breakfast in the morning. The reason the chairs were turned that way is cause Wes couldn't tell the front from the back of the chair. Isn't that awful?

The only reason they turned the chairs around backwards was so they could make it easier for Wes. Oh, my mother was disgusted. [He had a hangover by morning and he couldn't tell whether the chair was supposed to be sit on. I must put this in: that was my supposition on it, but he wasn't a drinker, he was a sport. At the time all sports had to have a bottle on their hip, and that's what Wes had. It just went with that inbetween age. But he wasn't a drunkard, he wasn't that. It never had got the best of him.] He was a sport and he went sporting at night instead of getting ready for work the next day. And he'd sleep in in the morning. He had a hard time getting up in time for prayers. But that went with our place. Those chairs were always there for prayer.

Model T: We had one before Model T. You know we had a car with hard rubber tires on it? That shows how far back we went. The Model T came after that. I was driving before we ever got a Model T. The Model T wasn't the first car.

Take 5: Five minute rest.

Lincoln Beach Plunge: It was set up, had a plunge, hot and cold water out there, a dance hall, why it was quite a recreation place for a while.

Carol on her birthday: It should be '24 but everybody said it was '25 and I never had a birth certificate that was right. They didn't keep records. My birth certificate says '25 but I went to school at born in '24.

Eunice: Old age isn't a nice time to have. If you ever have a choice between youth and old age, don't take old age.

One thing I want, all you kids to take care of my kids and keep up the spirit of old age. Someday you'll be as old as I am, and I'll feel sorry for you, but in the meantime I hope you can enjoy life and living and I want it to be with all the family. I want you to know each other and appreciate each other.

oooOooo

<<1 February 1986>>

Now with my husband, you asked if he was religious. After Ray asked me to marry, I said there was two or three things that had to be in my marriage vows that isn't common with everyone. One of mine was I had to be married in the temple, and it stirred up a little comment, what difference would it make if I was or was not married in the temple? I said well, I was carrying out my part of the bargain. God put me on this earth to multiply and replenish the earth and live his teachings. And that I thought was my purpose on earth. That had to go in with my marriage. Well he took it that way, and he didn't quit smoking. And we strung along and strung along and I couldn't get rid of arthritis. I wouldn't get married until I found out I didn't have arthritis. That's what I thought. I had it for a long time. I had it when I was just a little teeny kid with leg ache, when maybe I was three or four years old when I first knew about the leg ache that I have every time[?]. So you see how long I've had it. After we were married, we decided--mutual agreement, maybe it was mine, maybe it was his, I don't know--we would get married out of the temple with the lawyer, but we also had to go back to go through the temple in a year. That was fine, I'd be willing to go with him, get him started in it, he'd gladly do it. And he did. He did quit his smoking, we did go to the temple, but not in a year. LauraLee was a year and a half old when we went through. But he got enthused about the church, and you can't imagine the days and days we spent in the temple doing temple work for his family. And he stood in line for his mother and father, they weren't married in the temple, she had got a temple divorce from her first husband. He stood in line for his father when his mother was married and [sounds like churn], and he stood in line for her. And he was baptized for his father. The grandfather when they came to Utah was very diligent in the church, and he thought he was going to be the first bishop in Benjamin. That is one thing I found out in genealogy work that I wish I had never found out. In all that I learned in genealogy was the superior feeling that those early Mormons had, that they would be the next bishop, they would be the next leader, they were the one called of God, they were the one that heard voices. And that was what I learned and found out in genealogy work that I went into, that I heard too much of that backbiting was the reason that so many of the members left the church at that time. And that was what happened to Ray's grandfather, who was so religious. My husband went through, and he had their work done, their parent's work that hadn't been done. None of the children, after they came to Utah had been baptized. He got busy, those that were gone, he did the temple work for, and the days and days he spent in on family heritage were thrilling to me. He would have had to have believed, he would have had to have been very, very sincere to have got in and done the work that he did and put the time and the patience in to find [sounds like trappings] that we did. We had the ranch that was in Spanish Fork Canyon, it was in what they called Wonrodes. Wonrode was such a choice Indian leader, he was the one that owned that whole canyon in there. W-O-N-R-O-D-E-S. That's how I'd spell it. I'm not an Indian either.

