My Personal History
byJulia Taylor Neville
Including letters
prepared by Barbara Gustaveson
December 6, 1977
The material in this group of sheets was written last year when I first started to write a personal history. The first four pages in the notebook were written as an assignment to write concerning my first five years. Some repetition will be found. Page four continues the history from last year and will be the book I shall be writing from now on.
How can a person make a history of his life without considering our pre-mortal life and our destiny determined in the plan of salvation? I have a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His son Jesus Christ and the Restored Gospel with its attendant prophets, seers and revelators.
I cannot deny that my life as an infant was spared through the administration of the Priesthood. When I was just a few weeks old I contracted pneumonia, after the doctor informed my parents that I would not live, my faithful father who had been critically ill with typhoid pneumonia, saw through the window from his bed Elder Carl G. Maeser passing by and sent my weeping mother out to ask him to administer to me. I was blessed that I would live, be a great comfort to my parents and have a family.
Karl G. Maeser
Throughout my life I have been spared at critical times and have had my prayers answered constantly but not always instantly, but nevertheless answered.
My Patriarchal Blessing as well as the blessing given by President Spencer W. Kimball prior to our missions both New Zealand and Australia had identical personal phrases indicating to me that those who gave them were influenced by a Spirit not of this earth.
On my father’s side, my grandparents were prominent in the Church. Grandfather Taylor, whom I never knew was President John Taylor, but I remember well Grandmother Taylor (Mary Ann) Oakley as I was eleven when she died. Always well groomed and most of the time wearing a white apron with a wide crochet lace at the bottom, her hair curled with a bob on top. Even in her old age she was “beautiful” to me and generous in presenting us with lovely gifts.
On my mother’s side, my grandparents were also stalwarts in the Church; both early pioneers suffering and sacrificing in establishing the Church from before Nauvoo days until the end of their lives. I also never knew my Grandfather Whipple who left a one hundred and seventy two page history, a copy of which I own and prize and also a Family Guide, a small leather book in his own handwriting. Grandmother Whipple was left a widow with nine children who struggled with her to survive. I also remember her well as she died the same year as Grandmother Taylor when I was eleven years old. Going to visit her always seemed like an adventure to me. Grandfather, being innovative and a builder had worked very hard to build his family a good home. This he did with his own hands, making adobe bricks through the years a large two story building (which is still standing today, 2009) with a porch and balcony porch across the front. The upstairs had bedroom with tope springs for the beds and either straw of feather mattresses. There were carpets on the floors of all the rooms except the kitchen, the rags sewn and woven by Grandmother. An outdoor cellar entered by stone steps down to the storage of barrels of pickles, salt pork and other edibles and stone shelves to cool the milk and was poured into shallow pans to await the rising of the cream which was skimmed off for butter churning or table use.
Grandmother was warm and comforting and always has something good for us to eat for us. I can still see the checkered table cloth on the kitchen table with the white milk glass spoon holder. It was a privilege to have known both of these grandparents as long as I did.
As the second of six children born August 6, 1900 to Ezra Oakley Taylor and Ida Gay Whipple, my memories of my childhood and growing up were almost all happy with the sense of being loved and important.
My father enjoyed telling us how he met and courted mother. He was twenty-six and she a young lady of sixteen when they met. Around 1880 and as late at 1910 at least, it was the custom for Sunday afternoon meeting to be held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle where many of the Saints would congregate to hear the authorities expound on the principles of the Gospel. At one of these meeting, Father (an eligible bachelor being the son of President John Taylor) was present at one of these meetings when his wandering eye was attracted to a very attractive pretty girl in the audience. He was determined to meet her and followed her home to see where she lived. Enquiring around he found out her name and managed to get an introduction. Since mother was young, pretty and popular with her own age group; she was not particularly interested in such an “old” man. She was even guilty of climbing out a back window when she saw him coming to call on her one evening.
During the period before the Manifesto, Mother told me Grandmother always escorted her to and from Church, fearing that some polygamist might persuade her to marry him. Grandmother herself had married Grandfather who was twenty-three years older (and a polygamist). She was not too enthusiastic about Mother becoming involved with Father and tried to get him interested in Mother’s older sister who was all also pretty, but Ida was the only one for him. Father’s perseverance won and after a courtship of six years, which included a mission to the Southern States and completing Dental School in New York, they were married in the Salt Lake Temple, the twenty-fifth of June 1895.
My oldest sister Mary, the beauty of the family was born February 11, 1897. She was three and one half years older than I and an especially talented individual; she had a great influence upon me. One of the wonderful qualities she had was to allow me to tag along with her and her also talented friends.
Mary Taylor
No doubt I had the earmarks of the “second child” who is supposed to have special problems within the family structure-but I firmly believe that every individual has his own special problems and talents no matter what numerical place she holds.
Ezra the much wanted first son was born May 5, 1905 and should have been a pioneer. His love for the wilderness and exploring the rugged areas of the West and North was marked. Mother was especially worried when he went all alone into the wild of Canada. He was also interested in all sorts of birds, insects and animals and all of nature’s wonders. Besides these interests he had great compassion for the unfortunate and homeless he managed to meet.
Ezra “Ez” Taylor
Dear Gay, born 1908, so lovable, considerate, generous and good-natured, although Gay is the maiden name of Grandmother Whipple, it seems to fit my sister exceptionally well. Happiness and warmth surround her. She was the stable one who sustained the family during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. I was married by then but knew of her strength at the time and her salary was low, she helped Pat, who was also struggling through the University of Utah.
Ida Gay “Gay” Taylor
On July 19, 1911, Irvin arrived, the first one of the six of us to be born in a hospital. I was practically eleven years old when he was born and extremely thrilled with the prospects of having a beautiful new baby in the family. The day arrived when I was allowed to see my brother. Never was a child more disappointed. When I beheld the strange (and to me) ugly baby, I cried. I was told he was an especially pretty baby; in fact his picture was on one of the Church Magazines in all the glory of his beautiful blond, curly hair, the picture, I think, never thrilled Irvin, for he could have been taken for a little girl. In spite of his good looks, he also had brains and according to Mary who was one of his elementary teachers, the brightest child she ever taught. Well, he still has the good looks and brains. Besides these qualities, he along with Gay, took care of Father, Mother and Mary for many years with understanding and kindness.
Pat (Patricia) the last of the six was born March 17, 1919 which accounts for her name being born on St. Patrick’s birthday. However it was not that we were a devote to the ancient priest, but the nurses and the association with the Irish green color chosen by the Lafayette School which all of us attended which made it a “natural”, especially for the children.
Patricia “Pat” Taylor Kerr
Now we had the second beauty in the family, Mother was forty-five when she was born and Pat became the pet and her pride and glory. Pat still retains her charm and good looks (1977). She is very talented, teaches school and is a lovely mother to her five children. When I was going to the University of Utah Mother and Father were looking for a new home for us. As we went from place to place I would carry Pat and people would think she was mine. I really felt flattered because she was a darling.
With these rather sketchy statements about my family, I shall relate some of the experiences in my life which for some reason other another I remember best, even if some psychologists discount such memories.
The first one deals with an experience I had when we were up City Creek Canyon. My childhood through my first at the University of Utah was spent near Memory Grove on Canyon Road. In those days the creek flowed right past the house with a wide foot bridge across it, under which we spent many hours playing. Father loved the canyon and this particular time we were up to the head of the stream either camping or on a picnic.
Tragedies of tragedies I fell in the creek and being pulled out cold and nearly frightened to death. My mother told me I was really too young to remember, but I know I did. Across the street was the historic Fireman’s Hall which is still standing had a large bell for summoning the firemen being on the top. On each Fourth of July in the morning the bell would ring the number of time decided to fit the occasion. With the fireworks, parade, programs and other festivities it was a thrilling holiday.
Canyon Road, 1919
Then there were the steep hills on either side of the canyon which at that time were sandy and rocky providing wonderful leaping and sliding exercises which mush have been a challenge to keep us covered on our seats and feet.
One of our favorite pastimes was to go up the canyon a ways and build a fire against the gravely slopes and roast onions. Definitely my immaturity at about eight years was or so showed when one night Pauline took the largest potato which I planned to eat and I wouldn’t speak to her for a week.
On holidays, automobiles were non-existent, often Mother would pack a lunch and we would take the little red wagon to carry it, the big home mad quilt to sit on, carry the baby and go on a walk up the canyon for the day.
What fun Mary and I would have making bark boats to carry fairy princesses down the water to meet the handsome princes of our imaginations. Even to this day every curve of the lower canyon is familiar as well as most of the upper canyon which was our recreation park both in our childhood and grown-up lives. It still beckons me to come up and enjoy the Rotary Park among the pines and watch the stream cascading down over the rocks.
Being a lover of nature, Father would frequently take the “older” children on walks clear up to the top of Ensign Peak where we seemed to be the highest spot in the world, overlooking Salt Lake City, the lake and the high Wasatch Mountains. On the way we would look or sego lily bulbs which the pioneers ate. Really they were excellent eating.
The other fascinating memories of my early childhood concerned either kindergarten or first grade. The first was a trip to a farm evidently in the early winter as I had a new fur hat and muff to wear. We had the wonderful experience of seeing and actually touching a real cow and see it milked (about 1906).
The second one concerned the great San Francisco earthquake. All the children were asked to bring food to school to be taken to feed the victims of the disaster. Pictures from the newspapers of the results of the fire and quake were shown to us and we all felt so sorry for the people.
I think the final event that really impressed me emotionally the most originated in the Lion House Kindergarten at Thanksgiving time. Again we were asked to bring holiday food to take to a little old lady who lived in a small house on the south side of Brigham Street (now called South Temple). It must not have been too far east as we placed the large basket containing the food on a sleigh and pulled it up to her house. When we arrived, she answered the door, invited us in, asked each of us each of our names and kissed us on the cheek, while in the process of crying and wiping the tears away from her eyes. How lovely I felt.
One of the grandest occasions of the year was the Taylor family Reunion. For weeks Mother would be working with a dressmaker making us elegant dresses to show our numerous cousins, aunts and probably uncles-the males never really noticing them I imagine.
To me Mother and Father were really impressive. Mother was a beauty and how well I remember some of her admirers saying to me, “So you are Ida Whipple’s daughters, one of the prettiest girls in Salt Lake City. You don’t look a bit like her.” As usual Father would wear a white patterned vest which was very stylish and striking with his dark suit. These vests were washable and I can’t say I enjoyed ironing them as the material was heavy twilled and had to be ironed, as all our clothes were with heavy black irons heated on the top of the coal heated stove. Along with the vests were the napkins used in Father’s dental office to be ironed. We were paid so much a dozen for our labor.
Granite Stake Tabernacle
The day would finally come nearly always cold November 1st. We would walk the four or five blocks to South Temple, take the street car to 24th South and arrive at the Granite Stake House Tabernacle for the happy event. President Joseph F. Smith would be in attendance as he had married a cousin on my fathers’ side of the family.
be forced off if the steam became too hot. One day it flew off with a bang; hit the ceiling of the furnace room and frightened poor mother so badly that from then on the furnace was not used again to heat the house. Our heat was furnished by the kitchen range, a dining room stove and on very special occasions the fireplace in the parlor. Shivering and shaking we would grab our clothes and hurry down to the dining room to dress. However the people years later who bought our house used the furnace and reported it was the best heating one they had ever seen.
Another luxury we had was electricity. No more coal oil lamps, nor even gas lights, but miraculous instant ones. At first in each room would be found a long green cord hanging from the ceiling to which was attached the wonderful single light bulb. Eventually, we had gorgeous leaded colored glass one hanging over the dining room table and other suitable ones throughout the house.
After the telephones were available, we had two wind up ones. Why two? Well, there were two competitive companies and to be able to cover the townspeople, some subscribing to one and some to another, it was just about necessary.
Our cellar extended over all the area beneath the house, including a fruit room with shelves in it and a large part with a dirt floor which could be used for various things. Always there was a barrel of vinegar and a five gallon can of honey which usually had a group of knives around it which were used to dig out the honey which was always good eating. Finally Mother would discover most of the table knives were missing and know exactly where to find them.
Valentine given to Julia by a friend
At Halloween time, as we grew older would have fabulous spook alleys for parties. Onions, apples, potatoes, and squash were stored there for the winter. Mother wouldn’t consider making squash pies from anything but the hubbard variety-pumpkin, never.
Father’s dental office was a marvelous place to visit. He had a laboratory where he made dentures and when he was not too busy he would make little red dolls from the wax he used and if we held out our hands he would pour a little quick silver in them for us to marvel as it slid across our palms. Occasionally we were allowed to press the motor pedal. It was in the laboratory that Father made the beautiful doll house for Mary and me for Christmas one year. What loving labor went into it by both Mother and Father. The house was a carefully fashioned wooden structure about five feet long and maybe eighteen inches wide of colonial design having two stories, three rooms upstairs and three down, a full pillared porch was across the front supporting a balcony with railings around for the upstairs area, a beautiful green roof topped the whole house with painted red brick chimneys on either end.
The living room had an intricately fashioned bay window and a fashionable hinged front door with oval glass opening out to the front porch. The back of the house was open enabling us to play with it in grand style. All rooms had glass windows. What about the inside? Mother had somehow found a father, mother, boy, girl and a baby doll, making a complete family. They were all dressed in carefully made clothes. Furniture was obtained of course in the early 1900’s style. To light the six different rooms, an apple with a burning candle in it was placed in each room. It was a beautiful and exciting experience for two little girls that Christmas morning.
Actually I know I was not able to fully appreciate the doll house until much later. However my other sisters had their turn playing in it as well as my children and grandchildren.
Certain traditions were initiated in those early days. Father would buy the Christmas tree and set it up in the dining room waiting for Santa Claus to decorate it using candles for lights. Next we hung up our stockings (not glamorous felt ones with sequins and other trimmings), but nice long, stretchy everyday ones with plenty of room for candy, nuts and always an orange.
The main gifts were placed under the tree, but never wrapped. Somehow, I can’t remember how, we identified those for us, and everything was simply wonderful. Around home Christmas Eve was always hectic to say the least. Father would generally go down to the ZCMI late half price sale of toys, to pick up some especially nice toys for Santa to give us. Mother and any of us old enough to help scrubbed and polished the house finishing dressing dolls and other last minute odds and ends for the great day.
ZCMI
I remember one night we went to bed with our clothes on to speed up the proceedings. But did it do any good? No! Our tradition was to get up, dress, wash up, comb our hair, have breakfast and wash the dishes before lining up, the youngest first, to go into the dining room to see what Santa brought. It was always a very dramatic time.
Joe and I have had the same traditions, no matter what the agony, but it was really worth it. As far as the Santa Claus tradition it concerned, it wasn’t all that bad, I never did graduate entirely from the world of make believe.
Mother was an especially good reader and often we would gather around her while she read to us the Oz books. Father pretended not to listen, but behind his newspaper I know he was enjoying the make believe as much as the rest of us. No doubt about it Mother was a born teacher. Often she would tell us of her going to the University of Deseret in Salt Lake, in a building where the present West High School is.
University of Deseret
As far as I know she went there for only one year, even, that was a great sacrifice for the family. To preserve her only pair of shoes she would walk barefoot to school. Only one dress was in her school wardrobe, a black dress for day time and a sort of lace over piece for parties. When she started teaching, she was appalled at the unsanitary condition of her skirts as they were floor length and swept the dirt as she walked. Without consulting the principal, she shortened her skirts one inch from the floor. She was reprimanded as occasionally her ankle would be seen as she went about teaching.
Throughout her entire life she taught in the Church auxiliaries, right up until she became unable through her health to continue. Though she was recognized as an exceptional Primary worker by being asked to be on the General Board, she declined as she felt it might cause her to neglect her family which always came first.
For years she taught in Religious class, an organization dealing with children, if I remember correctly, around Junior High. Hours were spent in her studying Gospel principles and still later pouring over the lessons for Theology class leader in Relief Society.
Father also was a teacher. As far as I know he never taught anything but the Book of Mormon class in Sunday School. It seemed to me he knew the Book of Mormon by heart. This class was taught in the old Eighteenth Ward until we moved in 1919 or 1920 to “A” Street, up on the hill across from the canyon from the Capital building.
Salt Lake 18th Ward
No missionary that he knew came to him for dental work before going into the field ever paid a cent for the service. This was also the case for any members of the family.
At no time were we allowed to criticize any of the authorities of the Church. Even slang was discouraged in our home. For years Father worked in the Salt Lake Temple and only when he could see insufficiently did her resign. He was gentle, refined and extremely proud of his heritage.
Most of the time I would accompany him to Sacrament Meeting, holding his hand. Being modest and basically shy, he managed to arrive a little late so that he would not be asked to sit on the stand. Nevertheless he had a dry sense of humor and along with Mother’s fun loving sense of humor, I enjoyed being around them.
I never knew either of my grandfathers as they died long before I was born. However, though Grandfather Taylor’s writings and his history by B.H. Roberts plus interviews with my father relating family life as he remembered it, I felt almost acquainted with him. He was brought up in the English tradition never allowed his position in the Church to be used by his family for favors, was very dignified and cultured. His family councils, interviewing his children as to their speech, attending meetings and general counseling them. If any real problems arose, he would have a court with both sides being represented by members of the family. My father said they always felt that the decision was fair.
Grandfather Whipple was born in Sanford, Broom County, New York; his family having moved to Brattlebo, Vermont. All his life from the age of nine years he performed much hard physical work mostly in lumbering and saw mills, having had only a few days of schooling. In spite of his lack of education, he taught himself to read, write and was able to build his family a large adobe house with porches and a balcony.
By reading his history written from his diaries I learned a great deal about him and his experiences in the Church from before Nauvoo time until his death. He sacrificed much to help build up the Church and truly endured to the end.
On the other hand, I did know both of my Grandmothers until I was eleven years old when they both died within a month of each other. It was always an even when we went to visit them.
Grandmother Taylor was quite a formal lady, having her own quarters in her daughters (Aunt Ida) large house which grandmother helped finance from her income from John Taylor’s estate. She almost always wore a white linen apron with a band of crocheted lace on the bottom. Every night she would put her hair in paper rollers so that she looked very pretty at all times.
Since her income was very adequate, she loved to give us fairly expensive gifts. I remember two special gifts, one a pair of blue kid slippers with a robe to match, the other was a real china children’s tea set for me to use when I was entertaining my friends.
When Grandmother Taylor went out, she was always dressed up in a lovely dress and bonnet. She was proud and had been a beauty in her youth; even having a famous artist asked to paint her picture. At one time when she was visiting Mother, a rain storm blew up.
As she didn’t have an umbrella, Mother offered her a cotton one; even if she couldn’t see too well, having developed a cataract, she refused.
Although this seems vain, she really wasn’t. Aunt Ida, her only daughter, told me that she remembered her mother when they were really poor, but that she always had a dress, no matter how old that she kept cleaned and pressed so that if Grandfather Taylor asked her to go with him to a meeting that she would have something to wear.
When we visited Grandmother Whipple it seemed that we were always hungry. She had a marvelous cellar with stone steps leading down to it. On either side were stone shelves generally with shallow milk pans filed with milk to cool so that the thick cream would come to the top to be churned into butter later. Still farther into the main part of the cellar where were stored the molasses, salted pork, honey, potatoes, onions, squash, apples and other food to feed the family through the winter.
Ezra was famous for his saying as soon as we arrived, “It seems to me I smell jam,” which started Grandmother bringing out the homemade bread with other available treats. In the yard there was a hydrant which fascinated me as it was fun to pump, which prompted Grandmother to tell about the Indians who would come and camp in her yard at General Conference time.
Whipple Home in Salt Lake City
One day after they arrived, an Indian Mother with her young baby in its cradle board on her back decided to give it a bath. She held it under the hydrant and pumped the cold water on it for a few minutes, then dried it and put it back in its cradle and began to attend to her other responsibilities. She said that the baby didn’t even cry and that was difficult for me to believe.
Inside the Whipple Home
Wash day a large copper kettle was filled with water from the hydrant was placed over a fire outside and heated to wash the family clothes. It was an all day job as everything was washed by hand. I asked Mother how they ever could keep clean with the petticoats, long skirts, underwear, etc… She said they couldn’t change their clothes as often as we did and had to be careful to wear aprons and pull on sleeve protectors.
We became better acquainted with Grandmother Whipple as she stayed with us when Mother had a nervous breakdown and took Mary with her for a rest in California by the ocean. She used to brush and comb my hair, braiding it into two parts then tying it up with ribbons and tell me pioneer stories. How I wish I could remember them now.
As a child and still up until now, I was very curious and couldn’t wait to answer the door when anyone knocked. One Saturday I heard a knock at the back door. Rushing out I opened the door and there stood a huge (to me) Indian. Screaming I ran to Mother while the Indian kept saying “I won’t hurt you little girl”, over and over again. For a long time after I wouldn’t dream of answering the door. Eventually time dulled the terror and curiosity over came fear.
