James Arthur & Elsie Diantha Olsen Watt
and their Family
James Arthur Watt was born 16 January 1873 in Kaysville, Utah, the son of George Darling Watt and Martha Bench. He was born on a 160-acre farm referred to as Sandy Ridge three miles northeast of the present town of Layton. The south end of Hill Air Force Base is built on this farm. George Darling Watt was the first Mormon convert in England. George served as private secretary to Brigham Young for several years traveling with him to the various early Mormon settlements throughout Utah and the surrounding states.
Martha Bench was the sixth wife of George. They were married on 9 Nov 1867. Martha was born in South Hampton, England, on 20 Aug 1847. Her family came to Utah in 1851 settling in Manti where she grew up.
George died in 1881 when James was eight years of age. Martha re-married Frank Kilfoyle and had three children with him. They were Lottie, Francis and Fred. They moved to Manti in 1888 when James was 15. Frank died when James was 16 years of age. Fred Kilfoyle, father of Boothe and J. Grant Kilfoyle, was the owner of Kilfoyle Krafts, Inc. in Price.
Elsie Diantha Olsen was born 25 January 1875, in Spring City, Utah, and the daughter of Ole Olsen. Her grandfather, Frederick Olsen, was a bishop in Spring City, Utah, from 1868 to 1882 and in Ferron from 1882 to 1895. Both he and Ole are listed in the book "Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah." They are both buried in Ferron.
James and Elsie were married on 17 Oct 1894 in Ferron, Utah. They had the following children:
| |
Birth Date |
Birth Place |
Spouse |
| Reva Watt |
14 Aug 1896 |
Ferron, Utah |
John Irvin Olson |
| Thelma Darling Watt |
21 Dec 1897 |
Manti, Utah |
William (Bill) L. Butler |
| Zelda Martha Watt |
20 Aug 1900 |
Sunnyside, Utah |
Marvin Hall |
| Hannah (Ann) Ermelda Watt |
23 Nov 1901 |
Sunnyside, Utah |
Max Bertola |
| Ida May Watt |
18 Jul 1904 |
Sunnyside, Utah |
Claude Salvucci |
| James Arthur Watt |
23 Nov 1906 |
Sunnyside, Utah |
Lavee Peacock |
| Ada Lavina Watt |
11 Apr 1908 |
Sunnyside, Utah |
Eugene (Jay) DeAngeles (Henry Roberts) |
| George Luray Watt |
23 Jun 1911 |
Sunnyside, Utah |
Norma Livingston |
| Andrew Fay Watt |
21 Apr 1913 |
Hiawatha, Utah |
|
| Grace Dee (DeOra) |
03 Nov 1915 |
Manti, Utah |
Owen Horsley (Eldred S. Newbold) |
James & Elsie Watt - Picture taken in Wellington, Utah
Children of James A. Watt & Elsie D. Olsen
Back row, l to r: George Luray, Ida May, James Arthur, Hannah Ermelda, Thelma Darling,
Front row: Zelda Martha, Reva, Grace DeOra, Ada Lavina
(Not shown is Andrew Fay Watt who died 14 Apr 1923)
I (Wayne Hanna) obtained the following from Lavee Watt in her home on 22 February 1993. Helen May Olson Hanna (my mother) and Dora Diantha Olson Mortensen were also present. Helen and Dora, sisters, are granddaughters of James Elsie Watt. Lavee was the wife of James Arthur Watt, the son of James and Elsie Watt. Lavee lovingly refers to James Sr. and Elsie as Grandma and Grandpa. James Sr. and Elsie spent the last years of their lives living with James Jr. and Lavee in their home in Wellington.
Lavee Watt's Memories
I met James Arthur Watt, Sr. in 1928 when I began going steady with his oldest son, James Arthur Watt, Jr. Both of our families lived in Sunnyside, Utah. James Jr. took me to meet his family. The Watt home then was a cinder block company house across the creek to the west of the mine tipple. They were a family of ten children, seven girls and three boys. I think six of the seven girls were married then. Faye, the youngest boy, had just been killed. Elsie Diantha Olsen, his mother, was still terribly greaved.