Anyway, we were on down into Duchesne, I was on another mission then, I was for the church and the government both on a school project building homes out in Duchesne. The students either all having to move in to here, or having to build a larger school in Duchesne for them so they wouldn't have to come off the land. So that is down in there on that mission. But we found out that this Lady Wonrodes, now that was the old man's wife, who was old when she married him, but she still had a son by him, and they had a ranch on up in the south fork, which is way on up east and south of Duchesne. We heard that they were up there with the sheep. We went clear on to the sheep herd and talked to her and her son and they were very very nice people. That Lady Wonrodes was a college graduate. Her son was college graduate, his wife was. And she had a new baby, and it looked like it could have been maybe two or three months old. But it was crying and crying and she got over behind a tree and sat down to nurse that baby, she was so embarrassed. I just saw so many wonderful characters in those people. Another time, we were with them up there in the canyon, they had a tent, and they had a cloth rug or some rug of some kind, they'd set it right on the dirt, but the old duck, there was a stream down to the side, where they got their water, there was ducks in it, one of them had hatched her egg and it was under the bed, yes, but the duck was running around, but the shell was still under the bed. So as far as cleanliness was concerned, they weren't, but to hear them talk and explain all that they had gone through during those Indian raids and all of those Indian times but she said that she heard her father in law (it would be the man that fought with Ray's grandfather) and they fought up in Wonrode's valley there. Grandfather was with our men and the Indians were trying to drive the other men out. The Indians must've wanted it for their sheep or something. I don't know what it was. I hadn't got that part from Grandpa. But she said she heard the old man say to McKenzie, he said "I could've killed you many a time, I saw you so plain, but it was that white stallion you were riding that shyed up; I knew that it was you and I wouldn't pull the trigger", but he said "I could've killed you many times." You know I heard things like that that I couldn't help but have both love and suspicion for those Indians that I had [sounds like betrayed] so long, I thought they were nothing but dirt! But to think they could go up and be like they were, out living in the canyon like that, college graduates, very happy and very contented.

I never heard in all of the reading that I did I never heard of a Richardson that had any money, period. All the way through, they were pictured as poor type of people, hard workers, but to accumulate anything financially, status, I never knew of them. Only that--and it's been--I think I was married several years when I met up with a woman in Springville--who said her name was Hickman, her maiden name, and her grandfather was a brother to our grandfather. And I didn't know he had him at all, that brother I'd never heard of. Anyway she had all his history and all, and he and his family had gone through all these persecutions and all, and they thought Hickman hadn't joined the church, he knew nothing of the church until he married Grandma til he came to Utah. In order to get to Utah he had to join the Mormon Battalion, come west with the train to get across the plains.

Eureka: I went up with my mother and father the only time I was ever on a train, I went up to Eureka with them and stayed two or three days, I don't know how long it was, and stayed with your mother and father, and it was just at the time that that house fell through into the shaft below, and Poppa and I and your father got over to where it was and looked down into the hole. And I was up, when I got old enough to go dancing, we went to several dances in Eureka and Mammoth. That was a hundred and ninety-nine years ago! When I try to think way back there it just seems like there's so much dust between now and then.

Kicked: I thought he was three when he was kicked. I just carried the idea that it was three.

Best Student: That's what Momma always said. She said he was a brilliant man. Had he of not been hurt she figured he would of been one of the most outstanding characters because of the brain power he had, and how he could use it as a young man.

Shadrack: He was a sport, nobody ever noticed his eye the way it was 'cause he always wore a hat tilted down on one side so he was just a sport and just as cocky as he could be, so that was the way Momma had him pictured, as that sport with that hat down over one eye.

Gil Taylor: Now there's a character that I could remember. Gil Taylor. He had red hair too.

Rick: Winrow.

Red Narrows: It's before you get to Castelle.

I can't but think, as ill as he must have been, those hard, hard jobs he was doing, how could he have done, with his lungs as near gone as they were? He had a wonderful life--he lived it to his full and the way that speaks, he must of enjoyed it as he was going, too, for him to remember in detail that that he did.