FIRST FIVE YEARS
On a hot Monday summer day, August 6, 1900, I was born in a little house, directly across the street from the old 17th Ward meeting house on 2nd North in Salt Lake City, Utah. Being born at the turn of the twentieth century has really made figuring out dates of importance easy in relation to my age.
Many years later when I was better able to understand, my mother said, “Julia, I was so excited that the stifling heat of the range boiling water necessary for a home delivery seemed to bother me as the prospects of having a second child overshadowed everything else. When you were finally placed in my arms, I saw you, pretty dark hair and brown eyes, my happiness was complete.” Shortly after my birth, my father contracted typhoid pneumonia and become critically ill. Kindly neighbors assisted along with the limited medical treatments of the day, but recovery was slow. Then I came down with pneumonia. No antibiotics were known at the time. The “crisis” came and I worsened to the extent that the doctor told my parents that he could do no more and it was a matter of time.
Mother went to pieces, but Father, still unable to get out of bed, looked out the window and saw Brother Carl G. Maeser passing by across the street, and told mother to call him in to administer to me. Weeping, Mother said it wouldn’t do any good but ran out and called to him. Brother Maeser came in and blessed me, saying that I would completely recover, grow up, marry, have a family and be a comfort to them the rest of their lives. How I appreciate the power of the Priesthood and Brother Maeser passing by that day. From that time on, I was a little bit special to Gather, his taking extra care of me.
How well I remember his holding my hand while we ate and coaxing me to eat peas, “Just a few more now, see how good they are?” Unfortunately I was never quite convinced, but eventually somehow learned to like them.
During the first year of my life, my parents were building a new home right on the banks of City Creek Canyon near what is known as Memory Grove, later I found that they canyon, the creek, the steep hills around us was the most wonderful playground in the world. All challenging to me to climb, explore, appreciate nature and wear out shoes and dresses (no pants for little girls in the early 1900’s).
There we lived until I was a student at the University of Utah. Although our new home was really up to date, by modern standards it couldn’t pass the grade. It was made of brick having a lovely “L” shaped front porch extending quite a distance on the north side of the house. Here we spent in summer delightful hours playing in the shade. We had a parlor with a fireplace which was for special occasions such as birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas and parties; an entrance hall, a large dining room which would be equivalent to a sort of family room. We studied around the dining room table and ate practically all our meals.
The kitchen had an excellent coal range with enclosed warming ovens above the cooking area and an oven which Mother would put her hand in to see if it were the right temperature for bread, cake, meat and potatoes. It was also used for Father to put his feet on the open door and warm them after a cold walk home from the office-he was a dentist in town, it would be about six blocks away. He was very fond of the latest appliances and would sometimes use his ingenuity to improve on them. Our washing machine, I am almost certain was the first motor driven one in the area. He attached a dental motor with a leather belt to the large round wheel which would turn the wringer or washer, which ever was needed.
In our full earth floor basement was a steam furnace which channeled steam to radiators on the main floor. On it was an iron ball safety device which would be pushed off if steam became too hot. Mother was extremely fearful of the furnace and one day the iron ball was forced off with such power that it hit the ceiling in the furnace that she was terrified and from that time on we had a stove in the dining room and no heat in the bedrooms or bath. Many years later the man who bought the house said it had the best furnace he had ever seen.
Yes, we had a bathroom, a tub, wash basin, but no toilet. When I was young-toilets were considered unsanitary in the house and so the standard one was outside in the customary out-house.
My earliest remembrance before I was five was when we went up City Creek Canyon for an outing and I fell in the creek. Evidently I was so thoroughly frightened that I couldn’t forget it.
Probably about the same time, I was humiliated by the “mean boy” next door who made fun of me carrying around my cherished bottle all the time. That finished the bottle for Julia-I threw it in the rose bushes and never had another.
A favorite fun activity in the winter was sleigh riding, not by riding in a sleigh behind a horse, but by riding down the nearby avenue hills on commercial sleighs or for the more daring schooners which were long homemade inventions with sharpened runners on which five, six or seven people could sit at great speed clear down the hills over the “cut off” to State Street as far down as the Eagle Gate. Many accidents occurred on them. We would stay out so long that we would be numb with cold and have to go through the pain of thawing out.
Then there was the Deseret Gym where there was a fabulous swimming pool, where I nearly drowned by jumping off the deep end and not surfacing and had to be saved by the instructor. Unfortunately that experience frightened me so much that I never succeeded in learning how to swim at all well, just barely enough to get my “D” in order to fulfill the requirements to swim across the pool on my back and them back on my face, in order to graduate from the University of Utah.
Deseret Gym
The main floor of the gym with its balcony served as the basket ball court for the L.D.S. High School which I attended. My best friend played the music for the dancing class plus music for the business men’s exercise classes. To me it was as good as commercial entertainment to watch them keep time in lackadaisical movements to the music.
For real pleasure and adventure from early childhood, through graduation from the University, the Salt Lake City Library had a great influence on my life. Since my older sister Mary was a great reader and wanted someone to go along with her to pick out books, I was introduced at a tender age to the wonder of the stereoscope, which I could hardly bear to leave with its three dimensional pictures. Before long I was introduced to the books on the shelves. We would bring armfuls of books home. Later what Mary would I read also. Often Mother would hide our books until we finished our home assignments. What a struggle I had with some subjects. I can never remember when I couldn’t read. Reading is still my favorite recreation.
Salt Lake City Library on State Street
The old Lafayette School on State and North Temple Street where the mission school now stands had many important memories for me, even though we often talked about how wonderful it would be if the school should burn down. Well, one very cold Thanksgiving day it did just that. It was so cold the fire hydrants froze and I can still see with horror watching the blazing school burning and burning. In spite of my earlier wishes, I was deeply disturbed and sad about it.
Lafayette School, Salt Lake City. North Temple and State Street
The activities I did excel in on Field Day were baseball and foot races along with the boys who accepted me as one of them. Our graduation exercises were beautiful to me. Mother made me a lovely new dress and as a great concession allowed me to take off my long handled underwear which we wore until June to keep us from catching cold. I still have my diploma.
Every summer in August Father would close his dental office and we would go on a month’s vacation. These vacations were not luxurious, circumstances seemed to determine them. He loved to hike and fish and really enjoyed nature. As he always did the dental work free for his close relatives he did not turn down an invitation from Uncle John Whitaker who own a summer home “Up the Weber” which also included a ranch which was somehow related to the group of people who also owned summer homes on the river. It was located below the Smith and Morehouse Fork.
Smith and Morehouse Valley
Smith and Morehouse Creek
Today it would require a very short time to travel the approximately sixty-five or six miles, but before automobiles were at all common it was a large undertaking to take a family and supplies to last a month.
This one summer he hired a team with a driver to haul our equipment and taking Mary they drove to Park City where Mother, Ezra, Gay (a baby) and I met him having come by train that far. From there we rode the rest of the way to the ranch where we pitched our tents, made an outdoor canvas covered kitchen and dining area near Uncle John’s cabin.
Julia on left, Ida Taylor next to her.
Mother was certainly a good sport to put up with a cross baby, leaky tents and cook and wash outdoors for a family of six. I thought it was wonderful. Father did a lot of fishing and we had fish once or twice a day.
Almost every night the whole group of home owners would have a big bonfire which we would sing, have treats and at least out family would dry out the bedding which had dampened by the leaky tents after the frequent canyon rainstorms, we even had a costume party where unbelievable ingenuity was plentiful using unlikely objects for the fun.
In the daytime we swam in the river using old dresses and shoes for our “play clothes”. The ranch barn had a fairly steep long roof on which we slid and landed on a hay stack at its base. Finally I became brave enough to go to the top. It was a wonder we didn’t get killed.
Another of these trips was by train up to Montana where my Mother’s Aunt Mary lived on a ranch. The chief things I remember was the long hot train ride and the big swing where the hired man used to push us as we swung higher and higher until I became frightened.
American Fork Canyon was a third interesting spot where we spent our vacations. Uncle Anor Whipple had a very primitive cabin just below the area where they present road turns off to go over to Provo Canyon. We had pine bough beds, cooked our food over a bon fire and in an iron Dutch oven, and watched out for rattle snakes which were plentiful among the rocks and beautiful cliffs nearby. One time walking down to the river to get some water I nearly stepped on one. I was literally frozen in my tracks and refused to go for water again.
Mother still being a good sport had Irvin as a four year old to look after. The Forest Ranger’s son even came down to horseback ride. Never having ridden before, I almost fell off the horse as it waded through the river to the road.
While there, I remember there being an earthquake which dislodged many rocks which was terrifying. It must have been in 1914 as during our stay we heard that World War I was declared in Europe.
Around this period of time I had the thrill of seeing the first airplane which came to Salt Lake. It was exhibited at the Fair Grounds. Actually all it did was to manage to fly over the high fence and around a little bit, but the air age arrived.
After graduating from grade school (8th grade) it was time to go to High School. I was privileged to go to the L.D.S., a Church school located in the area where the Lion House, the large Church office building and the Relief Society building now stands.
LDS High School
Since it was the first time I would be separated from my neighborhood friends, I felt a sense of adventure and not a little fear with the change. Uniforms were required, navy blue pleated skirt and a middy blouse was the style. A small tuition was expected. Almost all the students belonged to the Church. Theology was a required course. Only two of my Lafayette friends attended, Lucy Grant Taylor and Lucille Schettler, my two closest friends through high school. Somehow someone I didn’t know nominated me for vice president of the freshman class and I was elected. Naturally shy, I had a hard time at first, but enjoyed it later. Everything was new and exciting.
Mary had preceded ne at L.D.S.U. and acquainted me with some of the “ropes” of the school. Senator Wallace Bennett was the literary notable of the school, being a senior when I was a freshman. He was talented and showed ability then.
Brother Moss, my favorite theology teacher, was the father of Senator Moss. Uncle John Henry Evans was my favorite English teacher. It was in his class that I decided to major in English. This was partly brought about by his instilling in me the love of good literature. During these years he was engaged in writing the excellent book, “Joseph Smith an American Prophet.” It was not published however until 1933.
The old Deseret Gym was in the area. Here we held our thrilling basket ball games. What wonderful days those were. For one thing I fell in love with the star basketball player Slats Nielson, I think was his name. In Barrett Hall where we had out assemblies, the freshmen were seated in the balcony. I would spot Slats and try to use telepathy to get him to look at me, no matter that he had never met me or knew I existed, still I hoped.
My math teacher was another of my idols, but alas!, my romantic feelings were quashed when one day he leaned against the hot steam radiator and let out and undignified cry which seemed to make him an ordinary mortal all at once.
School was comparatively easy. My classes included: English, French, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, solid geometry, art, choir, general science and speech, which included dramatics. I dearly loved the speech and dramatics class. I tried out for the lead in every play; but never won, but still it was fun. My teacher suggested I try for other parts, hinting it was difficult to get tall boys for the leads.
One date I had in High School I shall never forget. It was for a class party which was held in a large private home, which had a dance floor on the third story (McCune Mansion), perfect for games and dancing. Mother took me down to the Z.C.M.I. and bought me my first pair of high-heeled shoes. They were “Laird Schrober” shoes, the very best brand. My date was O.K., but his chief charm lay in his Father’s Pace Arrow which his son was permitted to drive frequently. It was still light when he drove up to the house in the beautiful open top car. All the neighbors were looking out their windows and doors while I climbed in, sat self-consciously in the front seat and was driven away.
Mc Cune Mansion on Main Street in Salt Lake City, above Temple Square.
At the party we were playing a blind-fold game where all the boys were in the dance floor room and one by one the girls would be called in blindfolded and led down the center of the room to a throne. Unfortunately I can remember only one thing, Horrors! On mu unsteady self, balancing on myself on my new shoes, I fell down. Talk about pride before the fall! Naturally I the boys laughed, certainly without intention of crushing my feelings, but I felt disgraced forever.
Since our school was practically on Main Street, we often went down town at lunch time and after school. Marvels of science were appearing quite regularly, we were soon engulfed with the thrills and chills of silent movies. For the price of five cents per ticket we could see such stars as Mary Pickford, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino and others.
One year our class sponsored a trip to Bird Island which was quite a way west in the Great Salt Lake. It was during the hatching time for the famous seagulls. I made me a new dress of the latest style for the occasion. Can anyone in the 1970’s imagine a girl in a hobble skirt with over tunic trying to get on and off a street car, then on the Salt Air Train, and then board the boat to sail the salty sea?
Salt Lake City Street Car. 1911
Well, my younger brother Ezra said he would be my partner for the day, and brothers of any age would scarcely thrill at having to lift sisters off and on things. He did succeed fairly well and the trip to study the bird life on the island was a success. Still trying to make my way around the almost covered with nests and their young was quite an exercise wearing a tight hobble skirt. No room for criticism of today’s fashions.
Salt Air
Salt Air was such a fun place to go and almost every summer holiday, Father would take us out to “the Lake” for bathing. Bathing suits were furnished with the admission fee to the bath houses and showers. What impossible creations they were, consisting of bloomers, sailor blouse and skirt, plus black cotton stockings-no one was allowed to appear without stockings. Father had a suit he bought in New York when he was studying to be a dentist, which had leotard stocking and a striped top. It was very stylish.
Julia Taylor at Salt Air
When we climbed up the steps to the bath houses our clothes were so heavy with the very salty water that it felt as if they were being pulled off. How hungry we were and could hardly wait to get home for the delicious meal that Mother would have prepared for us.
Most of the time she would come along and we would have our picnic lunch on the tables beneath the famous dance floor. The water was quite deep and beautifully clear. Seagulls were flying about fighting for food tossed to them from the picnickers. One of the great thrills was the ride home in the open railroad cars across the cool salty arid taste back to the city. Then we would transfer to the streetcar which took us to the Eagle Gate and from there walk home near present Memory Grove.
Another favorite amusement was to go to the historic Salt Lake Theater. It was known for its large quality stage and acoustics. It was really an ornate and beautiful theater. Because of its excellence, it attracted the most famous actors, musicians and dancers the nation to perform there. I can remember Maude Adams, Otis Skinner, Pavlova and many others.
Salt Lake Theater
As my cousin Lucy Grant Taylor was a granddaughter of President Heber J. Grant, once in a great while, she was allowed to take some of her friends to sit in the Presidents box to see one of the not too popular, no doubt performances. We felt very important sitting in such a special place, but actually the actors seemed not so attractive close up with their heavy makeup and the magic of the stage was diminished along with the stagy scenery not helping.
Through quite a period of time Gather would purchase season tickets in what was called the Family Circle, the second balcony, and I would occasionally get to go with Mother and him to an evening performance.
As students in high school and the University of Utah, we would stand in long lines for hours were hard wooden benches and our heads would almost touch the ceiling. As the theater and the L.D.S. High School were church owned, our school play was always produced there. Many of the General Authorities and prominent citizens would attend.
To be able to have a part in the play was my unfulfilled ambition. However, I enjoyed every performance. Lucile Schettler, one of my best friends one year had the lead.
During our senior year Aunt Ray Grant Taylor, Lucy’s mother who was dean of girls in the school, made an arrangement with the Patriarch of the Church, Hyrum G. Smith, for Lucy, Lucile and I to have our Patriarchal blessings. Nervously sitting before him in his office, we relaxed as he greeted us in a kindly manner and said that since we were such good friends we might wish to hear him give us our individual blessings. Each blessing was really different from the others. Lucy and I were told that we would be mothers in Israel among other things, but Lucile was told she would have a fine husband but did not mention being a mother in Israel. Eventually Lucy and I were married in the Temple and Lucile out of the Church to a fine non-member person. It has always been a testimony to me that the Patriarchal blessings are inspired.
During the summer before my graduation, I was invited by a friend I met in school named Bertha Thurgood to visit with her family in West Point, a small town near the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Taking the Bamberger to Clearfield, I was met at the depot I was met by Bertha with a horse and buggy to take me to her home. No one could have been treated ore royally. They had a large home on a farm and fabulous food, but in my honor for the first meal we had store bought canned salmon a treat for them, but for a city girl not so much of a treat as some fried chicken which was regular fare would have been for me.
We went to the lake and floated lazily on its salty surface, had a double date riding to Lagoon in a surrey, yes, with fringe on top to dance and enjoy the rides, a trip to Ogden by wagon to see a circus with food packed in baskets with goodies baked and prepared by Bertha’s mother. In fact everything possible was done to be sure I had a good time.
Lagoon Dance Hall, Farmington, Utah
In the fall of 1918, came the tragic great influenza epidemic. All the schools in Salt Lake City were closed and all public gatherings were prohibited.
Loving City Creek Canyon, Mary, Ezra and I practically lived up there, hiking great distances it seemed to me to explore the pine tree area up to what is now called Rotary Park and beyond. One memorable trip we made to some mine quite a distance up from Rotary Park up on Black Mountain which had a thick growth of pines on it.
One of Ezra’s friends came along planning to stay overnight while Mary and I would hike back home alone. Unfortunately we started home rather late and arrived at Rotary Park at dark. It was around six or seven miles from home. Dark and threatening was the road we faced. Being narrow the trees overhung the road and blotted out what light there was. Holding hands, we walked silently along, wishing we had started home earlier. After walking about three miles, our father sent by our worrying mother came along to bring us safely back. Needless to say, we were surely thankful to have such loving and caring parents.
Armistice Day came in November of that year and in spite of the flu, thousands poured into Salt Lake to celebrate, whistles, a parade, dancing in the streets and great general rejoicing as the terrible war was now ended. Schools were reopened, Church meetings were again held, and the rest of the year was back to normal.
At last the preparations for graduation: the class party for which I insisted on a new dress and hat, the class outing at Salt Air, where we all bathed in the salty water, ate enormous amounts of food and ended the day dancing on the famous spring floor to the music of the name bands; and the school picnic up City Creek Canyon at Pleasant Valley taking turns riding around with the few boys who had cars.
The climax of course would be graduation night where the President and some of the General authorities and other dignitaries would be in attendance. As usually my generous parents went all out with outfitting me like a bride from the skin out. Instead of buying dresses from the store, many people had dressmakers for the family. Mother had hers make me a beautiful white dress.
For the first time in my life I went to the hair dresser in the Hotel Utah to have my hair done. When I arrived at the exercises no one recognized me, for I was transformed into what I thought was a beauty, and now I often wonder about the foolishness of the present generation!
I can’t imagine how my parents tolerated me and how thankful I am that they did. Now that graduation was over it was time to think about going to the “U”. Because all my close girl friends were planning to attend, I assumed that I also would attend. During the summer the sororities and fraternities began their “rushing” activities. It was a fun time and along with my friends I attended various parties by different sororities. Now I was not that popular, but some invited me while others didn’t.
University of Utah about 1919
Finally “bid” day arrived and we excitedly opened out invitations to join. I accepted mine in writing and announced to my parents which one. Never dreaming that I would encounter opposition from home I was stunned to have my father who almost always said “yes” emphatically said “no”. “I will be ruined socially”, I cried, but to no avail. In the first place I found out that Father did not believe in secret organizations and in the second place he said he couldn’t afford it. Few girls that I knew had jobs and I knew of no way to earn money.
One of father’s patients was appalled when she found out he had refused to allow me to join, she said they had borrowed money on their home to enable their daughter to accept her “bid”. I might add that the social prominence of sororities, fraternities was much greater then than now. They were very snobbish making agreements with each other to invite only affiliated to their parties and activities. In a short time, however, I found out that it really didn’t matter that much. There were even some fringe benefits of not belonging.
Julia Taylor, about 1920
My friends did not forsake me. I was useful in nominating members and non-members to different positions in the student body and other organizations. Some boys in the fraternities did not follow the rules, my future husband, being one of them. If you knew him, you would understand why.
After registering for my various classes, I and one other girl, found ourselves in the English class designated for the School of Engineering. It seemed that all the other Freshman English classes were too crowded. What an opportunity to meet some interesting boys! There it was that I met Joe Neville who sat directly behind me and occasionally pulled my hair which I thought was juvenile. Later, he asked me for a date at a matinee dance held for the Freshman class.
College notes of Julia Taylor
It took great determination for a boy to go up to girls all hopefully waiting to be asked to dance. I enjoyed the dance and like Joe but that was all. The date was to go to a movie and we became a little more acquainted. One morning as I got off the street car at the end of the line, I saw Joe walking along to school-his home being 36 “S” Street about two blocks away from where the street car’s end of line. After that we just happened to meet each morning and he would gallantly carry my books. I could just as easily have taken the 1st South Street car with about the same amount of walking.