After his father, George Darling Watt, died, James Sr. went to herding sheep. He had four sisters. He would herd sheep for the Madison Sheep Company in Manti. He was 12 and he gave his money to his mother to help support his sisters. He was often alone with the sheep. Sometimes he had a partner. He herded on the West Desert, the Salina Mountains. The old Woman and Mary's Nipple were common terms in his stories. He worked there until he and grandma got married on 17 October 1894 in Ferron, Utah. Ferron was where Grandma lived with her parents.
Herding sheep turned out to be the reason they didn't get married in the temple. Grandma was very bitter about it. She didn't care if she ever went to the temple over that. When grandpa went to get his recommend, the bishop wouldn't give him one because he hadn't attended church. He had paid his tithing, he had done the other things he should have but he hadn't attend church. They figured the bishop should have made allowances for this since he was a sheepherder and he couldn't get to church, but he wouldn't and grandma was very bitter about that.
There was some kind of rift between grandma and the other sisters-in-law. She never did care much about them. But James and I took grandpa over (to Manti) several times to see Aunt Ida Stringham. That was his one famous sister. (Ida was the one who wrote the book on the life of George Darling Watt, their father). We always laughed about that because the women all wore hats in those days, you know. Aunt Ada (James Jr.'s sister) and I never had a hat. We had never been rich enough, I guess, to buy one. I don't know.
But, any way, that day when we went to Aunt Ida Stringham's, she was quite a stylish old sister, you know, we each bought us a hat. They were tam hats that fit on the side. While there, we went to church. There was Uncle James and Uncle Jay down in the audience. They sat us up in the choir because they were short of seats. And there was those two fools making fun of our hats. They would point up to us. We had a hard time to keep from giggling.
Their Lives In Sunnyside, Utah
James Sr worked in Manti until they got married. Then he worked in several mines. He worked in Sunnyside. He was the barn boss there. He had worked as a barn helper and boss at Hiawatha also. Utah Fuel valued grandpa very much because, at that time, the horses did all the work. Horses and mules were very important to the mines then. They were the "power" that ran the mine. Some horses they would buy were expensive. A well-trained horse or mule was worth more than a man to the company. (In a documentary film made in Colorado, it tells how the mine superintendent would come down to the mine after an accident. The first thing he would ask, "Was a mule killed?" He would then ask if a miner had been killed. If a mule had been killed, it cost them considerably to buy and train a new one. If a miner was killed, they could easily hire another one.
A mine horse or mule had to be a certain size, strength and trainable. Many were not suitable for mine work. Some spooked easily, wouldn't pull, would halt or couldn't be trained for underground work. The mine bosses said that grandpa was just uncanny. He never bought a horse or mule that wouldn't work well in the mine. The company sent him on many buying trips. Buying mine animals was an important investment for the company (some of his trips are referenced in articles in the Sun Advocate newspaper in Price).
He loved his animals and respected them. He groomed, fed and talked to them like they were his children. He knew their faults and good points. He could tell you how many teeth were missing in each animal. He served as their vet. Each had a name. No one was allowed to treat them as dumb beasts of burden.
They said you could do anything to grandpa. He would never raise a voice to you. But if you mistreated one of the animals he would get out and fight you. He was the barn boss for several years (Helen Olson Hanna, daughter of Reva Watt Olson, James Sr.'s daughter, indicated that he was still the boss when she went to live with them to go to school in the ninth grade. This would have been 1930).
He had a gift as a veterinarian, not of formal learning but of actual hands-on practice, of try and see. He treated many animals and was consulted about many more. He made many beautiful watch fobs, a fob being sort of a chain made by braiding horses hair. It was used to attach a watch to your person. This was a very intricate and time-consuming task.
He was also an excellent carver using his pocketknife and animal bones. One very nice piece was a scarf slip with his wife's name carved around it. He was a beautiful whistler and could imitate several types of birds. He taught the youngsters to make willow whistles and enjoy them. Dee and James Jr. were the only ones I remember trying to imitate his whistle. Dee was good.
James Sr. was a patient, quiet but happy man loving peace and harmony. His word was as good as his bond. He hated debt. He was well known for his generosity continually bringing someone home for "bed and feed." There are men in Wellington today who are grateful for the bed and feed when they were in need.