I had one thing I wanted to tell you. I'm not telling you to publish it. But I notice as you go through, you speak of Grandma Richardson coming in and helping. I was a kid you know, then, I was down home, I was running the sewing machine, I was doing this, I was doing that. But that was all I knew about it. As far as the details of those things, I didn't know. But I know that days and times and dozens of times I took Momma up with the car loaded with things for them. And I can remember when Mildred was due, and I was supposed to make the things, Momma had the things bought, sheets and pillow cases and all the clothes and that they'd need and I'd made 'em all and I'd embroidered and crocheted on these pillow cases. I worked and worked and we had a big box in the back of the car that we took up the things we got up there when she was born. And the thing that impressed me most was what we had done, what we took, but when we got back home Momma burst into tears. And I said what was the matter, what caused that? She said "do you know what Milt said to me? He looked at all those things and he says 'well it's too bad you got such cheap material.'" And I said "Momma, do you think he actually said that, meaning that?" She said "That's what he said." I said, "Did you just think he said that, or did you actually hear it?" She said "I heard it, but I was so overcome I could've been mistaken. Let's say we forgot it." I never heard it again after that. But I was thinking, in as many times as I remember that we went, there never was a time when ever we killed any beef or pork or anything that there wasn't a box set aside to go up to Spanish Fork. It always went. That was just part of our daily layout was to go up there, and they were helping him all the time. And I'm glad that some was helping him, that he wasn't alone on all that time. As far as that goes that is the only time I ever heard Momma make any comment. I thought of it so many times since, and I thought Milt could've said that, but that was the only kind of material you could get then. You could get bleach, tear it, and there would be such a fog of dust that you couldn't see. And I'm not lying. The sheets that we had Momma had to order them through the store, she had to tell them what for, and they had to put her name on the waiting list in Salt Lake when they went up and ordered and we had to get her (the woman in the store's) allotment in pillow cases and sheets and all those things that we had to have. She got 'em for us especially from the store. It was that hard to get at that time. That was when Mildred was born. They had an awfully hard time with all the help they could get. There was a little [sounds like flock] to be feeding and caring for. His mother and father was as loyal and I thought at the time I didn't know how they could do it all, but they did. I did hear Momma say one day "The Lord said your back is fitted for the burden. If the Lord asks you to do something, he never asks you for something he knows you can't do. He knows there will be a way opened up if you put forth the effort." Ask us if Wes could go on a mission. She says "I said he can't, we can't afford it.

We haven't the money, we can't go. She said "Dad looked at me and walked over and patted me on the back and I was shocked at that 'cause I didn't know he ever did it. And said, 'Mother, when you found out you had to go to the hospital ward said 'we can't go! I can't go to the hospital.' You went and we got it paid for. This same thing will happen again. If the Lord needs Milt, we need the Lord. So it's up to us to do it." Momma said there never was a time when he was on his mission when it was time for more money we didn't have it. Said "I didn't know where it come from, but that money came in in time for him every time." 'Cause she said "if we put our burden on our own back, we can make it, but we have to know where to put the burden." I've thought of that so many times, "How true! You have to practice that in your own life."

oooOooo

<<15 February 1986>>

Comments on Becky Brimhall's history of Sarah Haskell (To read it, click here.)

Mayor and Judge:

If she [Sarah] hadn't had the education before, he [Ellis Ames] could have taught her. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had the idea the reason she was such a reader was he had taught her to read and she was just a [sounds like feeding] almost for reading everything. That's a picture I had in the back of my mind about her. If he'd had that kind of an education he could of taught her.

Separation:

Do you think it could of been good terms if she would come under those conditions? When she'd just had that new baby and that long trip and nothing to go on, leaving a man with a good education and a good chance of making a living for her, then coming back to that place at that time, I can't think she had a clear knowledge about it at all. It looks to me like it was "Hopkins' Choice", take it or leave it.

Reader:

Now I had heard that before. There was another reason that made me connect her up with an educated man to teach her to read like that. She was back there where there was schools at that time so she maybe had that training at reading and writing, but to be as fond of it as she was, I figure she had a lot of stimuli along the way. That's the reason I was giving him a much [sounds like boarser] education than I had heard before tonight.