Later I found out that he was on the freshman football team and still later that he had been on the team’s first string of the East High School champion of the whole region. Not being a sports fan I wasn’t at first as much as impressed as later on.
When New Year’s Eve came along, we had a date for a theater and a night club after. It was really an elaborate date and must have cost Joe a fortune for a boy who had to earn his way through school. From then on our dates were really lovely; he never missed doing as much as he could to make them enjoyable. As it is often the case it takes the backward look to appreciate other people’s sacrificing.
During our university days most boys had to take girls to dances on the street car. It was quite an experience to get all dressed up and then ride so conspicuously to our destination, then too often the boys would have to walk home ager as the street cars didn’t run very late.
Joe had a friend who owned a car, and for his fraternity dances six of us managed to squeeze into it; but by the time we arrived our dresses were somewhat wrinkled.
I was extremely self-conscious of my height. Because of this it was torture for me to dance with a boy that was short. Unfortunately most of Joe’s friends were on the short side. As the custom was to trade dances and embarrassing not to have the dance card filled, I didn’t always enjoy myself as much as I should with my chin resting uncomfortably on the head of my partner. However, this made it doubly enjoyable to dance with Joe who was tall and a good dancer.
For a girl in the 1970’s it would be impossible to imagine being upset because she couldn’t have a new spring hat to wear on a date to a basketball game in February. For my father to refuse me was not typical for him, but understandable for me now. Really I shouldn’t write these negative things about myself, but as I remember them it helps me understand my own children and grandchildren.
Julia Taylor in College
Through my school years my parents were particular about my dating non-members. How thankful I am now for their concern and how unreasonable at times I thought they were. At the university I took quite a few classes in French, although later my husband couldn’t believe it when I tried to speak it in France when we were on a BYU tour.
After World War I, veterans were allowed to go to school and one of these was a handsome young officer in one of my French classes. Of course the girls were all impressed with his uniform and maturity. He was also really a fine person. It was the custom for the French club to have a party at least once a year. Nobody knows how hard I worked to get him to ask me to go with him. Finally I succeeded and when I told my parents they both asked if he were L.D.S. After I said now, I was immediately and finally told to break the date. It was quite a disappointment but probably a blessing, for one of my friends in the French class subsequently married him and eventually left the Church. Of course he might never have asked me out again, but there is always that possibility.
As is the case in most schools there are the girl watchers. There were always some near the door of the Park Building that led to the girl’s lockers. One rainy morning with a large load of books and a purse in my arms, I was walking in a hurry with my head held high past some of them, while I slipped and feel on the wet entrance way, scattering books and the contents of my purse in every direction. I could have died. The boys tried hard to be helpful and I finally got picked up and into the locker room, then burst into tears.
However most of my experiences were happy ones. False pride was one of my weaknesses. Thinking it would give me more status to have a B.A. degree instead of a B.S. degree I had registered for the classes leading to a B.A. degree.
As my junior year ended, I suddenly realized that if I wanted to teach and I did for I had to have a way of earning a living, I had better take the required classes. Thus I registered for all of those plus the ones to finish my B.A. degree. Consequently my senior year was difficult and time consuming.
However, I did keep active in the Church and always has some sort of position if only that of teaching and leading the Sacrament Gem. In that position I made charts and tired to give some degree of emphasis. Once when conducting it a stake officer, who was also one of my professors in philosophy, was visiting and recognizing me he came up after Sunday School and chatted with me. During the conversation he made an outstanding statement, he said, Miss Taylor, I hope you do not believe all that is discussed in class and in the book. I have to teach the prescribed material. It was disillusioning to me as I really enjoyed his classes, in fact he urged me to major in philosophy.
From that time on, I have questioned at least part of the substance presented by my teachers and lectures who were supposed to be teaching the truth. His statement was no doubt a favor, but I didn’t realize it.
During my university days I also took a number of classes in speech which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I was encouraged by one of my professors to major in it. Probably all of the professors were kingdom building trying to strengthen their departments.
From what I know now, I would never have majored in English, but enjoying reading so much I thought it was the thing to do. This particular professor mentioned he liked my voice and the way I interpreted the selections. All I really wanted was a part in the play. As I mentioned before I was always trying out but was never given one.
One of my girl friends had a home which was really quite a mansion (the McCune Mansion). Her parents had done a lot of traveling and had brought home many beautiful furnishings and works of art among which were many lovely oriental rugs which were even on the stairs and in most of the rooms. Her father wouldn’t allow any commercial cleaners in the house, so Helen, her sister and mother and sometimes some of her friends would shampoo them.
On the third floor was a dance hall and we were told that we, Helen and her friends could have a party there if we would clean it up as it hadn’t been use for some time. We all pitched in and in a short time it was ready for the dance.
The thing that impressed me the most in their home was their storage area. How I ever got to see it was that we needed something or other for the party refreshments. Helen got the key from her mother and I went in with her. It was a complete store; food, furniture, Christmas gifts bought on sale, clothing, and household cleaning and repairing supplies. How proud and secure we would all feel to have such an abundance to take care of us in an emergency. At that time around 1923it would not be the common thing to do especially when the father was not L.D.S.
After our sophomore year Joe quit school and went to work in Eureka, Utah to work as a draftsman and engineer assistant. We were dating off and on, but without a car and living so far away it wasn’t so easy. Calling me long distance, he would make arrangements and I would always ask Mother’s permission while he waited on the other end of the line.
Since the first date, he always planned something extra special and I know now he must have sacrificed financially in his efforts to please me. We went to the Salt Lake Theater in the best seats, going to dinner first. In the summer we went to Salt Air where he first told me he loved me and which has always has a special place in my heart since. For some reason my parents were not enthusiastic about Joe.
Because he was never particularly outwardly religious, never being pious, they didn’t really appreciate his deep seated, religious nature. Actually President B.H. Roberts who married his grandmother, taught him a great deal and was a strong influence in his study and thinking throughout his life.
Both Father and Mother worked in the Temple and Mother became acquainted with a lovely sister who had a fine son who would be just right for Julia. They proceeded to try to start some matchmaking. The boy concerned was a university student and really a nice person. I dutifully started going with him, but the more I did, the more I liked Joe.
Finally through a combination of trying to please my parents and Joe’s objections (he did live a long distance away) we, broke our regular dating and I was miserable. No one can please everyone and I was a first class example of one who tried.
Joe eventually decided to go on a mission. He told me later he knew the only way he could get me to marry him would be to go as I had told him I had promised my mother I would marry in the Temple and hopefully a returned missionary.
After a tragic mine accident from which he miraculously escaped, his mind was definitely made up. This news pleased me and I asked Mother to go with me to his Farwell.
As his grandmother Roberts and President B.H. Roberts had practically adopted him, Sister Roberts arranged the program. Knowing the top musical talent of the Church, she had invited many of them to perform and it was practically a concert.
Since our romance was not to firm at this time, a girl came up with the Frankie’s, Joe’s good friends in Eureka. He asked me to go over to the house but mother wouldn’t and somehow the girl with the Frankie’s didn’t either and he was offended and I can see why.
Tis a fact in deed that “true love never runs smoothly” and so it was before our marriage, but after our love and devotion never ceased.
I didn’t go to the depot to say good bye to him knowing that I really cared for him. However I was still trying to figure out how to handle problems with my parents and another boy. That was on about May, 15, 1923.
Graduation was approaching. I was struggling to wind up my classes. Several dinners and luncheons for the graduates were held. As I belonged to a number of organizations I was expected to attend, but my enthusiasm for school and its affairs was somewhat exhausted as I had been under such pressure with the heavy load I was carrying.
Julia Taylor Graduation from the University of Utah
June 5th, Graduation day came. It was hot, the exercises were long, but finally I received my diploma which was almost retained as I had not passed the swimming test which was required for graduation. The last day I floundered through it and was O.K. ed.
However I did and do appreciate my parents who had financed my four years of schooling with some sacrifice. I don’t know how I could have done it myself.
The next hurdle was to get a teaching position. In 1923 school teachers were a glut on the market very much the way they are now in 1977 and 1978. Fortunately I had a professor in the English department who was a friend indeed. Receiving inquires from Sugar City, Idaho for an English teacher who would be able to teach other subjects as well as be active in the community, he recommended me for the job. I had applied in Salt Lake but with no success and appreciated this opportunity.
Not having had many clothes during my school years, depending on Mary lending me something for special occasions I asked Father if he could arrange a loan for me to buy a trunk, clothes, a railroad ticket and keep me going until I received my first pay check.
Mon contract was $1,400, for the year, $1,000 more than for Salt Lake beginning teachers. I felt rich indeed as I purchased the things I needed. By the time I finished getting ready, I was, really excited about my new adventure.
Julia Taylor, about 1923
Today a trip up to Sugar City, Idaho wouldn’t be anything special only a few hours trip, but in the fall of 1923 for a city girl who has led a comparatively sheltered life and never been away from my family before, it was quite an event. As the train moved along, I noticed we were getting away from the mountains, and when I stepped off the train in Sugar City, they were miles away in the distance. Sugar City was scarcely a “city”. It was a small center serving a large farming area.
The superintendent, principal and teacher of both high school and elementary met me at the depot explaining that he hadn’t up until then found a place for me to stay. Then he told me I could stay with his family until he could locate something. In small communities, houses to rent are scarce and his home small and I could see that I would be crowding them badly. There was no place to put my trunk which I left at the depot and I had to make do with a small suitcase. Every 0day we went room hunting after school without success.
He explained that two teachers the year before had earned quite a bad reputation morally and people were reluctant to open their home again. While questioning my family background he found that my grandfather on my father’s side was President John Taylor and asked why I hadn’t mentioned that before. I said that I wasn’t in the habit of boasting about my ancestors, but he only said, “This information will help you find a place to live.”
So within a day or two he found a lovely family who were willing to rent me a room and board for my first teaching year. There brick home was a mile out of town. It was nice and almost new, with central heat which was rarely out in the country.
The Cluffs were a humble, hard working family, who had before this home, lived in a log house which Sister Cluff described as being so cold in the winter that the quilts on the beds would freeze to the wall in the sub zero temperatures. With tears in her eyes, she would describe their hardships and her appreciation for their present modern home. Never have I seen such hard work and such long hours doing it by a family.
In the summer days that far north breakfast was over before daylight so the hired help and the Cluffs could utilize every moment while they could see.
Usually the menu consisted of meat, potatoes, eggs, milk and bottled fruit. Practically everything we ate was produced on the farm. Sister Cluff packed my lunch in a basket which included many of the things we had for breakfast, which I often shared with the custodian of the school before the pot-bellied stove which heated my room.
As was required by my contract, I was expected to help with the town’s dramatics. When the time drew near for the performance of the play, the leading lady asked to borrow my coat, my green knife pleated dress, with the jeweled belt which was sleeveless but had a high neck, and one other dress. To attend and direct the performance, I had to borrow a warm coat as winter had set in.
Now I can laugh at what happened, but at the time it didn’t seem funny to me. Being busy rushing around before the play I hadn’t noticed the leading lady particularly, had helped her with the makeup and she hadn’t finished dressing. When the curtain went up, there was my beautiful dress with sleeves sewn in. The mother was the Relief Society president and wouldn’t allow her daughter to appear in a sleeveless gown. Well, the year rolled on and several things happed different from what I was accustomed.
Julia Taylor, about 1923
One of the courses I was asked to teach was Personal Hygiene. I went by the book and told the girls that they should bathe every day. It wasn’t long before I had a delegation of indignant mothers claiming it was impossible.
Years later in Escalante, Utah, I went through the agonies of trying to bathe five children and myself with no hot water except that which was dipped from the ditch and heated in the small reservoir of the stove and in a wash boiler on the top of it. In those days the weekly bath was standard, except or the baby, because I had hired a girl, I manage a few extra ones, but it would never be an all day affair.
Dances were held every Saturday night above the bank and the assembly room of the school. I couldn’t help wondering how one could get a date for one of them. Then one day the only returned missionary in town asked me why I never came to the dances. I said, “Nobody ever has asked me.” “Oh,” he said, “Everyone old or young goes, then the boys take the girls home.” So I started attending the Saturday night dances. They were fun. Parents and children sat around the edges and watched the young and not so young exhibiting their skills, keeping track of who were dancing with whom.
The post office clerk kept track of my mail and informed me if I didn’t get a letter from home or from Joe. The whole town knew that he wrote me almost daily.
Once in a while I dated the returned missionary and his mother, who was my M.I.A. teacher, gave a whole lesson on the unfairness of the city girls leading the country boys on with no intention of marriage.
During the winter I helped with the staging of a light opera, prepared by the high school music teacher. He was a fine musician and it turn out to be fairly successful.
Not far from Sugar City in the town of Ashton, the famous dog sled races were held every year, so Miss Waterman the home economics teacher and I decided to take the train up to see them. They were really exciting and neither of us had ever seen anything like them before. The only difficulty we had was food poisoning from something we ate, prepared by the Ladies Aid for the visitors. We thought it might have been the creamed chicken. Anyway we were two very sick teachers all night and the next day.
Never having been away from the family for so long, I became really homesick and when the school year was ended, I was only too happy to leave for home, hopefully having some development from my varied experiences which were too many to relate each one.
Mother said I really looked as if I had been raised in the country when I got off the train in Salt Lake. Nowadays with television and easy transportation city and county people all look alike.
During the summer, I became more and more upset about my mix-up with Joe and Lester. The more time went on the more certain I was as to my feelings for Joe. I had really made a mess of trying to please everyone and pleasing no one. Being desperate, I made an appointment to see Patriarch Hyrum G. Smith to ask for counsel. It was presumptuous for me to do this I knew. When he asked me what my problem was and I told him, he seemed relieved as he had probably thought I was in some sort of moral difficulty to make such an appointment. I unloaded my worries. He asked me my age and where the young man I was in love with was. When I said he was on a mission, he smiled and said that at twenty-four he couldn’t see why I shouldn’t please myself as to whom I married, especially when my friend was on a mission.
A great load was lifted from my heart, stopped seeing Lester whom I really liked and admired, and started preparing for getting married.
In the fall of 1924, I had a chance to teach English in the L.D.S. High School and taught there for the two years before we were married. Teaching there was completely different from teaching in Sugar City and much more difficult. Classes were large and being young some of the boys in my classes asked me for dates and others were problems in different other ways making discipline difficult.
Faculty Picture of Julia Taylor while teaching at L.D.S. High School
In Idaho, high school attendance was not mandatory so problem students were easily eliminated, while at the L.D.S. it was impossible, practically, to expel anyone and the students knew it. However things worked out and I enjoyed the students and my work very much.
Faculty Advisor: Julia Taylor
Since Joe was expected home in August of 1925, I was really getting excited about seeing him again. He wrote that he would be home and such a time and I wrote I would be at the depot to meet him. Mother said, “Julia, now don’t rush up, let his mother greet him first.” I dutifully held back and waited as the train pulled in. His mother was standing near the front of the train when it stopped. He got off the last car and spotted me first.
Grandma Neville (Milfordetta Shipp Neville) always thought that all that was arranged before he left.
Uncle John Whitaker had invited our family to go up on the Weber to his summer home and we invited Joe to come along since we needed to get reacquainted.
Soon it was time for school to start again and I had signed my contract for the year. Joes was necessarily looking for work and was gladly welcomed back to his job as a mine surveyor and draftsman at the Tintic mine in Eureka, Utah. He came to Salt Lake when he could.
Before school started, we had a date to go out to Salt Air. Mother suggested it would be nice if I prepared a lunch and saved Joe the expense of buying dinner out there. She told me to go down and buy whatever I wanted. Fried chicken sounded good so I brought home a nice fryer and other goodies. Waiting for mother to do the frying, I found out that she thought it was high time for me to learn to do it myself. Needless to say it took me quite a long time and Joe waited more or less patiently while I struggled with the lunch. Finally I was through and away we went having a marvelous time and enjoying the lunch.
One other long remembered date was when we went to the Sky Room at the Hotel Utah to dance and have dinner. It was very romantic and we really knew we were in love. How he ever afforded these extravagances I’ll never know, probably going without in Eureka.
All during this time, I was working on preparing a trousseau. What was included in on in 1925 and 1926 was somewhat different from that in 1977 and 1978; table linens, bedding, of course, but embroidered guest towels by the dozen in one today would not. However I also embroidered some lovely luncheon and table cloths and purchased some elegant clothes. Those clothes were worn and made over many times later.
The clothes were in the fashion of the roaring twenties, short skirts, rouged knees, frizzed hair and terrible Charleston dancing.
Christmas Eve at our house was really a busy, rushing whirlwind. It was our custom to trim a tree, finish dressing the dolls, or last minute sewing, cleaning the house while Father went down to the Z.C.M.I. evening sale to pick up some last minute bargains. This particular Christmas I was especially busy helping.
Joe came over to see me and I was really neglecting him. Becoming restless because it was getting late and he didn’t want to miss the last street car, he finally came over and took my hand and pulled me out on the front porch, as it as the only “not busy” place, he told me he loved me and place a beautiful diamond ring on my finger. How thrilled I was and how sorry I felt that I hadn’t given him more attention. After he left, I rushed into the house to show my family my ring. Actually I couldn’t imagine how they could take the news so calmly.
Julia Taylor Neville’s Wedding Announcement in the Newspaper
Miss Julia Taylor, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Ezra O. Taylor and Joseph W. Neville will be married Friday morning in the Salt Lake Temple. A wedding breakfast will follow the ceremony at the home of the bride’s parents, 424 A. Street, for members of the immediate families. Following a short wedding trip the couple will make their home in Eureka.
Julia Taylor Neville’s Wedding Announcement in the Newspaper
Deseret News
Weddings
Miss Julia Taylor, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Ezra O. Taylor and Joseph William Neville Junior, were married Friday morning in the Salt Lake Temple. President Heber J. Grant performed the ceremony which was followed by a wedding breakfast at the home of the bride, 434 A. Street. The rooms were decorated in pink and lavender. Roses and larkspur centered the breakfast table.
The bride wore a powder blue Canton-crepe gown and a corsage of orchids and lilies of the valley.
After a short wedding trip Mr. and Mrs. Neville will make their home in Eureka.
Newspaper Announcement about Events in honor of Julia Taylor’s Upcoming Wedding
Miss Julia Taylor, a bride of mid-June was the guest of honor at a luncheon given on Wednesday by Miss Edna Michelson at her home, 1070 Ninth East Street. The guests were seated at one long table decorated in rises and white. A basket of American Beauty roses formed a centerpiece for the table which held rose candles in crystal candlesticks. Corsage bouquets of roses were favors. Cover laid for Miss Taylors, Mrs. E. O. Taylor, Miss Mary Taylor, Miss Gay Taylor, Miss Lucille Schettler, Miss Dolly Blades, Miss Dorothy Snow, Miss Lois Farrell, Mrs. E. Claron Jorgenson, Miss Mary Jensen, Mrs. Lester Hewlett, Miss Grace Wood and Mrs. S.M. Michelson.
Miss Mary Taylor and Miss Gay Taylor, sister of the bride, entertained at a Kensington Tuesday afternoon at their home, 424 A. Street in honor of the bride, and Mrs. L. Hickey of Astoria, Ore., who is visiting in the city. The rooms were decorated in roses. The hostesses were assisted by their mother, Mrs. E.O. Taylor. The guests of honor were cousins of the honored guests.
Miss Dorothy Blade will entertain Tuesday evening at her home on Seventh Avenue in honor of Miss Taylor. Wednesday afternoon Mrs. J. R. Petitt will entertain at her home on Dauglia Avenue in honor of the bride.
In honor of Miss Julia Taylor, whose marriage to Joseph W. Neville will take place Friday in the Salt Lake Temple, Miss Lois Farrell entertained at a dinner party Tuesday evening at her home in the Hillcrest apartments. The guests numbered eight.
Miss Lucille Schettler entertained on Wednesday evening at her home on Fourth Street, for Miss Julia Taylor, a bride of June. Large bowls of roses were attractively arranged throughout the rooms. Miss Schettler as assisted in entertaining by her mother Mrs. C.D. Schettler. Games were enjoyed during the evening. There were fourteen guests present.
Letter to Ezra O. and Ida Taylor from Heber J. Grant about Julia Taylor’s Wedding
Dr. and Mrs. Ezra O. Taylor 424 A. Street Salt Lake City
Dear Brother and Sister Taylor:
It was a source of sincere regret to me that I was unable to fulfill my promise to perform the marriage ceremony uniting your daughter Julia to Brother Joseph W. Neville Jr.
I am handing you herewith some books to present to Brother and Sister Neville with the love and best wishes and sincere congratulations of Sinter Grant and myself.