They were there (in Sunnyside) when I first met James. Our families had lived in the same town all our lives but we had never met. Our dads knew each other at the mines. Sunnyside definitely had an upper and lower town. Each had its own school and store. I lived in upper town and James lived in lower and it was just like two different worlds. The upper town was where the bosses lived, where the hospital was along with the mine offices and post office (then used as a bank). Everybody that lived up there was better than those who lived in the lower town, we thought. Lower town was where you crossed the bridge.
There were several different nationalities in both upper and lower towns. Fewer children of some nationalities lived in upper town because it was settled first when the mines were first opened. Later many immigrants came in for work. I don't think it was really snobbishness. We had every color and nationality in our upper school but we were friends and loyal to each other and to our school. James went to Ferron and I to Castle Dale for high school. I met James Jr. during a high school summer. I had a friend, Carolyn Rich, who lived in lower town. The reason we got together was because Sunnyside had this big confectionary. In those days that was where the whole town met. They had ice cream and soft drinks. You couldn't buy any hard liquor or anything. She worked there and I worked there and so we got to be friendly.
Carbon High was considered a terrible place then. You had to live in the dorms. This was my dad's own statement, "I would rather send my daughter to hell than to Carbon High." It was really bad then. You lived in the dorms, you couldn't do any buses, and there were no good cars. So you had to go down there and live. You could live with relatives or whatever way you could figure it out.
So my dad sent me to Castle Dale to the Emery Stake Academy. That was a Mormon school then. I went over there and graduated from high school. The boys from Carbon would come over there to get girls, you know. They called us the "Swamp Angels" then.
Walt Kay came over and asked me for a date. So, I was going with him. He came up to Sunnyside to see me because I had gone home. Carolyn was to have a birthday party. She invited me to bring Walt to her birthday party and she went with James. So that night I met him and we changed partners. The next night I went with James and she went with Walt. We both ended up marrying that way.
James was interested in electrical engineering. He went to the Los Angeles School of Mines. That was almost unheard of for kids to go that far away to school then. Both George and James were outstanding men. George was very good in math.
Grandpa and grandma lived in Sunnyside until they were old, not old now but old then. The days of the big barn and his job faded away as electricity and machines entered the mines. They laid grandpa off. In those days, when you got old they just got rid of you. They didn't give you any chance for a pension or to work or nothing. Grandpa's legs went and they claimed it was walking so much in the manure and the wet. But I think it was arthritis like everybody gets sometimes.
He was given the job of garbage collector, a job he handled with dignity. He would come around and collect the garbage in Sunnyside. Sometimes he came in a cart and one horse. Other times, he would use a box and two horses depending, I suppose, on his area and anticipated load.. Garbage was scarce in those days. There were few cans, no aluminum, and no plastic or paper products. Clothes were used, handed down, reused. One dress for instance may have served several girls then end up in a quilt, then a rug and, at last, a mop.
The collections were mainly from public buildings, some coal and wood ashes. Even ash was sparse as it was used on muddy walks and roads. At this time, if I were home from school, James Sr. would stop to chat. My mom and dad laughingly asked, "Who's courting, Sr or Jr.? I grew to love them almost as much as I did their son.
James Sr. loved life and appreciated everything. He saw so much that others missed. He did not criticize others and would point out something worthwhile in a person was demeaning that individual, a wonderful trait he taught his son.
Grandpa and grandma Watt, as they were then called, were very receptive of me. James Jr. and I were married October 31, 1929. Grandpa was elated. He had 27 grandchildren, all girls, with none to carry on his name. He had to wait over three years. He began talking about his namesake. I said, "Grandpa, it may be a girl." He replied, "The Lord wouldn't be mean enough to me to send a girl." He wasn't. James Arthur Watt, 3rd was born. Grandpa was really excited. He loved his grand's and great's.
When the company laid a person off, you got out of their houses. The company owned all the houses. You got out of their houses. So there was James and George, they were the two boys. George was going to the University of Utah. So it almost left it up to James to take care of them.
Their lives on Miller Creek
Bad luck hit again. Sunnyside had been going down hill. Now James Sr. lost his job to a younger man. The lower houses were all sold. He still had Dee and George at home. No pension or retirement or union protection existed then.