Buried in Payson:

[she thought it was Benjamin]

Grandpa Hickman started practicing in Payson and then after he was married to Grandma, they set up a home on the farm in Benjamin, but that it seems still in Payson then.

Sealing of Ellis & Sarah:

That was what my father always thought that his mother wasn't sealed to his father. That they had never been sealed. He always wanted to have that done, and they were in the temple, and he was going through to have their temple work done, when he had his first stroke, that was eight years before he died. They never got through, they were just waiting to go in to the first room when he took the stroke. So that ended that, and it has been [sounds like waisits out] of been married. All the way up in my life, as I grew up, it was the understanding that they weren't sealed. And evidently it was in Les' too. Because that was one thing that Les wanted and it was after I was married that Les and Hazel went through, now he had all the papers made out and sent to the temple to get her name cleared so that they could have it done. They went up, all before they went through the temple they went in to the register to see if there was any more information come out about it. And they told him then that there was no more, but there was no record anyplace in the books where she had married that first husband, Ames, so they had no record of that. So this double sealing, if there was one, wasn't recorded. I know Les came over to Springville, after they had been through, and he was feeling so badly, he said "If I had gone and had her sealed now to our father, which was already sealed to a man, look what I've done to my mother!" I was asking if he forgot that to see if he had the affadavit of both of those being temple marriages. He went to so much trouble before he went through, the fact that Poppa thought he had it cleared when he was going through, had his papers and all and he [sounds like didn't being] sealed. And he took the stroke in there and never got on through. I know Les said "Oh, What did my Dad say when he found that out? Have another woman there with ten children under his table?" And I said "I don't know about your father, but mine would't kick him out." He thought that was very disloyal of me to feel that now you know, I don't think that'd be disloyal at all. He took that man's wife after she had had her fling, and he took her so he could of sat down to the table with her, but I don't think my father would. And I know. And I think his attitudes were that strong, I hope. Anyway, when we get over there we'll find out.

All of our immediate family and mothers' and grandmothers' are there in Payson, but fathers' family are in Payson, but our own immediate family is all buried in Spanish Fork cemetery. But Grandpa Richardson had two wives: one's buried on one side of Payson Cemetery and the other on the other side. I didn't know where that first one was buried at all. She's clear over on the south side, right against the fence, so she must of been one of the first ones buried there. There on the east and north side in Payson is where she was buried. This last wife of his father, Uncle Rich, is buried back in the center lots as they go through the cemetery there in Payson. I don't know where grandma's is, we tried to find it one Decoration Day, Momma and I, and after all the hunting, they didn't know, have any record of it. They said we'd have to find out later.

About Les:

He was a good man, and he was so thrilled that he had got that work done 'cause he knew Poppa had wanted it done all those years and never got it done. It seems strange, still, when you look at it another way, he didn't know anything about his mother. He was only 5 when she died. Where did she get 4 children in those 5 years, 'cause I understood all the way along he was 5 when his mother died.

Having Kids Every Year:

That must have been why everyone died so young in those days. You never heard of an old person, they were all younger. That's why they had to go into polygamy.

Have you got the piece (I maybe got the information from you) that on her wedding record to Ames, the Bishop had written a note on it, and said that he wished them well, and he wanted to hear from them in 50 years. And said "I am anxious to know how they could go ahead and populate a nation, and not upset those men. I want to know what the men are like if they can supply 3 or 4 women to have family enough to build a church out here in the west." But that was written on some record that was attached by a nail clip to the wedding records. That was Ames' marriage license to that man, and whoever did I get that from? He had got it from her folks in Payson, and it was in her history or log that she had, that that was on her marriage license. But if you didn't have it, that should be first hand information. That was another reason that made me think he was a brighter man, 'cause he was questioning the men that was supplying that many children, 'cause they were after the young women that could have more family. See, his first wife had run out, I guess, with ten--whoof--so that's where this gal came in. They said her mother said "You won't live to be 50 years old, and have a family like that, he can't do that." So there was a question in his mind, was that why the Church had to give up polygamy? Was somebody else having a pipe dream about it? That was back when she was married.