Ever praying for their welfare, and hoping that peace, prosperity and happiness may attend them throughout the entire journey of life and that there may be an eternity of joy in store for them in the life to come, I am, Sincerely your friend and brother
Heber J. Grant
Ours was a June wedding. I chose not to have a reception as my parents couldn’t really afford the elaborate one which I thought would be necessary. Nevertheless Mother, Mary and others prepared a large and beautiful wedding breakfast.
Julia Taylor Neville’s Wedding Bouquet
Julia Taylor Neville’s Wedding Garter
Nothing would do but engraved wedding announcements. Father generously agreed to have them made. The date was set for Friday June 11, 1926. Friends and relatives entertained for me with lunches and various parties which I really appreciated. Joe took off Thursday and Friday from work arriving the Wednesday evening. In order to be married in the Temple, we had to secure a civil marriage license, which we were able to do. Then Joe found out he had forgotten to bring the wedding band he purchased in Eureka, so we went down to a jeweler in Salt Lake, bought the one that I am wearing today, it was fairly wide so that for each anniversary Joe was planning to have a diamond set in it. But after one we found the engagement ring rubbed against it so that it fell out, so the plan was given up. Now after nearly fifty-two years, it is a slender band, polished and worn with having seen many, sad, wonderful years.
Julia Taylor Neville Orchid from Wedding Breakfast
Thursday evening we went to the Salt Lake Temple for me to receive my endowments. Throughout the session I was so excited that I couldn’t remember all that I heard and saw. Mother accused Joe of just looking at me and not paying proper attention to the beautiful proceedings.
Eventually we returned many times, each learning more about the holy ordinances performed in the Temple.
Salt Lake Temple
Mother sent Joe home straight from the Temple, telling him I needed to get a good night’s sleep before the wedding, but I really didn’t sleep too well. We had an appointment for ten a.m. Friday morning at the Temple. President Grant had planned to perform the ceremony as he was our neighbor, and in passing by his home with Joe I saw him sitting on his front porch and spoke to him saying, “President Grant, will you please marry me on the eleventh of June?” I bashfully asked. He answered, “Dear Julia, I would love to but the law won’t really allow me to.” He laughed and then said, “I will be happy to perform the ceremony.” Much to my disappointing, he was unable to do so, but sent a letter of apology to my parents and for me about eight or nine autographed favorite books as a gift. Since Mother was a Temple worker, she gathered together the clothing I would need.
Place card for Ezra Oakley Taylor for Julia Taylor Neville’s Wedding
When I was getting ready, she discovered that somehow she had forgotten to include the apron. Fortunately Aunt Mary Smith was there and she went to her locker and brought me the one she wore when she was married to President Joseph F. Smith, for me to wear. George F. Richards, the president of the temple and an apostle performed the marriage.
From the Temple we went home to the wedding breakfast and then left for our honeymoon. How we got down to the Bamberger depot I can’t remember, but yes, the commuter electric Bamberger was our coach which carried us to Provo where we stayed at the Roberts Hotel the best in town.
Bamberger Railroad
Hotel Roberts,Provo, Utah
Before retiring we prayed earnestly that the children of our marriage would be “choice spirits of the House of Israel.” Looking back there weren’t many times Joe didn’t pray for our posterity to be choice branch of the House of Israel. To ask for such a thing was putting a great responsibility on our shoulders. Truly we have been blessed with just such wonderful children and grandchildren.
Wanting to have everything just as nice as possible for me, Joe had hired a lady to clean the house, make the bed, have a bouquet of roses on the table and guard the house until we arrived to prevent any prank playing by his friends in Eureka.
The authorized stage was our next coach and Saturday morning we arrived at our future home. All his plans worked out beautifully, be we went out later to buy some necessary supplies and food to set up housekeeping, his “friends” came in, took the bed apart and rearranged the furniture.
No great upheaval, but we did lie awake looking out the window just in case they would return.
As Joe was the Gospel Doctrine Class Teacher, we got up bright and early and went to Sunday school where in introduced me as Miss Taylor. From then on we entered the life of a married couple in a mining town, accepted by the ward and the social group of the mining office and some of the management personnel.
Eureka, Utah. 1925
Houses were difficult to come by in Eureka, and it appeared before we were married that we would have to live in a small apartment with no bathroom, but the landlady assured Joe that if his wife was a good clean girl she could come to her house once a week and take a bath.
But the last minute a house with a bathroom became available. This first home not only had a bathroom but also a kitchen with a coal range, a living room with a stove to heat it, but which was so ugly, I had it taken out and we replaced it with a rather small electric hearer, a bedroom, a glassed in front porch which could be used as a spare room for company, although, it was necessary to pass through it to get to the rest of the house.
After getting settled, I thought it would be nice to invite my mother and my older sister to come out for a visit. Joe, always trying to please, ordered some roses for the table and I made up the bed on the porch with my trousseau bedding. Just a short time before the arrival of the train, a fierce wind storm came up and filled the poorly built house with dust. The pattern of the bed spread was not even distinguishable; I could have wept, but instead shook everything out, swept out the house and had everything pretty well under control before they arrived.
Wanting to impress my mother, I had made a special trip to the butcher asking him for an extra good roast beef. As I took it out of the oven, it smelled too good I could hardly wait t serve it. Joe was to officiate at the carving, but alas it was tough, he could hardly cut it at all.
Mother was indignant and said I should take it back to the butcher and demand another. Not yet having acquired the necessary courage to insist as my rights as a housewife, Mother had to really prod me to return it to the butcher just at the busy time, Saturday night. Finally I wrapped up the still warm roast to the butcher. He couldn’t wait to give me another and get me out of the shop.
Life in the mining town began to be routine in a way. I got used to seeing the pretty prostitutes arrive by train on payday, the drunk that I felt sorry for when he was crying so hard in the alley at the side of the house, the parties given by the mining personnel at which we did not always feel too comfortable when the drinks were served, attending church meetings and seeing a new bishop who appeared to have no particular potential who grew to be an extra ordinarily effective bishop, going out into the hills with Joe while he did surveying and going up to Brighton with his boss and wife in their sporty car which always carried two spare tires to take care of at least expected flat tires.
Tintic Mine. Eureka, Utah
On the first trip home to see my family, I could hardly wait to announce my pregnancy. Mother “shushed” me for talking about such a delicate subject before my youngest sister Patricia, who was about eight years old at the time.
About then Joe was made Stake Clerk. His assignment required him to be away quite often in the evening at Tintic Stake covered quite a large area. I became somewhat homesick for a while, but dear Mother came out to visit me which certainly helped out a great deal.
As Christmas approached, I felt I just had to go home for the holidays. When we left the weather was beautiful, and it never occurred to us to turn the water off, nor that the weather would turn extremely cold. On our return we were confronted with broken pipes, a broken toilet bowl, and a broken water jacket in the stove, which was our sole source of heat, except the small electric heater which made no dent in the cold temperature of the house. It was New Year’s Day and everything was closed. I thought we should surely freeze to death before we could get the power company to thaw out the pipes and a plumber to take care of the rest.
At twenty-six it is hard to believe how stupid we were. The baby was to be born in April so Mother insisted that I come home several weeks early so I could be near the doctor and the hospital. How we hated to be separated, Joe would call often, and the baby was in no hurry to be born early. Due date arrived; Joe called and nothing to report, and after a final call a few days later, I started in labor just after he hung up.
We had a little difficulty in getting hold of him as we had not telephone in Eureka. Finally he received the message and had his friend drive him to Salt Lake. It was a long and difficult delivery, the baby after long hours of labor it had to be delivered by forceps, on April 12, 1927. I hemorrhaged and nearly lost my life, having to have a special nurse for a week with not visitors allowed.
Julia Taylor Neville holding her first baby, Joseph Taylor Neville. About 1927
My recovery was slow and Mother took wonderful care of me, as she always did as long as she was able. They baby weighed nine pounds and to me beautiful. His name was to be Joseph after his father who re resembled a great deal at birth. However, he was extremely cross even though I nursed him, vomiting his food and having cramping pains day and night.
Eventually, we took him to a baby specialist who saw that he looked all right and thought I was just a nervous new mother. Later, it was discovered that he was allergic to milk. He was weaned but would not take milk from a bottle. At last we got him straightened out and he became a busy happy child and we loved and enjoyed him very much.
From the second Christmas after we were married, I really never felt the pangs of homesickness at that time of year again. Home was where my husband and children were.
Young Joe was eight months old that second Christmas. Since trees were to be had a short distance out of town, we had the fun of going out, picking one to suit, cutting it down, setting it up and decorating it. Who enjoyed the three more his mother or the baby. He was so excited, trying to get a hold of the shining ornaments and anything else in his reach.
He had a three wheeled vehicle which he could maneuver so effectively that he could go fast lift up his legs and even coast. Naturally it was quite a challenge to keep him from pulling it down.
The following spring we bought our first car. Joe took me out west of town on the desert, taught me the first principles of driving, and then let me learn myself. In a comparatively short time, I decided to drive down Main Street and show off my skill. It is a narrow, curvy street and I was doing fine when all of the sudden the car stopped cold. No matter what I tried it just wouldn’t start. One of the men in the ward came along and offered to help. Eventually he found it was out of gas. What a deflating experience. However I recovered and was able to drive all around even to Salt Lake City.
In May I discovered that I was pregnant and should expect my second child the following February. All during these months I did have a Church calling. This was to teach the sisters in the Stake Relief Society lessons of family relations. I can’t remember the exact title of the course but to be instructing these experienced wives and mothers seemed to me an impossible assignment. At any rate I did a great deal of studying and praying and the Lord blessed me with understanding and comfort with my feelings of inadequacy.
As I became larger in my pregnancy, I found I had difficulty in being just fast enough to run after young Joe when he would somehow find a way out of the yard which had quite a good fence around it, but not good enough as his dog would seem to find a hole somewhere or other and away they would go.
One morning I looked out the door and there was Joe sitting on the tracks of the mine railway about half a block away. To my utter horror, I saw the hand car with several men on it coming down the hill. By some miracle, I was able, pregnant and all fairly fly and pluck the baby off the tracks just in time. Sitting on the ground, I cried and cried holding him in my arms, which so frightened him, that for a long time he never left my side.
Again when the next baby was about due, Joe took me into Salt Lake to be with Mother for the birth of our second child. The predicated day arrived, Joe drove in determined for the baby to be born on time. Having heard that riding in a car sometimes brought on labor, he put me in the car and ride we did for miles, nothing happened. Finally Mother suggested a long walk might help, so, on a long walk we went. I got so tired that Joe had to practically carry me the last two blocks, after which I wearily climbed thankfully into bed. In the middle of the night I woke up with labor pains and away we went to the hospital. This time everything went well and in about eight hours I gave birth to a beautiful dark haired baby girl. She was born on the 19th of February 1929. Her name was Julia Anne Neville. With two weeks in the hospital (average stay) and one week at Mothers, we headed home to Eureka. On the way home a sudden March blizzard overtook us, but we managed to get back safely.
Julia Anne Neville
Anne was a good baby, my milk agreed with her and a short period of thoroughly enjoying her blessed us. Then I contracted my arch enemy “flu” and lost my milk. Then the struggle of getting something to agree with her began, but with no success. One day Joe came home from work and announced that he had a very strong feeling to quit the mine immediately.
I asked if he if he weren’t getting along with Mr. Pitts, the chief engineer and he said that wasn’t the problem. Possible it was partly due to seeing two of his friends die with miner’s tuberculosis. At any rate, he resigned and we went to Salt Lake and found an apartment on H Street to live in. In spite of all the efforts of a baby specialist, Anne got worse and worse and the neighbors began coming over to see if she were still alive each morning.
After trying every known formula for feeding her, Dr. Blood heard about a new discovery that adding lactic acid, drop by drop to cow’s milk was bringing some success. This seemed to be the answer and saved her life. Joe and I took turns at night holding her hand through the bars of the crib as she seemed to get comfort and be able to get some sleep. It was such a blessing to have her improve, but she was quite a frail child for several years.
Soon after she began to improve, I became pregnant again. Around that time, the terrible depression of 1930 came upon us. Joe’s job with the gas company ended and we moved to stay with Mother. Father, to pool our resources with theirs and try make ends meet. Mary was recovering from a nervous breakdown, took over taking care of Anne, who needed attention and especially care to become stronger. How our children loved her, she was so patient, kind, musical and artistic. They loved to go on walks with her as she would spend time teaching them about the flowers, rocks, insects and nature in general.
Mary Taylor
Drawing pictures of them and the things they saw entertained them by the hours. They often embarrassed me by asking why I couldn’t draw like Aunt Mary. By the time Anne was sixteen months old the twins were born.
In the later part of my pregnancy I became very large and developed severe edema, looking as if I weighed 250 pounds, but knowing I had been very careful with my diet, that it wasn’t fat. Finally I was rushed to the hospital as I had developed uremic poisoning due to the pressure of the two babies. The doctor induced labor and I stated in convulsions.
Bruce and Robert (Bob) Neville
However, the babies were delivered safely and pronounced identical twins. They were born June 28, 1930. The water in my body was able to be eliminated and after some time, the young mother in the next bed saw me trying to make myself more presentable remarked, “You are not an old lady after all, are you?” I must have really looked a sight when they were born.
To get the babies out of the hospital, we had to cash in our last resource, a building and loan certificate. Here we were with four children, the oldest just three years old and without funds. Joe could get an occasional labor job, but that was all.
Bruce, Anne and Bob Neville
It was during this period we knew what humility means. We were so short of money that Joe couldn’t afford to buy work clothes, she he had to wear his suit pants on whatever work he could find.
I had to spend most of my time trying to nurse the babies, first one then the other but didn’t have enough milk to satisfy them. Supplementary feedings were necessary, but ordinary cow’s milk didn’t agree with them. Then the doctor put them on soft curd cow’s milk along with the lactic acid which has saved Anne’s life and they began to thrive.
We stayed with my parents and then for a while with Joe’s, the whole experience being difficult for everyone concerned and very humiliating to my husband. Neither of us were quite the same after those humbling experiences.
At last Joe acquired an engineering job with the National Parks Service in Cedar City, Utah. It was only a summer job but we were so thankful for it. To be in a home with our children without being a burden was a great relief to us, although we appreciated the wonderful help we had received.
We managed to save a few dollars through the summer, but the Depression deepened and the banks failed. This put us and our good friend, the Mace’s on Church Welfare. The Mace’s had owned a prosperous lumber yard but it went under with a large number of other businesses in town.
We were unable to pay our rent for a long time. I shall never forget our kind and noble landlord, a bachelor Scandinavian who never once asked us for our rent and even gave up some money at Christmas time for the children. We kept track of what we owed him, however and eventually paid him every bit of it back.
Our neighbors, the Thornleys had a cow and offered to give us half of the milk if Joe would milk it. Having never been close to a cow before, after many tries he was able to do the job, we surely appreciated the milk and Joe tired door to door selling which was not very helpful as people didn’t have money to buy his wares which were really good quality. I even now use one of the items all the tame after this many years.
The W.P.A. was initiated and he was employed doing city improvement work. The children thought their father was great as he helped make some of the sidewalks in town.
Julia Taylor Neville and children
These experiences taught us many valuable hard to learn lessons. We had thought we were independent. I was trained to teach school and had three years teaching high school. Joe was considered to be an excellent draftsman and mining surveyor and engineer assistant, but these things didn’t help at this time-the mine closed, teaching positions were for men only who had families.
We even heard a sermon preached by a Stake President that a person who had kept the commandments, paid his tithing and been active in the Church would not be found in need. I am so grateful we didn’t let our faith be destroyed. Sometimes it was hard to understand some of these things.
Since then I have had so much more compassion and understanding for those who for no fault of their own are unemployed or in distress. I also learned to be able to receive help more gracefully, that the world could not go on without receivers as well as givers of gifts. I can’t pretend that at times it has not been hard to be on the receiving end. Even now since I have been having surgery on my eyes, I am dependent on other to help me out.
But I am so grateful for my wonderful family, friends, and neighbors who have been so kind to me. During this trying time in Cedar City, I had the privilege of teaching Primary. When the twins and Anne were too small to take with me, I managed to get together twenty-five cents to pay for a baby sitter, before the part time job had ended.
I was known as the lady with a lot of babies. They were so cute that everyone admired them as I took them shopping with me once in a while. I was really proud of them. It was a real treat to get out and work with the children in Primary.
One lovely thing we put on for Christmas time was a pageant portraying the coming of the Savior to America after his resurrection. We made a gauze curtain for the stage to hang in front of the players which gave an ethereal effect to the viewers. The talent and efforts of the members of the Church everywhere never ceases to amaze me.
Having worked in many areas in Utah, New Zealand, and Australia, no matter how large or small the groups, the Spirit can be counted on to inspire humble and sincere workers.
Joe was the first of our unemployed friends to receive a regular job. It was down in Zion National Park as an engineer working on reinforcing the tunnel through the mountain to the plateau above the park and surveying trails and recreation areas and water systems for the park. What he received for his work, I can’t remember, but it couldn’t have been much. However from it we were able to get out of debt, save a little and loan a little to our friends, the Mace’s.
Bob, Bruce, Julia and Joe Neville
The Depression was broken!
When young Joe turned eight years old, it was time for his baptism. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go with him as I had the “flu” again, but Joe thought he should be baptized at the proper time and I agreed reluctantly.
Things were looking up for us. I enjoyed going down to Zion’s to pick Joe up for the weekends and we were able to have a pleasant social life and visiting the nation’s parks, including the Grand Canyon. We fell in love with the beautiful colorful country.
By the time the twins were a little over four years old, I became pregnant again. Joe was still working for the Forest Service working around Bryce National Park and beyond, which kept him away from home a great deal.
As my time began to near for delivery, he had made arrangements to take his vacation to be able to be with and help take care of me. At the last minute he heard a rumor that there was a forest fire in progress. Knowing every many would be called to fight the fire and also that if her were notified that no telling when he would be able to get to me, he left immediately traveling along the out of the way road which he knew well, managing to get home before the doctor would leave his office perhaps for the weekend.
Joe, Nancy and Anne
He helped to get ready for my last examination before the baby was supposed to be born.
Through the tests and examination the doctor discovered I again had uremic poisoning. He told me not to go home first, but to go to the hospital immediately.
Orange juice and castor oil (the method then used) were given me to induce labor and before many hours, I delivered another beautiful dark haired baby girl, Nancy Jane born June 23, 1935, just before the twins turned five. Mother wasn’t able to come this time, but Gay came instead, I had previously arranged to have a junior college girl to tend the children and keep house.
Being kept in the hospital the normal two weeks, the new mothers were always weak from bed rest and were carefully taken from the hospital to the car in a wheelchair.
Nancy Jane Neville
Nancy was colicky, but not anything like the others and we could enjoy her as an infant morwI
Nancy Jane Neville
Before Gay went home, I drove her and the children up to Bryce canyon to pick up Joe. It was the first time I had seen it and was taken to a look-out with not protecting guard fence and was overwhelmed with the sudden drop off high above beautiful colored spires and figures that extended in two directions for miles.
However, it has always been a favorite for me, although I have been thrilled with Zion, Grand Canyon, both north and south sides and Cedar Breaks.
When Nancy was about three months old, Joe was assigned to go to Escalante, Utah, to build a winter road over to Boulder, Utah. To be separated from each other from such a distance for so long was not for us. The only road over there then took us over a 9,000 foot mountain and if we didn’t get over before the snow fell, the road could be impassable. So we had to hurry up and get ready to move. By then we had accumulated a house full of furniture and belongings se we hired a truck to haul it over. Joe had found a house owned by the Davis’s who said we could use part of it.
I was warned that we were going to a town with few conveniences and only part time electricity. But in no way was I prepared for the conditions I found.
Escalante, 1930’s
Just a short time before we were to leave, the children came down with whooping cough, except the baby. To protect her, we hung a sheet between the front and back seats. It was quite a distance and with sick children and a crying baby we finally drove into Escalante.
Escalante, 1930’s
Sister Davis greeted us warmly and with an oil lamp showed us our quarters. It was a very large house, which in its prime had housed the general authorities when they came over to visit and other dignitaries who ever found their way to this isolated town.
We were to have the parlor, the walls painted sky blue with pale and not so pale pink roses scattered here and there. All the floors were smooth wide wooden boards, the kitchen had actually been a bedroom, had that the wide board floors which we discovered later, was covered with the old fashioned rag carpet similar to the one in my Grandmother Whipple’s living room, had one piece of furniture. This was an ancient, wood burning range with a reservoir on the side and a warming oven over the top. It would probably bring a good price in the antique shops of today. It must have been hauled over the mountain years ago.
We had three bedrooms upstairs, one for us and two for the children. The Davis’s occupied the rest of the house. Since the furniture hadn’t been unloaded we were directed to the only hotel to bed down our tired, sick children and ourselves. After tending to the coughing, vomiting children almost all night, we got up, fed them and drove over to our new home.