James Sr., Bill Butler (married Thelma Watt, James & Elsie's daughter) and Irvin Olson (Helen and Dora's father) had purchased just over 21 acres on Miller Creek. Now Asa Draper and I do not agree on that ground. I said that James bought it all for taxes. He went in and got it for taxes. That was the way I understood it. Your mother and dad (meaning Helen's parents, Irvin and Reva Olson) paid James back after we were married. They finished paying for theirs. He (James) bought it. Bill Butler took a piece. Grandma and grandpa took a piece and Irvin Olson took a piece. see map
Asa says the way they got it was through a man named White. White had bought it all up and they bought it from him. (Dora Olson Mortensen indicated she could not recall how they purchased the ground but her family always called their piece the "White Field"). I know that. Maybe I was wrong and should agree with Asa. But I had the idea that they got it for taxes. But White might have got it for taxes.
James was single at the time. He was working at the coke ovens. He was just a kid. They got a chance to get the ground so he bought it. But I know after we were married your (Helen and Dora) mother and dad finished paying us the money for it. I had in my mind that he bought the whole piece and they split it somehow. Bill Butler took a piece from the top down to the Hanna's. Irvin Olson took the piece up from him and James took the corner piece next to Bill Butler's.
We needed to do something with grandma and grandpa. We only had two rooms in Columbia then. They (the Company) had divided the house into two units for two families to live in it and share the bathroom. So we had to do something. We came down here and we looked and we looked and we looked but couldn't find a place big enough for two families.
So they went out to the farm on Miller Creek. This little log cabin on Pete Jones's place you could get it cheap. So they moved it down, George and James, and put it back up. While they were doing this, grandma and grandpa lived in the little log house that is still out there on Melrose Atwood's. Then we moved them over in the log house.
Then your mother and dad (Irvine and Reva Olson) and Bill Butler all came down there about the same time. Irvin Olson moved to Miller Creek from Spring Canyon in 1927 when your mother, Helen, was in the sixth grade. She thinks they bought the "White Field" in about 1930 or 1931.
The mines, Wayne, would work two or three days a month in the summer. All the coal they sold was for commercial. Bill and Irvine had big families. They had to do something else, so they farmed in the summer and worked in the mines in the winter.
So we kept that little place on Miller Creek. It was a show place, that little place of grandma's and grandpa's. It was beautiful. Grandma loved flowers and she had a yard you wouldn't believe out there. She gathered "starts" from all over. She saved the water even from the dishes and put on her flowers to keep them from dying. Today, I still have some that I brought into Wellington years ago.
The crops were good out there. A Jersey cow named Midge, bought from grandma's folks, was a prize. She kept all in cream and butter. They were even able to sell some to the creamery in Price. Irvine Olson raised the most wonderful potatoes over there on the white field. The Hanna's (John & Alice Hanna, parents of Albert, Jack, George and Charlie) had really good crops. They were all friendly. I thought they had a wonderful life out there. It was hard, I tell you. James and I took groceries to grandpa all the time but what they had to buy. We did all we could that way but we still lived in Columbia (about 30 miles away).
The bishop asked me to relate some of that hardship one time. I was telling him that no one believes what went on out there. They raised potatoes out there during the depression that were just beautiful. But they couldn't sell them for twenty-five cents a hundred pounds. They just couldn't sell them. The darn pigs were so picky, picky, that if the potatoes were not cut up and cooked or something they wasted more than they ate.
I'm not kidding you. Grandma and I would sit and cut those potatoes until we had welts on our hands. We would put them in anything that would hold water, pour water over them and put them in the sun. The sun would partly cook them. Then the pigs grew like mad on them and they got fat, too. We didn't have to grain them even. Then the potato starch would go to the bottom of the barrels or whatever and we tried to keep some of them clean because grandmother could use that starch. It was like cornstarch, but only it was potato starch. She would put it into bread. It made her bread lighter. She would make pudding with it. Oh, they were everything, those potatoes.
Then we had all this pork. I have it in my diary that we couldn't sell it for ten cents a pound. There was no canning like there is now. No pressure cookers or anything. We hit on a scheme to cure it. We would fry or roast it, pack it in jars and then pour hot grease on it. Then you tipped the jars upside down and as the grease cooled the jars would seal. If you were not going to eat it soon, it would keep for a couple of weeks. There was no refrigeration, you see.