That polygamy was out before my time that they were practicing it, but they were still living in it a lot, 'cause it was talked in my home a lot, with the brothers that I had. There was Uncle J.E., Uncle France, Uncle Les (only Uncle Les don't admit it). He got married in those undercover places, so he didn't have to sign any insignia when he left the church. He didn't leave the church, he left the active part of the church then. But he met those other two women. But there were the three boys that practiced in it, and the thing that thrills me, you say they're leaving a weaker race, and trying to build up the church, now Uncle J.E. had a wife on down in southern Utah (I don't remember the place, but it was one of the southern towns), that she was from and he had three sons that I know of by her. And I met up with one of his sons, Feldman, and that was I think his youngest one, Feldman, but he was going to the BYU to school, and I met him then, and Uncle Charl's daughter was going then, Ione, and she got acquainted with him, and so she brought him down for the weekend, and that was how come I met him. But after he graduated from college and went on a mission, I read in the paper (and that was back when I could still read), he had just been put in as Stake President, he was out in I believe it was Colorado, in the other state that direction, anyway. He was stake president then and he had been bishop before that that I had read of. And I talked to him, he was in our home. But he was bishop, so I had kept in touch with him. Now he was a very nice appearing young man. The oldest boy said the Hickmans had never amounted to much, he was going to make the name worth something. He was going in the movies, and he did and he was killed. He went in on the wild west, fell from the horse and was killed in the ring, but it was on in the show. And the other one, they said, was a fine young man, but I didn't hear anything only that he was a fine young man, and had married, but he was settled down around where his mother was. But to think that Uncle J.E., with all his learning could leave that woman with three children off down there in that part of the country you know that never did grow much but polygamists, and they would turn out to follow the church like that. Oh, I wish Uncle J.E. could know that! When he found out the son was going to the school, at the BY, I told him that I had met his son and that he was going to the BYU to school. And he said "And I can go there and see him." And I said "Why not? You're his father, he carried your name." And he did go to see him. After he'd been to see him he came to tell me. And he saw him on down the hall. And they were pointing him out, where to go to meet him, but he saw him on down the hall, and he says "He looked just like his mother." And said "I walked up to him to put out my hand to shake hands with him, and he said 'yes, are you my dad?'" He said "Yes, are you my son?" He said "Yes." He said "And that was how I met my son." Now that was straight from the horse's mouth, 'cause he came to my house to tell me about it. Just the sweetest of feelings. He looked just like his wife when he first knew her. And he could recognize him. But he came to tell me, of course, Uncle J.E. came a lot. So did Uncle France, so did Uncle Les. I had the time of my life when I was with those three men. They were all polygamists. Yes, Uncle Charl was the only one [of my mother's brothers] that didn't practice polygamy. He had children, but not in polygamy! He never went to any damn church! Aunt Lettie had his temple work done after he died. She went to the temple, I went with her, we did, went through, I can't think what the occasion was. Must of been some special occasion that I'd be going through with Aunt Lettie. She had 3 children that could go through with her then. But she has worked hard all her life, it's a shame she could not go through. But he was just a boy and went and used it the wrong way.... He was a hard worker, he was a good worker, he was a good husband, and he loved women, one especially. Grandpa, my father-in-law was a very good man, hard working man, he was worth it, he worked awfully hard to get what he had and he took care of most of it. His wife was one of the strongest families there in Springville in the early days. They're still a prominent family in Springville. But my husband's grandfather was the architect that laid out the plan for the road building, the highways, the ditches and drains, all of that in Springville. He had that, he had Provo too. I don't believe he had all of Provo. I had the [sounds like part] in mind that they told me that he drew out it was laid out like Salt Lake and like Springville is, one wide street and one narrow one. He carried out the same plan in Springville that he did in Salt Lake, and it was his father that planned Salt Lake and Provo; him and his father, he was with his father then. That was my husband's grandfather, so you can see that they were a well respected family. When I got over there they were starting on his genealogy work through the church, and everyone had had their histories written up, and before I was married they had joined in it down at home...,Momma was chosen on the first presidency that was down there, and I had opportunity to write up all the family histories that had to be that I could get ahold of, but when I went to Springville, they all heard that I had the histories, and the McKenzies hadn't had any of theirs written up. So I [edited?] the histories. But on Grandpa McKenzie's, I could find very little (on his and his father's, his father was brought in through him, on Springville streets). We went to the library and got the history of Springville, and of all the beautiful flowing histories of any man was Ray's grandfather! It was beautiful the things that man did and accomplished, then left the church. That is, he didn't leave the church. I heard, when I was writing it up, it was a niece of his that through her family had heard that he was excommunicated from the Church. One of Ray's cousins got to working in it, and he came to see what I had, and I had that down, that Aunt Emily had told me that he had been excommunicated. Of course that couldn't possibly have been his grandfather. He went to the church offices about it, and he said there was nothing, in any church record that they could look up, and he had the people in that department looking with him, there was nothing. They knew his activity had [sounds like glitched], but they didn't know anything about excommunication or anything else. So as far as his records they were all up to date. We went and had their temple work done. My husband took his mother when they had it all straightened up. But he had part of his family, before they came west to Utah and they had all been baptized, there were three of them baptized. He had three children after he came to Springville, after he got angry (evidently that's what happened), and he never even had them baptized. So his mother never did have much religion in her if he could just take hold and not have the kids baptized. But as far as the histories of the McKenzies, they were all very strong characters. He was considered one of the wealthiest men in Springville at his early age. And he kept a lot of it, but they all say he was such a hard worker, by damn he didn't work near as hard as his wife did. He had had a wife before, she had two children and died. Then he married grandma. Grandma had been married before and had one child. So hers was two years old, and his was four and six years old but they were married. Imagine her going into that type of a family in a new neighberhood. She was frightened to death down there in the west part of town. She was just two blocks away from the bank. But it was in the west part of town that she'd been raised in the [sounds like aims poor]. But how she must've worked to take care of them and have her family, and him away. I feel so sorry for that poor woman. Maybe he was a good road man. He build that road up through Spanish Fork Canyon, cut through those rocks, clear on up and connected it up with the coal camps. He brought that road down through there. He's got a lot of beautiful outstanding work in his credit, and I think he worked hard and I think he knew how to take care of his money.