Joe had to go out of town for his work, so he unloaded the furniture and looked up a former missionary companion by the name of Andy Spencer who helped us find a girl, one of his relatives, who would help with the children and the house work. She was a large, willing, cheerful person who knew everyone in town. She was wonderful and I don’t know what I would have done without her. She knew the “ropes” of living very much the same way as my pioneer grandmother.
Getting acquainted with the new environment was an adventure for the children. No indoor plumbing, not even water was in the house. In the back yard was a pump attached to a cistern, which held the drinking and cooking water for the year. This was filled form the ditches after they were frozen over and had so called clean water. It must have been fairly clean as we were able to drink it without becoming sick. In some parts of town we would see a horse hauling a water barrel set on wooden runners carrying it to homes not near the ditches.
Water barrel being hauled in Escalante, Utah.
Laundry, bath and cleaning water was hand dipped from these ditches and carried inside. Sister Davis cautioned me to be careful and not use too much from the cistern as it was still September and it would be a long time before the snow and the freezing weather would co me.
My electric stove took its place grandly in the kitchen and was used as a cupboard, as what little electricity we had was spasmodic and was used for lighting and washing, but quite often went off just in the middle of wash day when everything was wet but not washed.
The toilet was outside and Vio told me once of the first things I would need to buy were some potties to use at night. Other necessities were a wash basin and bucket, a tin tub to bathe and wash in and a copper boiler to heat additional water for bathing and wash day. Already there had been a load of wood delivered to the lot to be used in the range and heatrola. But logs who was to say and cut them? Vio’s uncle, that’s who. Since Joe was building a Forest Service road he was using a great deal of dynamite which was packed in wooden boxes.
Anne, Bob, Bruce, Joe and Nancy Neville
These were a life saver for us as the provided our kitchen cabinets, with colorful cloth curtains hanging before them to keep out the dust. Was I thrilled with all this? To my credit what tears I shed were into my pillow and never around my husband but they were shed even if it was a good experience for me.
When winter came, the house was cold, especially the floors. There was a space of about two inches from the bottom of the doors to the floors. Even when I put blankets or rugs against the doors the house was drafty and the children caught colds. As the people seemed very unfriendly, I became very lonely.
It was announced in Sunday school that the ward was desperately in need of teachers and Joe got up and offered our services, but nothing came of it. Later, we found out why. There was a C.C.C. camp in the area; in fact Joe was the civil engineer of the camp for the Forest Service. It was instituted by the government following the Depression to train jobless boys and young men in fields such as surveying, road building, drafting, auto mechanics, etc… The superintendent was a hard drinker and accused of moral problems and townspeople had no use for him. It got to the point that he had to be dismissed and Joe was appointed to take his place. After that the camp officials were not trusted in general.
Gradually we became acquainted with a few of the people, but never invited to their homes. We were given some Church assignments, working in the Stake M.I.A. programs and doing some teaching.
That lonely first winter was finally now bearable when I got desperate and decided to have a luncheon and invite some of the ladies I had like and even the captain’s wife (protocol didn’t allow the military to socialize with the civilians) and the foreman’s young wife and the doctor’s wife. It was strictly non Emily Post, but I didn’t care. At the last minute the children came down with strep throat. I got some help and had the party anyway. Everyone invited came. It was a huge success. From then on we were accepted in the community.
One experience I had before the party showed how children can be influenced by the attitudes of their parents. Young Joe was asked to bring some cookies to school for some function. When he returned home that day he took them, I asked him if the children liked the cookies. “Oh, fine” he said, “they told me they were sure good, even if my mother did think she is so smart.”
After the party several ladies who attended started to have evening parties including husbands, even including the captain and his wife.
Each spring we moved up to Posey Lake for the summer, a beautiful spot near the mountain CCC Camp. The lake pines, quaking aspens and craggy mountains proved a haven to me after the isolated little town.
We lived in a little cabin which included a kitchen with a small stove and sink with cold spring water piped in and one bedroom and a shower, yes a shower. It was an ingenious affair; the water near the spring was run into a huge oil drum under which a fire could be lighted and presto, hot water.
Hell’s Backbone
By putting up a large tent on a wooden platform, we had two bedrooms for the children-a canvas curtain as a divider. Once a week we went down to Escalante for Church and to buy groceries. For five dollars we filled the car trunk with food.
During the winter of 1937, Anne turned eight years old. Although we would have had her baptized at the proper time, we couldn’t as there was no baptismal font in town. There was nothing to do about it but to wait until summer and have it done in the canal.
On one of the Sundays in August we made our weekly trip to town for Sacrament meeting. While I as in an MIA meeting, Joe mentioned to the bishop that Anne had not been baptized, they decided that it would be a good time to have it done. They borrowed a bathing suit (yellow) for her and before I got out of the meeting it was all over. To me it was quite upsetting, for I have always thought the Church ordinances for our children should be prepared for and attended by the parents.
Since Joe was baptized without my being able to attend and to have Anne had her baptism without her mother was a great disappointment. Anne has always said she never really felt baptize wearing an old bathing suit in a dirty canal.
During my lifetime I have seen wonderful baptisms held in river, the ocean, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, in various fonts in the U.S., New Zealand, and Australia, and in the Salt Lake and New Zealand Temples. Not the place but the Spirit is the important thing for those who participated.
It was so lovely up at Posey Lake that we postponed until late fall before returning to town. Nancy was young enough that I couldn’t go hiking with her in the forests, but the other children were free to roam and often I feared they might get lost or hurt, or struck by lightning as storms gather so quickly in the mountains.
Pack Mules that brought the mail to Boulder from Escalante
Joe succeeded in making a lower road over to Boulder which many said couldn’t be done with the funds allocated by the Forest Service. Now there are several camp grounds in the area and an all season road leading into Escalante, skirting Bryce Canyon country and missing old Escalante Mountain.
Hell’s Back Bone
Back of the King’s house in Escalante was a meat shed, where we would hang a quarter of beef, some mutton and perhaps a part of a pork. Of course this was done in the cold part of winter, practically having a freezer of sorts.
During one winter Anne’s tonsils became so infected we had to take her to Richfield over the mountain in February. Coming home we were forced off the road by a truck into a snow drift. As I was beginning to panic as the road was not used much, another car came along and the driver helped bet the car back on the road.
Before the last Christmas holiday we had in Escalante, I had a fever and a sore throat, but insisted in hanging out my washing in the cold which was frozen before I could get it on the lines. Then we went to a Christmas party with some friends. By the time I got home, I was deathly sick, with the chills, fever and vomiting. Joe undressed me and put me to bed. It was weeks before I even knew the rest of the family had contacted the disease and that neighbors and friends had taken turn in sitting up with me. My ears became infected. When they finally broke, the fever left and I began to get well. It was a bitter lesson to have to learn that I should take care of my health as my patriarchal blessing stressed.
Anne, Bruce, Bob and Joe Neville
For vegetables and fruit we were dependent upon bottled or canned goods. Perhaps once during the winter a truck loaded with oranges would find its way over the mountain and the whole town would be out to get the treat of having some fresh fruit to eat.
The next summer Joe received word that he was being transferred to the Forestry headquarters in Ogden. When we left the people of the town had a large party in the Church for us, a fry cry from the cold reception we received almost four years before. We really hated to leave our fine friends in Escalante. Besides Southern Utah with its beautiful and colorful scenery has always since our stay down there has been a favorite sport for us. However, I was glad to get closer to our families and schools and culture of Northern Utah.
Expecting to find a place to rent with five energetic children was merely a dream. We lived in a motel for ten days. By then we were desperate. Ager all we weren’t rolling in money.
Joe had a promotion now earning $200 a month which seemed like a fortune after the Depression. Someone suggested that the bank might have something to offer, we inquired at the First Security Bank. Yes, they knew of a large duplex on Madison Avenue one side of which was unoccupied whose owner was interested in buying. With thankful hearts we went to see it. Being next to a school, it had been hard to rent. We couldn’t see all the details, but it was a well built brick building having two stories. Downstairs there was a hall, living room, dining room, kitchen, and what was called a half-bath, a wash basin and toilet. From the front hall was a good looking stairway leading to another quite large hall, three bedrooms and a large screened sleeping porch.
Bruce, Joe and Bob Neville
Having been unoccupied for some time, the power was off, but we were told we could stay there for the night as we had brought our sleeping bags along and the electricity would be turned on in the morning. When morning came we didn’t know where to laugh or cry. Evidently the school used coal for its heating plant and the house was black with soot as well as the family and the sleeping bags.
Bruce, Bob, Anne and Joe Neville
Cleaning up the best we could, we called the moving van people, had our belonging brought up and pitched in cleaning up and polishing the house. Within a comparatively short time, we were settled, the children were in school and we were busy in the Ogden 5th Ward Church.
For the first Christmas we bought a piano and how thrilled the children were with it. Up until that time, we had been moving around so much our family had been musically deprived and we arrange for them to take music lessons. However, Nancy and Anne learned to play fairly well, but musical talent was not predominate in the family, but we all were appreciative of good music.
While on Madison Avenue, Joe was made a high councilor, I worked in MIA and Primary and enjoyed the friends that we made there very much. Joe was out of town a great deal with his work and as I was president of the YWMIA in the ward, it was necessary for me to leave the children in the evening once in a while.
Our duplex had a stoker furnace which burned fine coal at a high temperature. One night I returned from MIA to find all my children and part of the neighbors melting lead to put in some toy soldier molds. Needless to say I was terrified at the thoughts of how they could have burned themselves and set the house on fire.
Hats were commonly worn by ladies then, so I took the children upstairs, sent their friends home, put my hat back on, marched down to the Church and resigned on the spot. The bishop seemed to understand, released me the following Sunday and gave me a position in the Primary telling me I could take my children with me then.
Not long after that Joe was sent to Tacoma, Washington for six months, on a training assignments. This was a period which was hard on him, the children and me as we all needed each other and I especially missed him. The only Christmas we were ever separated was then. He had the car. The children walked downtown, bought a large Christmas three and lugged it up the hill, back home. We went through the motions, but it wasn’t the same.
To top it off Nancy’s tonsils became badly infected and the doctor feared rheumatic fever and I had to take the responsibility of taking her to the hospital to have them out. I was really frightened. Fortunately everything turned out all right making all five of the children having had an operation; Joe in Cedar City, Anne in Richfield, the twins in Escalante and Nancy in Ogden.
After Joe came back from Tacoma, he was transferred to Logan to teach drafting at the Agricultural College for awhile. However we did not move up there but it did take him away from us during the week. During the summer months he engineered the building of campgrounds and their water systems in the different forests in the area.
During our stay in Ogden Robert and Bruce turned eight in June 1938 and we saw to it that they would be baptized in a proper font. So we made arrangements for the baptisms, July 2, in the Salt Lake Tabernacle.
Then came the World War II period-On December 7, 1941 we were attending Stake Conference when Pearl Harbor was bombed. It was announced to the audience. Also on that date Joe was make a High Priest and also a High Councilman in the Mt. Ogden Stake.
Ration Stamps from WWII
Our landlord was eager to sell the duplex and offered it to us for an unbelievably low price, and allowing our rent as a down payment. Although this was a great opportunity for us, yet to think of this building being my dream house was far from a happy thought. But it turned out that it would be the means for us getting our lovely home in Kaysville after several more years of waiting.
Suddenly the government was being pressured to provide more housing. Washington Terrace was being built in South Ogden and furnished adequate housing for hundreds of families.
Eventually we were contacted by an agency and asked if we would allow them to convert the duplex to a four-plex. They would remodel the whole place for us without cost and we would be able to collect the rents.
In the meantime Joe obtained a position at Hill Air Force Base and were told we could have one of the Terrace Homes to move into so that the remodeling could take place. The contract was signed and away we went to live in a three bedroom unit.
It looked fairly large, but we had no storage room, only a crawl-in under the house where we pushed in numerous boxes which were not accessible.
Nancy and Anne shared the smallest bedroom, having to sleep in bunk beds in order to move around. Bruce, Robert and Joe shared the larger bedrooms. Also having bunk beds and being able to hear plainly through the wall the conversations and activities of our neighbors on the other end in their one bedroom unit. The bathroom had a unique bathtub made of gray concrete (remember there was a scarcity of building and housing supplies).
Joe, Anne, Bruce, Bob and Nancy Neville
All of the houses were standing in sand, sand, sand, as our floors were cover with the same gritty substance. Absolutely no landscaping was in evidence. In desperation, we decided to plant some grass seeds and we were ridiculed as we watered our yard. Miracle of miracles we soon had a faint showing of green and before long actually green grass. Of course the rest of the people followed-trees were planted and Washington Terrace became a little more bearable.
Actually we had many new and valuable experiences there associating with hundreds of fine L.D.S. families. Again we found the Church is the same any place in the world with the blessings being poured out on all the faithful. In later experiences in our missionary work in far off places we found the same sweet spirit present in our gatherings. There were many “firsts” in our stay in the area.
Joe had a chance to acquire four acres of land south of the Terrace in lieu of payment for some surveying he did for Joseph Wright. Never doing things on a small scale Joe decided that we would plant the entire tract in a vegetable garden. He had heard of the new sprinkling system of irrigation so he purchased aluminum piles and sprinklers to go with them to irrigate the sandy soil. Proper fertilizer was bought and the garden grew and grew. By harvest time we had so many potatoes we didn’t know what to do with them the next year. We had strawberries along with the abundant vegetables.
Bruce, Joe T., Joe W. and Bob Neville
The children weren’t too fond of the garden, but we learned a lot, even taking the pipes and fittings to Kaysville where we moved and the pipes are still being used for sprinkling.
It wasn’t long before we had a branch of the of the Church established. Since we were in the Weber Stake, arrangements were made to share one of the Chapels there. Although we were accepted, somehow we felt a little like step-children. I was asked to be president of the Primary. Since gas was rationed, the Branch President let me have some of his stamps to buy gas to transport our overflowing car loads of children down and back to the Terrace.
While we were sharing the chapel in the Weber Stake, Nancy turned eight so on the 30th of July 1943 she was baptized into the Church. With so many L.D.S. families living in the Terrace, something better had to be done, so land was purchased and using member labor for a great deal of the work, a nice chapel was constructed, which is still in use. I have a picture of 276 members in front of the chapel.
Again Joe was made Stake Clerk. Not long ago President Raymond Wright told me that when President Spencer W. Kimball visited the Weber Stake Conference, he told the Stake Presidency that Joe was the best Stake Clerk in the Church bar none and having recently read his biography Spencer W. Kimball which told of the emphasis he gave to proper record keeping, it was indeed a compliment to my dear husband.
When Joe was Stake Clerk the Stake President, his counselors and the clerk took turns in entertaining the visiting authority in their homes for dinner and it became our distinct privilege of having Spencer W. Kimball, then an apostle in our home to meet with our family. It made a great impression on us all and when we received a personal thank you letter from him even more so, later when Robert and Bruce went on their missions, President Kimball took them to dinner. He said he had always wanted twins in his family.
Around 1943 I was almost drafter to teach in the Terrace School as the war was still on and teachers very scarce. My neighbor, Mrs. Higginbottom was a fifth grade teacher and a very good one. She persuaded me to start in the fifth grade and said she would help me in visual aids and procedures. As I was trained to teach in high school, I really appreciated her efforts.
As Nancy wasn’t being too challenged, her fourth grade teacher talked me into having her skip a grade. Normally I might have refused, but many of her friends were in the next grade, besides, she seemed mature and since she was tall for her age we permitted her to make the change.
Joe and Anne Neville
From Primary President, I was asked to be M.I.A. President, as our children were all in the organization excepting Nancy at this time, I accepted. After being in this position for some time, I heard I was an autocrat. One reason for this was that we had a problem of boys coming out from Ogden to the Terrace M.I.A. and picking up the girls outside before we started, then the girls not getting home when they were supposed to. I felt we should notify the parents that if their girls came into the chapel we would be responsible for their staying but could not be responsible of the time they would get home.
What we did was probably illegal but as a M.I.A. Presidency we decided to lock the doors until the activities were over. After we started the program, our Ogden boy trouble disappeared.
Joe and Anne Neville
The family who lived facing us we became very friendly with, they were the Adams. Also as close friends were the Featherstones, Dean and Catherine and family. He was the accountant in the office; Catherine happened to be one of Gay’s high school and Ensign Ward friends. To this day they are very special to me.
During the scarcity period where food stamps were necessary to purchase sugar, chocolate, shortening and other items, I had the habit of buying most of our considerable groceries from Safeway. Because of this, I became acquainted with the manager who was always eager to be helpful.
Weber Stake and I think some other Ogden Stakes had a girl’s camp up above Ogden canyon and as an M.I.A. worker I was asked to chaperone and supervise the girls of the stake when our turn came along. As I was purchasing the necessary groceries for the stay, the manager noticed I was buying larger than usual quantities and mentioned something about it. I told him it was for the girl’s camp and he allowed me to buy extra sugar, which was a real treat and enabled us to make some cookies and even a batch of candy. This today doesn’t sound so unusual, but during the war it was just wonderful.
As for the activities of our five children from 1942 to 1950 when we moved to Kaysville, I think I will tell a few things about each one starting with Joe, our first born and always filled with faith and honesty. He was in Weber High School with the possibility of being drafted when he turned eighteen. A number of students were chose because of their academic standing to attend the University of Utah for special training, probably to prepare them for officer training. At any rate it didn’t amount too much so on July 1, 1945 he was sent to California for basic training and July 16, inducted into the Army.
Joseph Taylor Neville
As a mother to see her son go into the Service with a probability of being sent to Japan for combat in a war resulting in so many casualties was a traumatic experience. I held up until the train pulled out and then wept uncontrollably. As it turned out the bombing took place finishing the war and Joe was sent up to Alaska, arriving there on December 24, 1945 to wait out his months in the Army.
Joseph Taylor Neville
From his statement it was a boring time and he suffered from homesickness. Eventually he came back to us at the Terrace for which we were very grateful. Immediately he became active in the Branch with the considerable young people and I can remember their meeting often at our home.
After a comparatively short time he was interviewed for a mission. We knew it would be difficult for him to leave home again so soon, and so left it up to him to make the decision, trying not to say anything much about it. Not long ago we were talking about this and he said the reason he accepted was that he always believed the Church to be true and couldn’t say no. His call was to the Louisiana Texas Mission.
As a Sister Delma Ramage was also called on a mission, the farewell was held conjointly with her in June 1947. Again it was hard to see him go away so soon, but not an unhappy parting because of its purpose.
Two years passed and back he came from to the Terrace. How changed he was. In the first place he wasn’t feeling well and was jaundiced again as a result of the infectious hepatitis he had when he was a young child. After the extreme heat in the South, he was always feeling cold, and the temperature at the Terrace was far from cold.
When fall came, he registered for school at Weber College where all four of the older children were attending at the same time for a short period. It was a good experience for them to find out they were all on about the same level intellectually. From Weber College he went to the University of Utah, met his future wife at L.D.S. Institute and graduated in 1951.
Then comes Anne, who was always talented in writing and received excellent grades in her school work and one who has caused little friction in the family and quite a favorite.
Julia Anne Neville
Since we had four children in three years, it was always being understood that if they went to college and on missions, they would have to earn money or their chances would be slim for going.
Anne took this fact of life seriously. Consequently she was employed as a clerk in Woolworth’s (I am not certain of which store) her lady supervisor took a liking to her and arranged to have her promoted, not realizing she would be going back to school and attend Weber College.
When she found out about her plans, she became angry seeking for an excuse to dismiss her. The opportunity came when for some reason beyond Anne’s control she was late coming back from lunch. This was it and she was “fired”. When she came home and told us she was broken hearted believing this action would go against her record for ever and keep her from having a reference for employment. Both Dad and I were sorry for our conscientious daughter that we could have wept for her; in fact I did shed a few tears of sympathy.
She was graduated from Seminary and Weber High School in June 1948. In spite of her fear of employment, she secured a job after school helping her Uncle Walter, who taught at Weber, in his office with recording and some correcting of papers.
After two years at Weber College, she secured a job with the government at Hill Air Force Base or was it 2nd Street? I know part of it was at Hill Field, and worked a year before going down to B.Y.U. to finish her University Degree.
Anne loved to play chess and so did her father and he almost embarrassed his daughter at Hill Field by bragging about her ability to win games from almost anybody which was in the main true.
At B.Y.U. Anne stayed at the campus “dorm” in first year and had quite an experience when assigned to certain rooms of being rejected because of groups of friends having previously arranged to be together in the Dorm. It was nothing personal but rather disappointing. On the whole she seemed to enjoy her stay at the “Y” where she graduated with honors.
In April 1952 after we had moved to Kaysville she went on a mission. More details of this when I write of Kaysville Days.