If you wanted to keep it longer, for the winter or something, we would boil those big bottles an hour today, an hour tomorrow and an hour the third day in boiling water. We would put up pork, I couldn't tell you just how much, but a lot.
Then an Italian man told us how to fix the sausage. No, I think he told your Grandmother Hanna. One of the Hanna's told us. I can't remember. But it came from the Italians. We would clean out the intestines for the sausage cases. Boy, that's no dream job, either. My dad was a plumber and he figured out something that was a real help to us. Here we were with those intros trying to stuff them with sausage, with nothing to hold to. They were so slimy and slick.
He found out if he cut a piece of pipe about that long and that big around, about the size of a sausage, we could place that in the casing first. That held it open and we could just go to town. You could keep the pipe steady until you got it filled. Then after you got it full and it was all nice and ready to cook, you would fry them just a little bit, not a lot. Then put them in a big crock and fill the crock with lord. We would render the lord too, and then when you went to eat them, you had to pull them out of that grease that kept them. Then you could have meat through the summer.
We did all kinds of things through that depression, I'm telling you, just to stay alive. It wasn't just fun and games.
We always cooked the heads (to make head cheese, as they called it). The only thing we took out was the tongue. We could always give or sell that to the Italians or the Greeks. They loved tongue. My dad always cut the eyes out because mom couldn't stand them staring at her when she cooked the head. They cooked the head and picked all those little pieces of meat off and put them in a brown dish of some kind. Then they would put rocks or something on it to press it. Then it would come out like lunchmeat. This was a delicacy. We always liked it. It made wonderful sandwiches.
Here's another thing we did. They would take the belly of a cow, it's so thin, it doesn't look like anything. My dad would clean it up so nice. We would fill it with salt, pepper sage and onion and roll it up like a jellyroll. Then we would boil it for four to five hours. Then spread it out and press it. It would come out like lunchmeat, too. It was delicious. I made some of this when I was in Idaho last fall with my sister. It was pretty good.
When the farm was going, we sold beans, potatoes and, one year, squash to some company in Colorado. They had wonderful crops. When it was a good season, they raised good crops out there. Hay was really good. They worked together. They helped each other.
Uncle George (James' brother) lived across the wash on Miller Creek. George Olson (Helen and Dora's uncle) bought the place where George Watt lived. That was a beautiful farm. It still is. The ground was so nice on that side of the wash. It's loamier.
The Move to Wellington
Grandpa and grandma lived here in Wellington with us for twenty years before they both died. James was four when they moved here from Miller Creek. That would have been about 1936. That was the year we moved here.
I'll tell you how we got to live here in Wellington. The folks were on the farm and we were taking groceries and going down every weekend from Columbia and working on the farm, too, James would. We had Orin Snow who ran the school bus take them two milk cans full of water to drink. They would have ditch water to do in the house, but they needed drinking water. So Orin Snow took them two cans every week. He would pick up the cream and take it to the creamery in Price.
One day he called James and said, "James, something is wrong out here. I think you better come down and see what's wrong with your folks. I have been out there two nights and grandpa has set up housekeeping in the haystack."
James didn't know what the heck was going on. So we sent down right after work that night. That was unusual because you usually had about ten flat tires coming from there. We would take a day off when we went to the farm because you couldn't go down there without have some flat tires. But anyway, we went down there from work that night.
You wouldn't believe it. If you knew Grandma Watt, she was a salker. Oh, she could give you the silent treatment for days on end when she would get mad. You never knew what she was mad at. She was so even-tempered and nice most of the time. But when she would get one of these spells it was something and she would hang on to it and just nurse it.
When James got out there, he wanted to know what was wrong. Grandpa was living in the haystack. She had kicked him out of the house. James said, "Now mother, what is wrong?" She said, "Well, your dad is a no good so and so." James asked her, "Well, what's he done. Tell me all about it. Let's straighten it out. It's too cold for dad. He's an old man, you know." She hit the roof, "Don't sympathize with him."
Well, any way, she got down to the nitty-gritty. When she got married, grandpa was a great horseman, you know. He bought her a new divided skirt. The women never straddled the saddle then, they just rode side-saddle. But he was going to have grandmother straddle. So he found her a riding skirt. There was no pants then. She said, "Before I got to wear them, I got pregnant and couldn't ride. Your dad let the mine foreman's wife wear my skirt before I wore it."