oooOooo

<<22 February 1986>>

LauraLee got the names of some people [Ames children] that you said you was able to use. I got after LauraLee to find out where she got the names from. And she said that when she was looking in the old Bible (now it was our Bible in our home, but it was in Grandpa Richardson's home, too, that was his Bible, and when he left his home and came to live with Momma and Poppa when they were first married, he brought his Bible with him, and that was the one that was on the stand in our home. But LauraLee said that she was going through that to see how many pages of that old book--it had been in a paper sack ever since I can remember--had been lost, and she found in the back part of it the notice there of the names of her daughters that was born to this Ames before she was married. So that was where they come from, Grandma when she lived there with Grandpa must've put those names in his Bible so her children would be classified in his family. She must've put it there and tucked it away to keep it. So it'd be kept. As it went through my life, dammit I didn't know any scrap of paper ever [existed].

Sealing of Sarah Haskell to Shadrack Richardson:

My brother Les had that sealing done before he died.

Sarah Haskell:

You see, the years that she was between the time she left California and came back, until she married Grandpa she was without a man, she went without children. But then she still got eight children in, so she had to have them close, even if it did take her life, bless her heart.

Ellis Ames affiliated with Republican Party:

Republican? My father should've known that! 'Cause he didn't like Republicans. He didn't care who I married, as long as he was a Mormon and a Democrat. That's what he told me when I was a little girl.

Heifer:

My mother was so pious, she wouldn't say "bull", and she wouldn't let us use that in the house. That was a barnyard word. There's no way she would let you use a word like that. Ellis Eames had at least 19 children:

Well, the one who said they'd like to go to their golden wedding was skeptical of what it would do to the male by having young and old wives together. It didn't hurt him any, look at the family he had, he sponsored. I think that's what you'd have to say, sponsor.