Not because Bruce and Robert were not individuals, but these brief recordings from a Mother’s point of view would be practically identical except from their not identical personalities. Since giving birth to identical twins, I have compared notes with parents and also other identical twins and it seems there is a special closeness between them that only twins can understand.
When they were very young one of them remarked, Mama, Heavenly Father let us be born at the same time because we loved each other so much before we were born. So tat as it may, it has been a pleasure to have the privilege of raising twins as well as raising single children.
While at the Terrace they spent their Junior High, their Senior High and one quarter at Weber College before they were called on a mission to West Germany the spring before we moved to Kaysville. Both Bob and Bruce enjoyed participating in sports. However they grew rapidly and didn’t have the best coordination in the world. Their Junior High coach made the remark to their Father that it was almost a miracle if they could run the length of the basketball court without falling.
Ezra Taylor, Julia Neville, Mary Taylor, Anne Neville, Ida Taylor, Gay Taylor, Joe Neville, Bruce Neville and Bob Neville
In High School they played some football, but were generally on the second team. Since both of them look exactly alike and I did the normal thing for a mother of twins, dressed them alike, even their teachers gave up trying to tell one from the other. Modern psychology teaches to have them register in different classes, but all that wasn’t done in 1942-1950 partly because there were not that many different groups.
What dating they did I believe it was Bob who arranged for both and the girls didn’t seem to know the difference. All three boys shared one bedroom and all was not sweetness and light. By nature Joe was neater than Bob and Bruce who couldn’t care less if their things were strewn around-one problem, of course, was that we never had enough dressers and clothes closets for anyone to keep things put away.
Bruce Neville, Joseph Neville, Bob Neville, Ann Neville, Nancy Neville and Julia Taylor Neville
Anne and Nancy had the same problem.
The year they graduated from High School, Joe graduated as an absentee being in the Mission Field at the time. They both went to Weber College for two quarters before going on their missions to West Germany, their farewell being held Sunday April 23, 1950.
Requiring missionaries going to Germany so soon after the war to take a trunk each filled with all the clothing, bedding, towels, soap, vitamins, medicines etc… for thirty months presented quite a problem to outfit completely with two boys, but with the aid of the family, the twins and others, they were finally ready. Their girl friends packed elegant lunches to take on the train. Unfortunately the lunches were taken to the train and placed in their berths while they finished making their farewells and later we found that some other missionaries consumed them before they boarded.
Probably the boys will tell their posterity the many fascinating experiences they had in the mission field.
Bruce and Bob Neville Missionary Portrait
Anne, later in our Kaysville days also went on a mission with very unusual circumstances which she can relate to her posterity.
During the Terrace, Nancy had part of her growing development. One of her greatest problems was trying to keep up with the four block four-Joe, Anne, Bob and Bruce. All her jokes, riddles, and stories were “old stuff” to the block. In order to protect her from their teasing and its being awkward to try baby sitter, we would often take her with us and that was “spoiling her rotten.” She probably was a problem to them too.
Nancy Jane Neville
I can remember when I had a serious operation, she was the housekeeper, cook and part time gardener and though she tried hard she had her failures in cooking with the attendant criticism from the block who had jobs after school at times and couldn’t help. She was tall for her age and also became unchallenged in school. Her teacher has her skip a grade which helped.
Nancy Dean Featherstone was one of her best friends and since her mother wouldn’t allow her girls to try out recipes, the two of them had a great time learning to cook. When she finally grew up enough to compete with the block, she surely enjoyed life more.
During the week we would plan so that we had our cleaning, shopping and pressing done before Saturday so that all of us could do something special as picnicking, going on a short trip or to a movie. We didn’t have T.V. in those days. On the whole we had a congenial home life.
As for Family Home Evening, Dad would gather us around after Church with a bag of candy which we called bribes and for a long time the children thought the proper name for candy was bribes. We were all expected to listen to the sermons and then answer questions concerning them.
At first whoever answered first would get a piece of candy but that was hardly fair as the older ones would get more than their share, so it was decided that everyone would have a piece for each correct answer. Both easy and hard questions were asked.
While working at Hill Air Force Base, Dad became acquainted with Henry Scheuller who lived in Kaysville. One day he gave Dad two show tickets for the Kaysville Theater which he owned and managed. It was late summer and we got into town a little early and were walking around Main Street to pass the time.
Ever since we had moved to the Terrace, I was always looking for possibilities of finding a house so we could have a better environment and living quarters for our family. As we were walking along, we noticed a real estate office that was open and walked in never dreaming what would become of it. Of course the owner was pleased to see us and when we asked if he had any interesting houses for sale, he said he hone one that would be just right for us.
He drove us up to 95 South 6th East on the eastern edge of town at that time and the house looked to be just what we wanted. The owner, Mr. Wilford Keyes was in a position where he had to sell. It was his dream house. After discussing possibilities we arranged to trade our four-plex with some additional money for the lot next door and by October things were almost settled and on December 1st, 1950 we moved into our home over twenty-seven years ago. We brought the family down to Kaysville to visit the Ward-the twins were on their missions. I was working in the library at Hill Air Force Base when we moved.
Bruce, ?, Joseph William Neville, Bob, Anne, Nancy and Julia Taylor Neville
Julia Taylor Neville
KAYSVILLE DAYS
Moving Day I could write a book just dealing with moving as at December 1950 we had actually packed up and moved twenty-five times. These were actually packing up and unpacking all of our belongings which multiplied through the years.
After so many times doing things certain patterns emerge. As small children are usually upset with all the confusion and changing environments, we found that if their bed or cribs were put up, they were thrilled to be put into them, they actually symbolized home.
Then food of course, was necessary. No one in the throes of moving has time or can find utensils and proper food when in utter chaos. Whether rice pudding was the pinnacle of proper diet, it dad have milk, eggs, raisins and rice, the children and their father all liked it and it furnished strength for all of us to go ahead.
However, no one thing is an everlasting solution to most problems and by the time we moved to Kaysville we were no longer in the rice pudding era. Anne and Joe were away to school and I didn’t have annual leave accumulated so the actual moving day was taken care of by Dad and Nancy. Don’t even dream that I hadn’t spent hours in sorting and packing before then.
All day I kept wondering how the two of them were doing. But I needn’t have worried, by the time I got home all packed boxes not emptied by Nancy and Dad were in the basement which at that time was only partially finished. They had the moving men place the furniture, which was very shabby and not appropriate for the house, in appropriate places. Bedding was on the beds, dishes and pans in the cupboards, silver in the drawers. Nancy exercised her organizing talents and tastes in placement and we were all set up for a new life in Kaysville.
As I sit here September 11, 1978 in the library with all the books we have inherited and purchased and the pictures of our five children with their families; twenty-six grandchildren and seven great grand children, and all the changes and different furnishings I now have, I realize a great deal of living has transpired in the nearly twenty-eight years we have lived here.
All of the children married in the Temple, four having gone on missions eight of the grandchildren married (all in the Temple) and six of the grandsons have been or are missionaries and all including their mates so far are active in the Church. I have a great deal to be thankful for. The family and the Gospel mean so much to me.
In spite of my many faults and shortcomings I have been blessed beyond measure.
All of this living includes many interesting, difficult, happy and important events.
In this short personal history I can’t possible relate them all, but I shall try to touch on most of them.
As soon as we became settle a little, I visited the superintendent of schools here to see if I could obtain a position teaching in Davis High school. I talked with Mr. Samuel Morgan and he said that I probably could in the next school year. We moved here on the first part of December, so that was encouraging.
Previous to our moving we had attended Church in the “Rock Chapel” and were pleased with what we saw. Joe and Anne would be in college, the twins in Germany on a mission and Nancy would be the only one in school in Kaysville.
Changing high school in the middle of the school year as a junior was difficult for Nancy. I doubt that she ever really enjoyed Davis High, however, she was fortunate in becoming acquainted with a very nice group of girls and socially she seemed happy.
In the fall of 1951, I started to teach and continued until the fall of 1962, enjoying my work very much. I have always enjoyed young people and until I became overloaded the fall of 1962 it was a pleasure.
With 200 students, a literary magazine to publish and supervise plus a live radio program to present, it just became too much for me, and I resigned shortly after school started as I was becoming ill with all the pressure.
While teaching at Davis, I worked with the Girl’s Association and other activities and have had many pleasant personal experiences with the students, many of them coming up to me in the Temple and other places telling me of their families, on not long ago about her son returning from a mission, which really made me feel ancient.
Shortly after we moved to Kaysville, Joe informed us that he had met a lovely girl at the Institute of Religion at the University of Utah by the name of Evelyn Morgan. At one time he asked me how he could tell whether he was in love, and I told him he wouldn’t be asking me such a thing when the time came. He just told me.
We were so happy for him. He brought her up to meet us and we were inviting down to meet her father, her mother had only recently passed away and Evelyn was having a difficult time.
Evelyn Morgan Neville
Things moved rapidly after their engagement and on August 29, 1951, they were married in the Salt Lake Temple.
Valerie, Jared, Evelyn, Joey and Joe T. Neville
Asking Joe what he would like for his wedding breakfast, without hesitation he said “roast beef”. How we managed a hot roast beef meal right after the Temple I’ll never know, but we did and were all able to attend the lovely wedding reception Evelyn had at her aunt’s home. She enjoyed it so much that she later said that she hated to see it end.
If I remember correctly, both Anne and Joe received their Bachelor Degrees on the same day; Joe at the University of Utah and Anne at BYU. We were so proud of our children and always have been.
After graduation Anne taught school in Layton. After teaching for a year she was called to the Chinese Mission in China Town, San Francisco. If we had known the circumstances surround her actual work there, we would have been horrified.
Because the Chinese culture prohibited their women and girls form allowing them to accept men into their houses, the young elders were having practically no success in their proselyting and so the first and only lady missionaries to the mission were Anne and Winnie, a girl from Salt Lake to see if they could break the barrier. Anne saved enough money to finance her mission as well as Joe. Robert and Bruce has saved enough money to cover the outfitting of bedding, clothes, medicines, soap and other supplies for 30 months as these were unavailable in Germany after the war. They went by ship accompanied by a large trunk and hand luggage.
In our family, since we had four children a total of three years apart it was just assumed that if they went to college and on missions they would have to earn most of their way through which they did much to their credit. For the last six months of the twins’ mission, Anne was also in the mission field.
Anne had a unique mission. Because they were lady missionaries they were able to get into the homes of the Chinese, organize English classes and Primary they along with the Elders and of course the help of the Lord were successful in establishing a branch of the Church. Later the Branch was absolved by the State, the Mission dissolved with the missionaries reassigned to various missions within the Church, some even laboring in the Argentine area. How we knew there were missionaries there was disclosed by the fact that one of them mailed Anne an article he found in a German Sunday Supplement featuring her twin brothers who because of their being great grandson of President John Taylor, whose 100th anniversary of his opening the preaching of the Gospel in that country.
While the twins were still on their missions, Father died on July 20, 1952 at the age of eighty-nine. This was the first death of anyone in the immediate family and in a way was a shock to me. Father had a sad last years of his life. When he retired from his dental profession, when he was seventy years old his eye sight was failing. Eventually he had a cataract operation which was unsuccessful. He refused to have his other eye done and as his sight fully left him and then his hearing he practically vegetated those long years before he died. He has been such a fine and wonderful father to me and I loved him very much.
Ezra Oakley Taylor
Now coming back to the twins’ mission it became time for their release. They came home after thirty months in Germany to a new home and the certain prospects of having to be in the military, in fact Joe had arranged with Hill Air Force Base for them to register for cadet training thinking it might be advantageous for them over being drafted in the Army.
The next day after their arrival, the applied for cadet training and sure enough the next day or day after they received their draft notices in the mail.
It was shortly after their arrival home that our first grandchild was born, Joseph Morgan Neville, born on December 22, 1952. How thrilled we were to become grandparents. He was a sort of Christmas present, now married to Mary Jane, having two great grandchildren to the family tree.
In the spring of 1952 Nancy graduated from Davis High School which she never really enjoyed very much. We had hoped she would go to the University, but she decided that she preferred to get a job before going on to school which she did. I think her first job was at Western electric. However, we were grateful that she changed her mind and went up to Weber College in Ogden being helped with her finances by working for Uncle Walter who was very generous to our children by having them help him as a sort of secretary in his office.
Her second year of college was spent at B.Y.U. where she met Drew Van Wagoner (possibly that is not the correct word as Drew was a friend of the twins before he went on his mission and Nancy had met him then when she was a mere “child”) but more about Nancy’s courtship later.
Not long after we moved to Kaysville, I received the call to teach the Gleaner in M.I.A. It was quite a difficult assignment to teach in the evening after having taught school all day. I felt I was really not giving the girls as much as I should as I was pretty drained of giving myself by evening. Still I loved and enjoyed those choice girls, and kept teaching them-going to camp etc… until I was called to work with Joe in the Stake Mission. That part of my history is a chapter by itself.
While Anne was away the second sad death occurred. Mary had been ill for quite a few years. She and I had always been very close. When she was in grade school she would always take me down to the Salt Lake City Library where I learn to appreciate reading. As she had such more interesting friends than I did, I tagged along with her and she never made me feel unwanted. Her talents were many, a good singing voice, a special ability on the piano, a writing flare and a great appreciation of literature and art. She was really excellent in drawing and painting. I depended on her too much to help me in my endeavors.
Besides being talented she was beautiful. Then she had a nervous breakdown which confined her for quite a long time. From this she never fully recovered. Our children dearly loved her, as usually she was much more talented than their mother. She faithfully helped take care of Mother and Father in their old age. When she died I felt a deep grief for an unfulfilled life of a choice individual. Mary died, April 24, 1953.
Eventually it came time for Anne to be released from her mission. For some reason she had had a difficult time to learn to drive. No doubt her father and mother were partly to blame as we were just too nervous to teach her properly. However she took driver’s training at the “Y” and did very well. Anyway we would have been extremely worried had we known they way she was coming home.
It seems that one of the elders who lived in Salt Lake, an elderly man was ill and she was asked if she would drive him home from San Francisco. She said she know we would worry so she thought it would be better if she didn’t tell us. Fortunately she drove with no unusual problems home safely.
Kaysville is a lovely town to live in, but not particularly a fascinating place for a young unmarried attractive returned missionary. It wasn’t too long after Anne came home that she decided to find a teaching position in Salt Lake and moved down to live with a few other girls in an apartment in the city.
In the meantime, Bruce and Robert had met Beth Ann Hill and Maxine Burton and in between their Air Force training in various places they had found time to do some courting. Both of these lovely girls were friends of Nancy’s and had attended Davis High School. Maxine lived in Kaysville, right across the street from the Rock Chapel where we attended Church and next the elementary school and Beth Ann lived in Bountiful.
Bruce, Beth Ann and Family
After Beth Ann became engaged she made the remark to me that I didn’t know how hard she worked to get her ring which was amusing to me. Maxine reported that the Neville’s were really nice people, they all took off their shoes and were comfortable.
Her statement about taking off our shoes still holds true for me. Joe had very sensitive feet and never walked around barefooted. Well, for good or ill we were accepted by these fine girls and have always admired and loved them very much. In fact we have so much appreciated each of the mated our children have married-all in the Temple.
Well, Bruce was the next of the children to marry. He and Beth Ann were married May 14, 1954 in the Salt Lake Temple. We had the wedding breakfast here again, but this time we hired a lady to help prepare it which made the day much easier. The reception was held in Bountiful and I never saw such a large crowd for such an occasion. Her family was certainly loved to have so many people come to wish the bride and groom happiness.
That night the shoes came off again as we all stayed to help pack up the gifts and clear out the cultural hall that the church. From later reports we were informed that Bob’s car broke down as he was traveling back to the California Air Force base where they were stationed and imagine the romance of the whole situation, as Bruce and Beth Ann were also on the way back they were hailed down by Bob as a hitchhiker to chaperone the newlyweds the rest of their way back on their honeymoon.
Robert married not too long after on June 11, 1954, the anniversary of our marriage. Again we had the wedding breakfast with the same lady to help but the reception was held at the Kaysville Tabernacle cultural hall and the Relief Society room for the wedding party. Nancy and Anne were bridesmaids at both weddings and each of the brides were lovely. This time, a large crowd and again, the long period of finishing up.
Bob, Maxine and family
Now we had the two girls left to be married and theirs were not too far away. Anne seemed quite happy in Salt Lake living with nice interesting girls and having her share of dating. However nothing seemed to come out of those dates. Also she was dating two cousins in Kaysville whose attentions seemed quite serious. But one day she announced that she was bring one of her friends who she had met at U.E.A. meetings. This sounded interesting and of course we figuratively lined up to meet him.
It was Bob Gustaveson. He seemed like a nice ambitious young man to me. When Anne asked us later what we thought of him we noticed a definite concern in her attitude. Both of us expressed our approval as far as we could observe.
Robert Carl Gustaveson
From that time on there was no doubt that the courtship was in progress. Bob was exceptionally considerate of his mother, who was a widow. Her approval of his choice was happily given and the date was set. Nancy volunteered to make her wedding dress which turned out beautifully. Anne wanted to reception to be held at home. It was to be August 15, 1955. In the meantime we became proud grandparents of two more grandsons.
Julia Taylor Neville
Roark, Bruce’s first was born April 16, 1955 in Rapid City, South Dakota, I think. Maxine and Bob came home in June so she could be with her mother when the baby came as Bob was scheduled for oversea. There were complications and Scot had a hard time to survive. Fortunately everything turned out well and Scot grew up, served a mission in Japan and is happily married going to school now in Arizona.
1955 was a busy time in the family as we had one more grandchild born shortly after Anne’s wedding. Now back to the wedding, mostly during the summer we finished the basement. In fact we had finished everything, except the outdoor entrance. So we decided to serve the refreshments downstairs. We engaged a caterer and had chicken salad in cream puff shells and other delicacies.
Having seen the beautiful wedding cakes made by the Hotel Utah, we ordered a cake for Anne. It was to be picked up after the wedding breakfast. Remember it was August and a very hot day. We put the cake carefully on the back seat of the car, when we went to take it out it had slid down against the back seat spoiling the side of the cake. Somehow I gained my composure and we took the cake in. Nancy was really upset and said we couldn’t use it. I told her in a no uncertain tone that we had to use it. Originally we had planned to have to cake on a table in the middle of the room but of course that had to be changed.
Anne and Bob Gustaveson
I hurried up and made some plain white frosting, slid the layers in place and patched it up so it looked presentable on the table which we put up against the fireplace and when Anne got home things didn’t seem so hopeless. Anne already was so excited that she had had to have a shot for her allergy was acting up. We couldn’t afford to let her have to worry about the cake. We had the Cook Floral Company do the flowers for the house and the reception was lovely.
Bob and Anne Gustaveson and family
Now we only had Nancy home and how grateful we were to her to bring life and youth in the house. Around this period of time Joe and Evelyn bought themselves a home on Catherine Street in Rose Park. It was their first of a series of homes they purchased. It was a start. Right now they are in the process of building a really elegant home high on the east bench of Bountiful. Much has happened to all of us during that time.
Shortly after moving to their home in Rose Park they were blessed with a beautiful dark haired baby girl. They named her Valerie. She was born September 2, 1955, making four grandchildren for us –three boys and one girl. At present she is living in Provo married to Win Jordan and has two little daughters of her own (our great granddaughters).
1956 brought another historic event. Anne and Bob had a baby girl born to them May 18, 1956, just three days before Mother died. About her last words she spoke to me were to ask how Anne and her baby were. She had a tender spot in her heart for Anne as she had been a very frail little girl when we were staying with Mother when the twins were born, June 28, 1930.
In June Bruce and Beth Ann decided to come home for a visit before he would go overseas. Beth Ann was pregnant. Everyone seemed happy when Beth Ann suddenly started labor. It was an emergency and as Bruce was in the Air Force we took her up to the Hill Air Force Hospital. As Beth Ann’s mother was in Hawaii with her husband on a work mission, I was allowed to act as mother in being with her. On the 28th of June she was wheeled into the delivery room and delivered premature twin girls. They were very tiny and the doctor didn’t give much hope for their survival, but Bruce and Beth Ann exercised their faith, the twins Jayne and Jeanne were administered to and did live to be a joy to their parents and the rest of the family.
The doctor invited us into see the placenta of a twin birth. This was the first time I had seen a placenta, even though having delivered twins myself, with two umbilical cords attached, it was extremely interesting. It was necessary to keep the babies in the hospital for some time until they could gain the required pounds to be taken home to Rapid City, so Bruce had to leave Beth Ann in Kaysville and return later by plane. When I was waiting for Beth Ann to be released from the hospital the nurse told me that she wouldn’t have given a “plugged nickel” for their survival when they were born.