Now that was 50 or 60 years back, but that was what she was mad about (everyone laughed). She wouldn't let grandpa in the house, no way. So we took them both to Columbia for a few days and cooled them off and then brought them back.
James said, "Oh, we can't leave them out there by themselves anymore. We got to do something." So we came in looking for a house. A doctor Fisk, he was in the history books, he was an old, I don't know what he was, who owned half and Carbon County and three fourths of Wellington. He would loan money as they needed it and if he took care of you when you were sick, he would take a lean on you to get his money.
When we came down here looking for a house, his estate was selling them and they had eleven places here. Annie Snyder's was one. Leon McCourt's was another. The Win's apartments and the Win's garage were in it. This place, the one that John Escandon got up here and the one Joe Anselmo got. They all belonged to the Fisk estate. Doctor Fisk owned all this land.
We found this to be the biggest place where there would be room for two families. Where that petition is there was a hallway. You came in that front door that is still there and that door was grandmas. Where Dora is there was another door and they came in that way. So we fixed those two rooms up there. Grandma had a kitchen there and a bedroom there and she went into my bathroom. They lived here for twenty years.
Grandpa's Final Days
Grandpa lost his leg. That's a long story. He had never seen his brother for twenty-some years. So James and I decided to take him to Blackfoot, Idaho, to see his brother, Will. Grandma wouldn't go. She was upset about something. I don't know what it was that day, but she wouldn't go. One of you girls (meaning Helen or Dora) came in and stayed with us. I don't know which one of you. I can't remember. But one of you came to stay with her.
Grandpa was very conscientious. We had to have wood and coal and everything brought in then to heat the house. We had a big heater right there that heated the house. Grandma had a cook stove and I had one (the heater and cook stoves burned wood and coal). This is a big house to have to heat with just one stove. But grandpa had gone out and hauled a new fresh load of cedar from the mountains. He went to pull down a piece to chop it to leave the girls plenty of wood and coal when we left. A big piece came down and hit him on the toe.
Well, he said it hurt. We soaked it. It didn't look to bad so we took off and went. By the time we got him to Blackfoot, his toe was swollen great big and turned purple. His brother thought we ought to go see a doctor. Well, grandpa wasn't much of a doctor man. He wasn't going to see no doctor. We stayed two days. It kept getting worse. It started a red streak up his leg. We knew it had infection of some kind. We brought him home.
When we got him here, the doctor said gangrene had set in. Well, they took his toe off. From then on until they took it clear out of his hip he just had one operation after another. But I think they didn't know the things then like they do now. But I think grandpa had cancer. That's what I think it was. They took it first to his ankle, then to his calf, then above his knee. They thought if they got above the joint they would have it. But they didn't. They had to go clear to the hip joint. Later, after they removed his leg to his hip, was when he died. He used an artificial leg for a while.
He just had to have one operation after another. Then when he died, James was working for the Soil Conservation in Price. He had taken our car to work that day. There were no telephones then. Unless you were an important person, you didn't get a telephone. Grandma called me. "Oh Lavee! Come quick! Come quick! Come quick!" I ran in there. I went through the door. Grandpa was in terrible shape there was blood all over. Oh! I never saw such a mess. I didn't know what to do. Grandma didn't know what to do.
We ripped the blankets from the bed. We had cotton blankets at that time. I packed him in those. I ran to Asa Draper's. Asa had a phone. I called doctor Anderson. I couldn't get him. So then, I went and borrowed Mrs. Jordean's car and ran to Price. When I got to Doctor Anderson and told him to hurry back out here, he said, "If it's the time, nothing is going to help. If it isn't, calm down! We'll get there." He was really upset at me. We got back here and they got him to the hospital. But he had lost an awfully lot of blood. My brother owned a store right by the hospital in Dragerton. He gave him blood. His blood matched and he just went right there. They just put it in from one to another. They didn't clean it or do nothing with it. They just poured it into grandpa. But he died anyway. In died on 16 February 1945 and is buried in Price.