Read Olive Ames' story:

Oh, what our people have gone through, for the church. And I sit here and moan 'cause my feet hurt!

Reorganized Church:

I got the understanding that it was because, at the time Joseph Smith was killed, they figured the church should retain the Smith name, and it should be kept in the family. But I never got it straight whether they kept with the religious principles or not. I thought that faith was part of taking the name. That was part of my education, I got so much of it, but not enough to make the complete story, 'cause I thought it was just in the name that was changed, as far as I knew.

Reorganized Church does not accept some LDS doctrines, like Polygamy:

Picked out what they wanted! Well, that'd of suited me, maybe I'd of changed, because there are a few principles of the Church in there that I couldn't understand, and polygamy was one of the biggest ones. When I saw what it did in our family, in the time it was on, and what it has done ever since, possibly it took away from our church some of our strongest people. France's second wife, Aunt Zina, was a well-educated woman (that was what he went for because he's smart) had eight children by him, and she had sent him on two missions I think it was, I know of one, I heard about in particular, but I thought he filled two missions. She stayed home and took care of the family, while while he was on his mission. At that time they were traveling without purse or Scrip, so it had to be all contribution. Zina has helped raise part of those children (Uncle France's [sounds like o versus] son by the first wife) he sent him through college, sent him on his mission, and educated him to be an attorney, and he was a very very strong person, and he died just this last year up there in Oregon--up there in the northwest someplace, one of those states, where he had been practicing all the time. But she was the one that put him through school, and one daughter, she put in as far as the daughter would go, but then, oh, found love, you know and that ruins a lot of good education.... Hers, I never heard how it turned out. But still, at the same time she did that, she was supposed to join the church when she got married into polygamy, but she never did, but she had three children by Uncle France and never joined the church and learned to hate the church. They went to that Presbyterian school here in Salt Lake, where they got their education from, Westminister [College]. And they had the mother and father cremated when they died. Now Uncle France had been kept in a rest home in American Fork for a long time, but I guess he had enough to keep him there. Then Aunt Zina got so she had to go into a rest home. So they took her to California, where they were (they were located there then), and it wasn't long 'til they took him out of the one in Orem, and put him down there with her. So they had full charge of him then. And the boy that he had kept in touch with all this time from the first family, sent his allowance in every month. That was all paid up, all of a sudden they quit corresponding. And he got to investigating to see why he wasn't hearing from them. He found out Uncle France had died and been buried for a long time. So he had been helping to keep Aunt Zina, which was no more than right, he said he would naturally have done it anyway, because she had kept him so long. But in the meantime she died, and they had her cremated, too.

But they did leave [sounds like us in] Aunt Laura word back to Salt Lake, that he had died and was cremated, that about killed Aunt Laura, to think in that day and age that her children that weren't even Mormons, was doing that to them. When you see what it did, to those three people--Aunt Zina gave her contribution and she did well, she was a authoress, and she had some very good pieces written, and she worked in the newspaper for years, as long as she could get around. But what could those three children--and their family by now--have contributed to our church, where they're doing nothing with any other church. That's where they went to school, but that's all they did was go to school. That's all they're doing now, they're not paying any attention, they're not affiliated with their church at all.

The New Eames Story:

That's why I appreciate what you've read; it's all new material to me about an old subject. But I didn't have the story, I just had a little bit. Just a bit. And I also, when I tried to write, found out you couldn't build a story with just bits, you had to have facts to base it on. So that's what'd happened with that letter, that was a little bit that wrote that.

Candy:

I can still eat candy. Any kind of candy. I can even enjoy a peppermint. My mother was that way. Momma could eat--and it was when she lived alone--she and Stirl, I never went down but what Momma had a platter of homemade sugar candy or honey candy in on the dresser there in the back room. There she was, living alone, made a pot of candy, she always had candy. She was very conservative about what she bought, 'cause her butter and eggs had to supply what we needed outside of what they produced. But there was always a little sack of candy in with Momma's groceries when she got to town.

oooOooo

<<8 March 1986>>

Cathy, Steve, Sabra, Rebekah, Benjamin, & MaryAnne

I thought you had some wonderful information all compiled on them, and it seems to me that if they had any idea of what it consisted, they'd be thrilled to death to have it. We're the ones that side-stepped into their family. Kind of over the back fence. [If Sarah Haskell hadn't returned from California,] she wouldn't of been my grandmother. She married my grandfather--or my grandfather married her, how that came about 'cause he wanted a wife and I guess she wanted a husband. I've been so thrilled over the information on that family, to consider that they're in our family but they don't belong anymore than I do in theirs. We're both on the side list.