I shall never forget seeing Beth Ann carrying a basket with both girls neatly place one in each and climbing into the plane.
Now it was Nancy’s turn to be married. After spending a year at Weber State College in Ogden, she decided to go to the B.Y.U. to school. Here she became acquainted with Drew Van Wagoner, a friend of Robert and Bruce who had met Nancy briefly before he went on his mission. She was just a young sister of his friends then. It wasn’t long before a romance developed and on August 24, 1956 she was married. At the reception I was asked why I wasn’t crying to see my last child to be married. I replied I was happy because all five of our children had marred fine L.D.S. mates in the Temple and that it was indeed a time to rejoice. Her reception was also held in our home according to her desires. Nevertheless we really did miss having her around.
Just before her wedding Joe was called in July to be preside of the Davis Stake Mission the beginning of fifteen years of missionary service for him.
Nancy Jane Neville’s Wedding Announcement to Drew Arthur Van Wagoner
As my children read this history they will no doubt wonder why I didn’t mention this event or that. If I recorded the complete record of the family it would come to six volumes. Now I am trying to complete a sort of outline history and perhaps some time later I can make some additional chapters.
Anyway what they especially remember should be written by themselves, for it would be far more interesting told. I surely hope I haven’t left out the vital statics of any of them. My memory is not what it used to be.
In 1957 another group of special events come to view. The next grandchild to be born was Julie, Bob and Maxine’s daughter on February 16, 1957 in Rapid City, South Dakota. During this time Joe had left Hill Field and was working in Real Estate with the Barlow Real Estate in Layton, Utah. He had become interested in the appraising part of the business and received a leave of absence to go to Cornell University in New York. It was quite a thing for me of course I was planning to go with him. I had never been east of Utah at that time so we planned to do some sightseeing long the way, take the schooling and as I was on vacation from teaching at Davis High I could return in time to help Nancy with Ann Marie, her first born.
I have just finished looking at the souvenir booklets and pictures of the places we visited. I could hardly leave them, what a wonderful trip to take with my Joe and was eager to see everything and a compulsion to always keep moving to the next place of interest: camping in our car on a Park on Lake Michigan, Niagara Falls, and River, Toronto, Buffalo, New York City, headquarters of his Eastern States Mission, visiting some of his favorite places, a “must” trip on the 4th of July on the subway, which was a unique experience for me, to the Yankee Stadium to see a double header game in reserved seats. The huge crowds of everything unimaginable nationally and backgrounds. I must admit the crowds interested me more than the game, not so for Joe. Next we must take the boat and to see the Statue of Liberty, which impressed me and always has. As we returned from New Zealand years later after being away from the United States, the sight of the famous lady brought tears to my eyes. Another “must” were the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a play on Broadway and Times Square.
From New York City we traveled up to Vermont to see Joseph Smith’s birthplace, then back to New York State to see the Sacred Grove and Hill Cumorah. As we came closer to Cornell University, we visited the Corning Glass Company and saw some really beautiful glass works of art. We arrived at the University Saturday night, found out where Church was being held and went to Sunday School the next morning.
Almost miraculously we found a place to stay. Joe asked if anyone could direct us to a place near the campus to stay for the short time we would be there. One person spoke up who happened to be a professor at the school and volunteered his apartment at a reasonable price as he was going on vacation. It was really a great favor and we appreciated it.
Julia Taylor Neville
From them until the crash appraisal course of about two weeks I saw very little of Joe, as he was attending classes and studying every minute. It was a great opportunity for me to roam the beautiful campus and spend hours in the school library. It was filled with rare books displayed in cases including beautifully hand painted illuminated lettering Bibles. Since Cornell University was so close to the beginnings of Mormonism, I thought it would be nice to try to find some information dealing with its origins. To my disappointment there seemed to be little. Perhaps had I been able to have access to locked sources there might have been more, but I doubt it.
Altogether it was an excellent time to visit a famous campus and for Joe to better himself as an appraiser. Even though he was years older than most of them, he competed and achieved outstanding success.
Turning toward home we followed the Mormon Trail but decided to turn south and travel through Mesa Verde to see the Indian ruins in that area. There were built on a high plateau ane were very interesting. By the time we got home it was about time for Nancy to deliver. In a few days we received word from Drew that she had given birth to a lovely baby girl, August 12, 1957 whom they named Ann Marie.
After helping Nancy for awhile it came time for me to get ready to go back to teaching at Davis High School. Not too long after Joe became the Stake Mission President I was visited by the Stake President and asked if I would accept a call to be a state missionary. I was frightened but accepted on the condition that I could work with Joe as I had no confidence as to missionary work. It was only a short time before I was given a sister companion, Mildred Raymond whose husband Sam Morgan was also a Stake missionary. She was even more timid that I so she insisted I give the lessons. As usual it was only a short time before I came to love her dearly.
Thus we were actively engaged in Stake Missionary work which I enjoyed more that I had anticipated until 1962 when Joe’s work make it impossible to continue. Not long after Ann Marie’s birth, Brett, Bruce’s second son was born in Salt Lake City, August 31, 1957.
In August of 1958 Anne was expecting her second child in California since it was to be born just before school was due to start in Kaysville, I thought things would work out just right so I could be with Anne a few days. This assumption proved incorrect. We waited and waited. Finally the only thing that I could do was to arrange to fly back just barely to commence teaching.
Never having been on an airplane before, I was apprehensive at the whole thing but bravely got into the plane. Not knowing what a rough or smooth flight was, I just thought the bumpy ride as normal. As I alighted from the plane I was asked how I enjoyed the rough trip home. It’s a good thing I didn’t know as with all the flying they have done since then I have been and still am extremely uneasy on a plane. Eventually the baby was born. It was another girl for Anne and Bob whom they named Christy. She was and still is beautiful, born September 16, 1958.
Soon after school started I brought home from my mail box at school a brochure announcing the B.Y.U. Educational tour of Europe which would last all summer of 1959. Actually I hadn’t looked at it, but Joe picked it up and read it over and over and calmly said, “Let’s go.” “You must be joking” I cried. “Well we have a little money in the bank for the first time in years and we may never get such a chance again”. It was wonderfully exciting even to think of such a thing. I can’t remember what the money was supposed to buy. It was either carpeting or a new car, but we reasoned we could always start saving again.
In the last part of October Joe’s third child was to be born. Evelyn and Joe were living in Maryland at that time. We anxiously awaited for the news and finally it came. The baby was another boy, whom they named Jared, born October 29, 1958, a fine looking baby boy and now a tall handsome one who will be twenty years old this month.
The next grandchild born in that year was Stacey, Bruce’s fifth child. She was born December 28, 1958 almost a Christmas baby. She was cute and pretty, always having a charming personality. Shortly after the first of the year, Nancy and Drew’s second child was born January 19, 1959. This time Nancy had to take care of herself and the baby as I was teaching. After a very short time in the hospital. Jeff was a tall, fine looking baby (I always say complimentary things about my posterity which no doubt becomes boring to other people).
At present he is in Chile on a mission. He is the thirteenth of twenty six-grandchildren, quite a few cousins being between April 1955 and January 1959.
Joseph William Neville and Julia Taylor Neville
Getting ready for our first overseas trip was more complicated than we anticipated. The first instruction we had was to start the wheels rolling to obtain a passport. Fortunately Bruce could take care of the physical angles such as shots and examinations. Joe had to obtain from the Church a duplicate of his birth certificate.
The next required activity was to go down to the B.Y.U. for orientation. We were curious to see who would be our companions for three months in Europe. It was interesting to say the least. The first few people were lady school teachers, one a librarian, who was asleep most of the time while we were receiving our instructions. There was an elderly man whose children were treating him to the trip. We were told that President and Sister Wilkinson and son would be along as well as Doctor Suawal, his wife, son and daughter whose older son was on a mission in Norway, a couple from Oceanside, California with their twin daughters who were attending the Y and some others such as the two processors and their wives who were conducting the tours. Joe almost backed out when he saw the school teachers, but felt better when he found out other men would be along.
Some of the rules were that we must keep all the Church Standards and if we were addicted to Postum or other drinks that would appear to be coffee or tea, we were to either drink them in our rooms or drink them from glasses. We must not complain of slow service and demand ice water as it was seldom available. Under no circumstances were we to make unfavorable comparisons of our county against those we were visiting. Not to brag about the United States. In other words we were expected to represent our church and country as well.
Excellent suggestions for what clothing and baggage we were to take were given. All of us were to meet in Montreal, Canada the first part of June to sail on a British ship for Ireland.
Shortly before we left, we receive announcement of the arrival of Maxine and Bob’s third child, born in Salt Lake City, May 19, 1959. Another tall good looking grandson, who in enjoying immensely his mission to Japan. He is the fourteenth cousin to be added to the cousin brood.
Finally the great day of arrived to commence our trip. We travelled by train via Chicago arriving in Montreal in 95 degree weather. We found a taxi driver who took us on a fascinating tour into the French part of the city which was almost more French than France itself. Without winter coats over our arms which we were fortunately told to take as we were sailing the northern Atlantic, we boarded the ship. It wasn’t long before our group was assembled who turned out to be very congenial.
As we were starting the orchestra stated to play “America”, that pleased me very much until I found out it was “God, Save the Queen”, one of my many naïve experiences on the trip.
As we sailed down the St. Lawrence River we had dinner and then it was announced we would stop at Quebec for a short time. Due to the Mormon group all the milk for the whole trip had been drunk for dinner and a new supply would be picked up before we crossed the Atlantic. Our tastes and observing the standards were being carried out. Throughout the trip, we were a no profit group at the bars.
Somewhat to my disappointment there was not romantic setting on the deck socializing with interesting people. The North Atlantic was cold, ice bergs had to be sighted and avoided. My winter coat plus scarves and gloves belied June, the hot. The lounges were filled with the people patronizing the bars. A life-boat exercise was an interesting interlude. The food was good but somehow didn’t seem too inviting. Throughout our trip previously assigned reports on the different countries and schools we were to visit were given which really enriched the worth of the tour. When we sighted the shore of Ireland we were really thrilled. Joe had purchased a moving picture camera plus a new excellent still camera so out they came and he carefully photographed the interesting arrival. But alas! When the pictures were taken out of the movie camera he found the reels were put in incorrectly. Needless to say if you know Joe, he disposed of that camera as soon as we got home.
Wanting to review some of the places we visited, last week, October 19-26, 1978, wonderful memories of these were brought back as I looked at and studied our mementos. After writing several pages I decided if I ever got this “little” history of my life finished I had better omit the reviewing of each country, which sounded more like a travel agency’s folder of the well known attractions of each country than anything personal. So I shall list the countries we visited, make some general observations and possibly mentions some of the amusing or unusual experiences.
Julia on Ship on the trip to Europe
For three months, by bus, train, ship local transportation and air we visited in this order: Ireland, England, Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, France, Bulgaria, Holland and back to Ireland, over the Atlantic by air to New York, down to Washington D.C. and home by rail. Since this was a B.Y.U. tour, Sundays were quite well observed. We attended an L.D.S. service if one was available in the area. These were exceptionally inspiring to me even if we could not understand the language. Somehow the spirituality of those we met was communicated to us. When we heard the music of the familiar hymn, we were filled. The Church is indeed universal and we are brothers and sisters. Not only did we see this universalism in spiritualism but in national aims, such as education, art, music, literature, drama and social aims, agriculture exploration, etc. Every country was exceptionally proud of its schools for instance we visited Dublin University, Oxford, Cambridge, and Heidelberg to name a few as well as one little school while we were walking in a small town in England during a lunch break. We noticed children coming from the doors and decided to see if we could visit with the headmaster. He was more than courteous, even giving me some small soft covered books used for reading classes. I asked what the schools did for the non-readers; at that time I was teaching a class in remedial English. Looking surprised he said, “We don’t have any except for handicapped children”. Nevertheless I was later pleased to hear a professor at Heidelberg University say that at the University level students from the United States excelled as they on the whole had been taught to think.
On one mural painting on a new school in Germany I was interested in seeing covered wagons filled with pioneers being accompanied by knights in armor for protection.
In the Scandinavian countries much attention was given for housing and care of the elderly as well as for small children.
The scenery varied. Ireland as green as Irish green, Norway’s fjords and mountains spectacular. Sweden also mountainous. Germany, France, Austria, Italy furnished beautiful views of the Alps either going in or out of Switzerland with picturesque villages and countryside.
A few experiences briefly put:
1. Seeing West Side Story with the original New York cast in Her Majesty’s Theatre in London.
2. Seeing Stratford on Avon sitting next to the bus driver by getting up early and ahead of the person who seemed to feel it his right to ride there. I just stuck out my chin and thought I was entitled to learn all that I could bring back to my English classes on Shakespeare.
3. Riding up a funicular tram to the top of a hill in Bergen, Norway and at 10:30 p.m. listening to a student from Scotland on a “working holiday” play his bag pipes in broad daylight. It is the custom throughout Europe and even in New Zealand and Australia for young people to decide to see the world by working awhile in places they go to get enough money for the next stage of their holiday. Special hostels are provided for them and sort of supervised for their protection.
4. Riding on a train ferry all day in Denmark, eating an elaborated Smorgasbord including cold and hot meats, pickled herring and other fish dishes, cheeses, smoked meats, all sorts of breads, desserts of all kinds including pastry type decorated foods, some delicious and some not to me. It was a national custom and a display of the chef’s skills.
5. Attending the Follies Bergers in Denmark-straight from Paris-beautiful costumes and choreography. Since it was in French, we couldn’t understand the jokes, which was probably as well.
6. Getting lost in Berlin, Germany, finally finding my way back to the hotel just before dark. Joe told me where to meet him, but characteristically I turned just the opposite direction, not of course realizing it and would have gone even farther astray had I not found a chemist (pharmacist) who spoke English who told me how to get back.
7. Riding on the Rhine River excursion boat where some U.S. soldiers were drinking too much, breaking glasses and making a scene when the German tourists started chanting Yankee, go home: which was extremely embarrassing to us.
8. Seeing the German version of the “Merry Widow”.
9. Climbing the Eiffel Tower in Paris, not having enough money to take the elevator as we had eaten breakfast in “quaint” expensive restaurant which cost more than we had anticipated leaving us just barely enough to pay for a taxi back to the hotel. Ager the exhausting climb we were so impressed by the size of Paris, in no direction we could see its outskirts.
10. Having my birthday celebrated in Milan, Italy with a cake ordered by the tour members- a delicious large flat round cake which I cut in wedding cake style so as to get the pieces of serving size. The chef had never seen one cut that way before.
11. Riding in a Venetian gondola with especially arranged romantic musicians entertaining us, but not being able to sit by Joe as one of the male members of the tour took the last double seat and we were separated. It was quite disappointing.
After this mixture of experiences, I would not want anyone to think I didn’t see and appreciated the wonderful cultural aspects of the tour, because I did. Joe and I spent hours during lunch and rest breaks for the bus drivers in trying to see even more than the other members of the tour.
Finally the day arrived for our return and as we sighted the shores of the United States and the Statue of Liberty from the air, we both were touched emotionally to be back home.
Before we left home we had made reservations for a roomette on the train from Washington D.C. as we were planning a visit Joe, Evelyn and family before returning. Taking the train from New York we arrived at Greenbelt, Maryland. It was good to see their family especially Jared whom we had not seen before. He was nearly one year old.
The weather was very hot and humid. By evening I became really quite ill with nausea and pains in my abdomen. I was sick all night and when morning came I decided sick or not to go sightseeing with Joe, not knowing if I would ever get to Washington D.C. again. We saw the Capital Building, the prayer room for the senators and representatives which impressed me a great deal. Washington’s and Jefferson’s monuments and the Art Gallery and I couldn’t go on.
Son, Joe took me to see his doctor, who examined me and thought it might be heat exhaustion and advised me to say in be on the train, I was thankful for the roomette. I seemed to be feeling quite a bit better by the time we got home.
Immediately I got right into teaching and a few days after as I was talking to the principal I suddenly became ill with extreme pain. I asked the principal to call Joe and a doctor. The doctor called the hospital and the nurse met me with a hypodermic injection. My problem was diagnosed as a strangulated hernia. A specialist was called and after a day or two of trying to push the hernia into position, surgery was performed. The specialist said that in Maryland the hernia had somehow straighten out or I would have had an emergency operation there. I was surely thankful to be home and not to have become ill in Europe of Maryland.
On September 27, 1959 Anne and Bob had their third girl born to them in Pomona, California, a pretty dark hair baby whom they named Barbara, making the sixteenth cousin-seven boys and nine girls. She is presently going to B.Y.U.
Bob Gustaveson, Anne, Julia Neville, Barbara, Jan and Christy
Shortly before Thanksgiving Nancy gave birth to her third child and our seventeenth grandchild, on November 16, 1960, a fine big boy they named Jon-who will be graduating this year and then planning to go on a mission. Joe and I were doing missionary work and I was still teaching at Davis High School.
Bruce and Beth Ann had their sixth child born in Salt Lake on February 22, 1961 and our eighteenth grandchild. Another beautiful granddaughter who was named Shelley. Zion was still growing.
Around 1962 Joe began working for the Bureau of Reclamation as a land appraiser and life began to change quite a bit for us. In the summer we would go to the Gunnison River area in Colorado for him to appraise the land which would be covered by a dam and in the winter to the Phoenix area for government appraising. Also he did the appraising for the Glen Canyon Dam. We had the experience of seeing and walking over almost the whole bottom of the dam. Joe did actually see all the land which was covered by the dam but to do that he had to emply a helicopter as the area was otherwise inaccessible.
We were released from our missionary work as Joe had to be out of town so much.
On March 5, 1962 Suzanne who Joe always called his chatterbox was born, Maxine and Bob’s fourth child in Casper, Wyoming not too long before they moved to Arizona. I can remember visiting their family in Glenrock and what a cute baby she was.
Bruce and Beth Ann’s came along May 5, 1962. She is their seventh child, fifth girl and our twentieth grandchild. She is now a beautiful sixteen year old and able at last to do some dating.
In 1962 I resigned from teaching. As I had been having a lot of trouble with varicose veins, my doctor advised me to have surgery on them. Everything went along well until the day I was to come home and I developed a “staph” infection which made me extremely ill requiring me to say two more weeks in the hospital with draining tubes in both legs. Finally after being home for a while the doctor let me go with Joe to Phoenix if I could ride with my leg elevated down there and continue soaking and heating it after we arrived. It was a lovely place to recuperate, while Joe was doing his appraisals.
On September 28, 1963, Kent, Maxine and Bob’s last child was born in Scottsdale, Arizona. Another good looking baby and a fine young man now, a handsome young many of fifteen, and number twenty-one of our grandchildren, still five more to go. The last child born in 1963 was Carol on November 25, in Rexburg, Idaho. She is Nancy and Drew’s fourth child, a talented, pretty girl of fifteen, and our twenty-second. How Thrilled Nancy’s other children were to have her arrive.
Anne and Bob were blessed with their fourth daughter June 8, 1964. I was able to be down for her birth. Another beautiful baby girl with large brown eyes and now fourteen year old, they named her Susan Kay. She loves to sing and at present is taking lessons on the guitar. With a nice singing voice as she has combined with playing her guitar she should be a great asset to any group.
On Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1965, David Morgan Neville was born Evelyn and Joe, a great comfort to his parents. He is a fine looking young deacon right now. In fact I spent Sunday with the family on Jared’s birthday and enjoyed watching his pass the sacrament. He is quite a student of the scriptures. So now we have twenty-four grandchildren to be proud of.
The last two were born while we were in New Zealand, but more of that later.
Joe was becoming concerned about his church assignment as he was out of town so much and felt he couldn’t do justice to it. As I remember he was the High Priest Advisor. He felt that he should talk to the Stake Presidency about it. The conversation turned to missionary work and the outcome was that if the Lord wanted him to go on a mission he would retire and do just that. Almost immediately our names were sent to Church Headquarters and then we went through the suspense which most prospective missionaries have waiting for the call to come through the mail. On November 25, 1965 the letter came. We hardly dared to open it. We decided no matter where it was that we would accept it thankfully with no reservations.
Joe told me that many years before when the question on the form he was to fill out where he preferred going he put down New Zealand first choice and Australia second. Well, we opened the envelope and right near the top of the letter was written “you are hereby called to be a Missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to labor in the New Zealand Mission.” It was signed by President David O. McKay. There was a separate call for each of us. We were speechless. I was frightened and thrilled both. It was so far away and I felt so inadequate. Joe was elated and so we started our preparation to go.