Grandma Joins Grandpa
Grandma lived here quite awhile after that. Your grandmother (Reva Watt Olson, daughter of James Arthur Watt, Sr.) had her. I had a female operation and I couldn't take care of her. They had to do something. DeOra said, "I have never done my duty." James had called her and said, "What are you girls going to do. You got to give us some help here. Lavee's down. The doctor said she's got to be relieved. She can't lift on grandma anymore."
Anyway, DeOra said, "you bring her up here (Draper, Utah)." When they went to take grandma, and this has always hurt me so bad, she figured she had been bad. She had had several strokes. She begged me, "Lavee don't make me go. I'll be good! I'll be good!" She kept saying this.
They took her. She only lived two days. That hurt. I thought for two days we could have done about anything. You never know. Anyway................ She died on 17 December 1957 and is buried in Price.
Reflections
After his father (George Darling Watt) died, they had it awfully hard. That's all I heard really about it. How hard they had it, the mother (Martha Bench Watt) and her daughters, grandpa's sisters. Grandpa had to help. He worked from the time he was twelve years old.
James went herding with him. He wasn't much older than that. The west desert was where he herded. That's south of Delta, out in that big desert. We've been out there several times. James went just to see where his dad had been. He herded out here on the San Rafael somewhere, too, for a while. That was too far to run the sheep. Then grandpa moved over here.
Grandpa told several experiences that he had. As you know, Butch Cassidy robbed the Castle Gate mine office here in Carbon County. Well, while grandpa was herding sheep, Butch Cassidy and other outlaws dropped by and spent time with him at his camp. Grandpa always spoke highly of Butch Cassidy. He always paid his way. He would leave food when he left the camp. At times he paid for what he used with money. When the Warrens wrote their book about these outlaws entitled "The Wild Bunch", James Sr. and Fritz Worley were interviewed at our home. Grandpa never glamorized the story or the men. He told of them being lonely, tired, hunted, unhappy men, not to be envied in anyway.
Grandpa and grandma had three boys, James, George and Fay. Fay was the only one of their eleven children who died at an early age. He died a week before he turned 10 years old. He was playing a game called "The Backout Leader" with some other boys. The leader had went up the pole and came down. When Fay followed after him, he apparently touched the electrical wire that supplied electricity to the Sunnyside mine tipple. This killed him almost instantly.
I don't know how he got to marry grandma. Well, I do. She was in Spring City. She was over the mountain when he found her, over by Manti.
They loved their grandchildren. They spoiled them terribly. They were a wonderful couple. Grandpa never thought of work as a woman's job. His boys were taught that it was a man's duty to do "women's" work whenever the need arose. He felt to help the women was never demeaning but showed manliness and love. I loved this trait in his son.
(Dora Mortensen asked Lavee if grandpa had any money coming in at all from all the years that he had worked the Sunnyside mine.) No. They had nothing like that then. The first pension they received they got when they were living here and that was $50 for both of them.
I remember visiting grandpa's sister, Annie. He was two years older than she. She had married an Andersen and lived in Gunnison, Utah. They were very poor. They owned a turkey farm. It seemed to me their house was as barren as the ground after the turkeys have been on it for a while.
If grandma had any pictures, I didn't get them. What James did that day when his mother was buried was to tell the girls (his sisters), you see everything she owned was in those two rooms, "Now I want you girls to go in there. Take anything you want. Anything that's there is between you girls to have." But he said, "I don't want you ever to come back and say, 'mother had this and mother had that and I want it.'" He said, "There's not going to be any of that. You take everything and that's it."
The only one that came back was Aunt Ada. I don't know what they took. Nothing was left. They took the pictures and the things they wanted. They didn't have pictures like they do now. The only pictures I have of my boys, this one up here, the Jap boarding house took them. I have two others of them. The Jap photographer took them both. Cameras were not running around like they are now.
I can't believe what's happened in my lifetime. I have seen everything, electricity, cars, airplanes, telephones, radios, television. Everything has come in my life, everything
Lavee Peacock Watt
This story has been submitted by Wayne Hanna.
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This old cabin is visable from the road near Gordon Creek and Carbonville. It was built by Caleb Rhodes with the old rail road ties from the first single track railroad. His original homestead cabin fell down in or before 1905 and injured Caleb. Information from Joel Frandsen.