We've got a lot of information now that we can connect up with, but there's a lot in between that we don't have. Somebody will come along with that--it might come out of these letters, too--to fill in the gap that we don't have.

One of the Ames'--he's dead, now, by the way--used to live in Springville, he wasn't an Ames, [but] he was from the Ames family. My grandmother was his grandmother. He was from the family before she married my grandfather. He was from the Ames family. It was Eefie, must've been Ephraim; I knew him as Eefie. His mother was an Ames, and these children's father was [Al] Losee. So it seems that they were one step on down from that grandma like I am. [He was a brother to Becky Brimhall.] Becky was the one that was raising them, there were, I think, the four children. As nearly as I can tell, from what he told me, he knew nothing about genealogy, only they had a book of their Ames'. My golly and I know where you could get ahold of that book (I used to, I been away from home so long). Eefie's daughter lived in Springville. Eefie lived there until he died and then that's been since I've been up here. And his son was living in his home with him after his wife died (I knew his wife). He had this Ames history. He brought it over to my place one day, wanted to read it to me. And it was one of the days that I didn't even want to listen to anyone, about anything. When I get in so much pain and try to endure it, I don't want any outside interference, and that was what reading to me did. But he said anytime I wanted to read in that book--he says "it's got such wonderful information for you, and I know you'd like it"--of course he was trying to get related to me and I wasn't going to have it--and that was what I thought of our grandma. I knew nothing about her. But what I did know is just that she left her family and came back to Utah 'til she married grandpa. And I've asked my father, as I grew up, about his mother. And he said that from the time I was born I was his only child. My mother's family were all dark--they had dark hair and eyes, they were dark complexioned. Then I came along with blonde hair and green eyes. He said I took after his mother. Her hair was a light brown, and she had hazel eyes. So I was his. And all my life I'd keep asking little questions that I had about his mother, if I was like she was. He knew nothing of his mother, only that she had dark hair. And he said "I never went in the house that she wasn't sitting in her chair with her feet up on the fireplace reading." And he said "That's all I know of my mother." Well, that wasn't really a happy thought for a son to grow up with as the only knowledge of his mother, 'cause she died when he was five years old. So they were without a mother after that. I never got any opinion that was good, from what little bit I had heard until what you have found in this history. Why they were a very nice, prosperous family, always a good leader, well thought of in music circles, things that I had never heard mentioned. Never had any reference paid to it in all my life. I had no warmth for her as a grandmother. She was out, but the fact that that man with ten children married her in polygamy was another backset for him. So that part of my life closed, but its opened up a view into those people.

But Cousin Eefie brought the book over and he says "I won't bring it and leave it!" He says "That is getting it out of the hands of our people, and I promised my wife faithfully that I wouldn't let it out of my house." So I never did go over to Cousin Eefie's and read the book. I think it's 'cause I wasn't interested, 'cause I could read then. I'd like to read it! [The book probably still exists somewhere.] I either think at his daughter's place or his own home, and that was up about 5th East and 5th South. There were two homes, faced the west. Hers was on the corner, and then there was another home or two, and then his.

[In writing family history,] the combination part wasn't hard for me, it was getting the information from one to connect up with another. That was where I lost myself, was on the in-betweens. And then I'd go into another phase of it, so I married and got in another family that needed someone to hunt up the in-betweens, so I had too many in-betweens and not enough finished. It was a very personal history of my mother and father and what they knew of their parents. That's all that I had written up, I never even wrote up my own history! And I'm not a child, either! I better get busy!

To read the interview dated 23 March 1986, click here.

To return to Eunice's index page, click here.

To return to the Richardson Family index page, click here.