The first requirement was to write a letter of acceptance of our call. Just writing and signing the letter made me feel that I was taking upon myself a great responsibility. I felt unprepared. Both Joe and I had always tried to take special classes on extensions classes of religion, but I knew that I was prepared well enough to be a representative of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Joe and Evelyn agreed to stay in our home while we were gone; paying us rent which helped our expenses in the mission field. In the meantime we had to have shots and vaccinations and purchase the necessary clothing. We were allowed only forty pounds of luggage each to take to last us two years. Well, we decided to bring all the things we knew we had to take into the living room and weigh and pack them prior to leaving. By the time we came up to correct weight most of the “had to take” articles were to be left behind.
Joseph William Neville Junior and Julia Taylor Neville Missionary Farewell Program for the New Zealand Mission
A Farewell Testimonial
“The things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Thy mind, O man, if thou wilt lead a soul to salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity-thou must commune with God.”
-Teachings of Joseph Smith
Farewell Testimonial
In honor of
Elder Joseph W. Neville Jr.
And his wife
Julia Taylor Neville
Prior to their departure for the
New Zealand Mission
of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
To be held in the
KAYSVILLE NINTH WARD
Second South and Sixth East
Kaysville, Utah
SUNDAY, JANUARY 9, 1966
3:30 P.M.
Program
Prelude…………………………………………………………………..Carma Gardner
Opening Hymn……………………………………………………………………...Choir "Come, Dearest Lord” no 23
Invocation…………………………….…………………Nancy Jane Van Wagoner
Sacrament Hymn………………………………………………………………...Choir “Behold the Great Redeemer Die” No. 230
Sacrament Service……………………………………….....Aaronic Priesthood
Testimonies……………………………………………………….Robert T. Neville Bruce T. Neville
Vocal Trio…………………………………………………..Maxine, Beth Ann and Evelyn Neville
Testimonies………………………………………………..Robert C. Gustaveson Joseph T. Neville
Vocal Solo……………………………………………………...Drew Van Wagoner
Remarks………………………………………….…Bishop Samuel G. Raymond
Response………………………………………………………………….Missionaries
Closing Hymn………………………………………………………....Relief Society Singing Mothers “My Task”
Benediction………………………………………………Julia Anne Gustaveson
Postlude………………………………………………………….…..Carma Gardner
New Zealand Mission Address
P.O. Box 72 48 Arney Road Auckland, New Zealand
On January 8, 1966, we loaded our belongings in the car and arrived at the Mission Home for training and instruction in proselyting and what to expect in New Zealand. Different General Authorities gave inspiring talks to us. President Spencer W. Kimball, then an apostle set us apart. His many blessings were certainly inspired and helped us so much in our stay in New Zealand. Today the missionaries do not have the privilege of having the general authorities set them apart.
One frosty morning early our children came down to see us off on the plane for New Zealand. Our farewell was January 8, 1966. We change planes in San Francisco and after what seemed a long flight stopping in Hawaii for refueling; we finally arrived in Auckland, New Zealand where we were taken to Mission Quarters to receive our assignment.
President C. Douglas Barnes and Sister Barnes were lovely to us, giving us an attractive room until we went out in the field. We wondered why we didn’t get sent out immediately. Eventually we found out. It seemed that the Tokoro Branch in Pipiwai had sent a request for a missionary couple to help them straighten out some problems they were having. The President had told them it would be necessary for them to find a suitable place to stay. Pipiwai was twenty-five miles out into the bush from a paved road and was actually not a town, but a district with a school house, a Maori Pa or meeting house, a small L.D.S. Chapel, a combination grocery store, post office and gas pump building attached to living quarters.
Later President Barnes showed us the letter describing the proposed living quarters for the missionary couple. Almost a week after we arrived in New Zealand he told us we would be going up to Pipiwai for Church on Sunday. This was 125 miles from Auckland. Early Sunday morning we left not knowing what to expect. After traveling along for about seventy-five miles, the mission car stopped in a scattered farm area.
President Barnes got out of the car and raised the hood and could see nothing wrong. Joe got out to take a look but didn’t pretend to be a car mechanic. There were no garages visible so they tried to start the car again; nothing happened. Then President Barnes said we had better have a prayer. He talked to the Lord explaining we had an appointment and we could not meet it unless we had help and if it was His will that we get to Pipiwai that the car would take us there.
After closing the prayer he stepped on the started, the car started out with no further trouble. On the Monday after he called a mechanic to come to check the car over. “You mean this car ran nearly two hundred miles after it stopped on you? I can’t believe it” said the mechanic said as he prepared to tow the car to the garage or “panel beater” as the New Zealanders called it.
As we arrived in Pipiwai slightly late, we were greeted by a crowded little chapel of brown faced smiling Maoris. I could feel their warmth and when I heard President and Sister Barnes call them by unpronounceable names, I knew that I would never be able to do that. In fact I didn’t think I could ever tell them apart. All four of us were asked to talk and somehow I got through the meeting. Then we were shown what was to be our future home.
Our quarters consisted of three rooms in back of the store, a bedroom, large living room with a fireplace and a small closet, storage room. There was a bathroom across the hall to be shared with the owner and his Maori housekeeper-later his wife. A “flush” toilet to be shared with the customers and the owner and a washroom. It was dirty and sparsely furnished. I could have wept-but missionaries don’t do that. I would have taken the next plane home, but missionaries don’t do that either.
We returned to Auckland, purchased a small English car which had the driver’s seat on the right hand side to be driven on the left side of the road, in other words, we had to learn to drive on the “wrong” side of the road. Joe was philosophical about the car situation and the day after we bought the car he was driving apparently without any trouble and we were on our way to Pipiwai.
The President had told the Branch President that we were not to take away any of their “callings” which they highly prized, but were to be used in any capacity they wished. Joe’s trial came when he was asked to be the Branch clerk. Not that he didn’t know how he had been Stake Clerk in two different Stakes but he felt that he hadn’t come clear over to New Zealand to do that sort of thing; he had come to preach the Gospel. Besides the adjustments there was work to do.
An elderly sister by the name of Awaroa Wineata was asked to be President of the Primary. In her younger years she had been President of the Relief Society riding on horseback through the bush with her baby which would be tied to her back in its blanket. Once it had fallen off and she didn’t know for quite a while. She told us she retraced her journey and found it in some ferns sill wrapped in the blanket and unharmed. At any rate she said that she would accept the position if I would help her with the language as she feared the children would laugh at her.
All of the younger people learn English in the schools and the old timers who had spoken Maori almost all their lives had a hard time with the language, English is the official language in New Zealand.
Pipiwai was the “wide spot” in the road; for the people who lived on farm through quite a long valley. These farms furnished cream for the production of butter. Cream in large cans would be collected daily along the valley from one end to the other.
Then there was a rickety bus driven by one of the members of the Branch to collect the children and bring them to the school in Pipiwai and return them to their homes after school. Whether legal or not I don’t know but on Sundays the driver, Sonny Wineata, would collect the L.D.S. people, bring them to the chapel and the bus would be used as one of the classrooms.
Jim would open his store and pass out the mail between Sunday School and Sacrament meeting, selling ice cream and lollies to the members. The Chapel had one large room with benches and a raised platform across the front with a pulpit, a sacrament table, piano and a row of chairs. There was a tiny office, small kitchen, and a large room divided by cotton curtains strung on wire making four small classrooms.
When we first came to church most of the members wore gum boots which they removed and put on their shoes before entering or came barefoot. They did, however, wear their Sunday best clothes and were quite well versed in the scriptures.
Most of the time Joe taught the Gospel Doctrine class, even though there was quite a lot of confusing and sounds from the classes within the curtained area. More and more of the inactive members started coming as encouraged by our visiting and Joe’s always excellent teaching. Through some effort we go the Primary going-Joe teaching the older boys class. We had the children learning the Articles of Faith and as an inducement offered a Doctrine and Covenants to anyone of the children who could recite them without a mistake. Almost everyone had a Bible and a Book of Mormon, but not many had the Doctrine and Covenants. When one was earned we would present it to him in Sunday School. The first thing we knew many of the adults memorized the Articles of Faith and we had quite a project going.
Being a new and very naive missionary, I was filled with a desire to help all those who needed it, and expected dozens to flock to me when I announced I would be holding an English class the following Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. in the chapel. Since Primary was at 3:00 p.m. I was hoping perhaps that someone might come could possibly fill the need we had for teachers. Five came. Two were already working in the Primary and wanted help in understanding English as they could read the words but didn’t know their meanings. One came because her children made fun of the way she spoke.
Then there were Te Ngaro and Rawiri. Dave and Nellie Hura, as we called them. Dave knew Nellie couldn’t learn, but he hoped that perhaps he could pick up something. He had quite a library of Church books, and felt somewhat important. But Hawiri didn’t know his Te Gnara. I asked Nellie if she would like to learn to speak and read English, shyly she nodded her head, not daring to say anything. She was able to understand simple functional English and could read in Maori. The next question was where to start, grasping for idea, it occurred to me that to be able to recognize words depicting important things in her life might be a beginning: husband, children, Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, prayers, home, love, testimony, etc… The techniques came from her prayers and mine, and then her going home spending countless hours practicing. Her first great desire was to be able to bear her testimony in English.
Finally the great day arrived. The whole Branch was almost as thrilled as she was. I shall never forget her face; it was positively angelic besides she had status for the first time in her life I believe. Then came reading the Book of Mormon, inspiration prompted me to start on the Seventh chapter of Moroni not only because of the doctrine, but because of its repetitive nature. Then she would tell me with tears running down her cheeks that the Lord let know she was reading was true. She was soon able to give a two and on half minute talk in Sunday School and converse fairly well in English.
Only Nellie, I and the Lord know how much her faith and works have made a seeming miracle. From that time forth there was nothing Nellie wouldn’t do for me. She was a heavy woman, a daughter of a chief and didn’t have very good health. She was what was called a “Temple” person one who had had her endowments. Not long after we left Pipiwai we received word that Nellie had passed away. It hurt as if she had been my sister. As funeral were held the next day after death, we were not able to get back. Later Dave told us that he had had a head stone erected for her engraved “Elder and Sister Neville were her best friends.”
President Charles Tipene had been trained somewhat in the church building program in Temple View for helping in the college and temple construction. On returning to Pipwai and being set apart as the branch president he had a yearning for a new chapel in his home area. He expressed his feelings to Joe. Joe told him he thought he might have a better chance when making his request if he used the chapel which they already had as part of the plans. The president drew up some plans using the chapel as the cultural hall and branching out from there.
Joe having done a great deal of drafting and engineering helped draw them up. The old chapel was really a study building having been built as a community effort using local hard woods in its structure. Joe also helped write the letter of request including explanations for the branches need and worthiness to have a new chapel. Knowing that sometimes it takes years to finalize such a project, we were not expecting an early reply. Then one day just as we were leaving in our gum boots to do some visiting in the area up came a large, for New Zealand, car in which Thomas S. Monson of the Twelve, Elder Burner of the building committee and some General Board M.I.A. sisters to look over the Te Horo Branch Chapel.
When they saw our living quarters we later found out, they couldn’t believe it. We crossed over the street and showed them the situation. Brother and Sister Hura, Nellie and Dave and their two young grandsons and granddaughter were there. Elder Monson saw a basket ball in the corner, picked it up and hurled it on the end of his finger. The five Maoris eyes almost popped out of their heads. Elder Monson gave the little girl a New Zealand coin which her grandparent later had made into a locket as a great treasure.
Soon the group left we knew and we were impressed as it is not a usual thing for a General Authority to visit such out of the way places. President Barnes said he probably wanted to see the place which Joe had as graphically described with its wall used to hold the branch files and the complete lack of facilities. Naturally hopes were kindled and anxious days passed waiting to hear from headquarters.
When the O.K. was received the whole branch bore their testimonies. It was then we discovered for the first time that years before Elder Joseph Fielding Smith and Elder Hugh B. Brown at different times had prophesied that they day would come when the Te Horo Branch would have a beautiful chapel. Little did we know that we were in the idle of a prophecy being fulfilled.
In the letter telling them of the approval they were told of the responsibility of raising their part of the money needed to build. President Barnes commented that if he had known about the prophecies, he might have preached before. Our Heavenly Father has his own methods of doing things. From then until we left we were caught in plans and “Maori Culture” practices to help raise funds.
During our stay in Pipiwai we had a fabulous Gold and Green Ball. The Maori Pa or meeting house was decorated with streamers of crepe paper, a queen was chosen and the local singers, and guitar players furnished the music and members and non-members from miles away attended. There was a ladies choice number and I shall never forget a gorgeous heavy Maori in a pink lace dress came up to Joe and curtsied to him. He gallantly obliged. They danced the whole number through and he returned her to her place. At the end of the dance they auctioned a cream cake off. Joe got it and then waltzed clear around the hall with the audience watching from their seat carrying this cake on the tips of his fingers everyone expecting momentarily to see if fall to the floor, but it didn’t.
The Maoris love Joe, he danced with them, laughed with them and preached to them and one baby was named for him with permission. Joseph Wineata.
There was one elaborate Maori wedding while we were in Pipiwai. A prosperous Church of England family had the minister or head cleric come up with all the formal trappings to perform the ceremony. The custom for funerals and wedding was to entertain guests for weeks with feasting and rituals. This wedding was to be performed in the same Maori hall as we had the Gold and Green Ball. The bridal party arrived in decorated special automobiles and was led between the row of Maori visitors to the front of the hall.
To get a group of chattering excited Maoris quiet was almost impossible. The cleric tried hard and finally performed the ceremony. L.D.S. members to receive a Temple recommend have to promise to not have a traditional Maori funeral when they does as they are quite heathenish with carousing, drinking, rubbing noses with the corpse and through it messages to the spirit world.
Nellie’s Hura, my lovely English student’s funeral was held in the chapel with traditional L.D.S. sermons.
One of our special friends was Brother Penie a faithful deaf and dumb member of the branch who held a Temple Recommend. He was a gifted Maori carver and when I asked him if he would make a chieftains walking stick for Joe, he said he would, this stick is especially well done and I had to talk hard to get him to accept some pay for it. He rolled his eyes and tried to tell me how he went into the bush and picked out some rewa-rewar wood for the carving. When he gave it to Joe he had him sit on his own horse holding it. He painted a Maori picture on a pillow case as a gift to us when we left.
There are volumes to be written about our Pipiwai stay. We surely learned a lot from these dear people. On a card in a gift was written when we left “From your people to our People”. Who would have thought fifteen months before we would be weeping with them as we parted?
Two important events unrelated to the Maoris occurred while we were in the area. Nancy and Drew had another fine son born to them in Rexburg, Idaho. He was name Kurt making him twenty-five grandchildren. He was born June 16, 1966 and felt so bad not to be able to see him. Then on January 11, 1967 Bob and Anne at last had a son which they name Carl. We received a cable announcing the great event. Again, we had to wait many months before we could see him. The births of Kurt and Carl made the total of twenty-six grandchildren for us and we are proud of each on e of them.
After spending fifteen months in Pipiwai, President Barnes asked Joe if he thought the Te Horo Branch could function by itself. Although the local Pakejas (European extraction people predicted they would gradually slip back into old ways, Joe told the president that he knew they were well able to take care of themselves especially with the prospect of their having a new chapel.
Since we had spent so much time out in the country we were told we could choose any other part of the mission for our next assignment. We were invited to spend a few days at the mission home until it was decided where we were to go. Joe told the President that it wasn’t our proper place to select a location. Finally after trying to coax me to make a choice we were assigned to Opatiti, a town on the Bay of Plenty. It was a pleasant mostly Protestant town with a small dependent branch.
The ostensible reason was to try to create a better image of the Church. At not too distant past, a missionary had been unhappily involved with a Maori divorcee who accused his falsely of improper advances which had hurt the branch which had completely dissolved.
The “Pakeja” population was almost completely unacquainted with the history and principle of the church. When Joes was set apart by Spencer W. Kimball he was told that he would teach the Maoris and also have an influence on the neglected Europeans (Pakehas).
Joseph and Julia Neville
For a while we were assigned to live in the home of Brother and Sister Hudson, a lovely Maori couple. Their home was modern and pleasant, but they decided to come back and we started looking for another place. As in any small town there are seldom many places to rent. However we seem to have been inspired to go into a small grocery and dairy store not far from the Hudsons and to ask if the owner, Mr. and Mrs. Mercer had any ideas. They thought a minute or two and told us to come back the next day.
In the meantime Mrs. Mercer contacted her sister, Mrs. Thomas Steele who lived in a large old fashioned house which was previously owned by Mr. Steele’s father who had been the Presbyterian minister in the town. One part of the home had been converted into guest quarters. Mrs. Steele told her to have us come over which we gladly did. The result was that we moved into the home and had a very good relationship with Julie, Tom and the Steele children for quite a long time.
Since Joe was a Rotarian he joined the group in a potiki and through that contact had a chance to answer about the Church. The group even had him give the program before we left and hurriedly printed it up and gave him a copy of it as we left.
Several of the Steele family visited our family and us after we returned and even while we were there. They thought the Visitor’s Center in Salt Lake was wonderful and the ideas should be incorporated in the Presbyterian Church, but none of them joined.
We played a “Sing Along” record of “I am a Child of God” which they thought was beautiful and had their youth choir learn and sing it. One other minister in the next town also did the same thing. The little branch didn’t miraculously grow but it did get stronger.
The Presbyterian Church has their annual dinner and entertainment for the elderly and asked us if we would drive a few of the people around on a tour. It was quite a thing to have the Mormon Missionary couple driving the stalwart Presbyterians around. At the dinner we were introduced and met the honorable Dr. Salmon the head minister in New Zealand whom we gave a copy of the Family Home Evening manual which he seemed extremely interested in.
The banker drew Joe aside one day and said he didn’t want to embarrass me by asking if we were Christians, he had become our friend. As our little branch met in the morning for Sunday School and after a break, Sacrament Meeting our evenings were spent in visiting the other churches which included the Methodists, the Salvation Army and the Anglican Church. At one meeting the Methodist Minister when greeting his members after the services introduced us to a visiting dignitary as “Our Mormon Missionaries.”
The next assignment we had was to a sort of retirement resort city called Tauranga a number of miles up the coast north on the Bay of Plenty.
Our specific instructions were to see if we couldn’t help create a more hospitable attitude of the Maoris in the large predominately Maori ward to the investigators the missionaries were bringing to church.
In New Zealand at that time the L.D.S. Church was considered a wonderful church for the Maoris but not the Pakehas. As the Maoris were holding positions of leadership at the church and consequently enjoying for the first time status, they were not about to have the Pakehas come in and take them away. At least this seemed to be the case. However later I found out that they were mostly shy and seemed less sociable than they were.
Joseph and Julia Neville
Again we made many lovely friends among the Maoris and the Pakehas. For a while we went out to Mt. Manganui on the sea shore living in a Seventh Day Adventist house for a while. We were permitted to rent it as we didn’t smoke or drink and they trusted us with all their possessions while we lived there.
In the meantime, President Barnes had been released and President Craven came to take his place. He asked us if we would stay another six months which we did. A little over a month before we were asked to go down to Christchurch in the South Island to live in Manavale. An estate own by the Church for the last month of our mission. This was quite a different experience.
The Church had purchased this large piece of property partly to erect a new chapel on part of it. The large mansion on it was beautiful and really not too useful to the programs of the Church. It was being put up for sale. Since Joe was an appraiser and realtor he was asked to sort of supervise the negotiations concerning the sale.
It was old English in architecture, elegant in its massive rooms and furniture. I think it had eleven bathrooms all going out of date. There was no housekeeper but two gardeners. I managed to get a little help through some of the members. We enjoyed the experience and became acquainted with President and Sister Kjar of the South New Zealand Mission.
While in New Zealand we found it necessary to purchase a car. When it became necessary for us to leave and sell lit we found out that we could only take about fifty dollars out of the country. The car sold for more than we paid for it and we didn’t want to leave all that money behind. After thinking it over we found out that we could buy airplane tickets with the money. Then we started planning with a travel agency in Christ Church and made arrangements with the Church to give use the money when we would return home that it would cost us to fly directly home from New Zealand. So we worked out an itinerary for a rest of around the world trip home, one that would take us to Sydney, Singapore, New Delhi, Cairo, Cypress, Tel Aviv, Rome, Spain, New York and home. It sounded like a dream come true.
Our first stop was Sydney Australia, the city whose harbor reminded me so much of San Francisco, but more beautiful. Then their skyline was very modern, a tall circular building was the first one to take my attention. Then we passed the famous opera house built of concrete in the shape of many sails. Hydro plane boats, the first we had ever seen were numerous. We took a tour in one which was quite exciting and much smoother riding than an ordinary motor boat.
Here we attend church and as usual in an L.D.S. service it was just like being home.
Monday morning we took the plane to Singapore, a city close to 1,000,000 people with no semaphores and honking vehicles coming from every direction.
Julia in Singapore
We were besieged by rickshaw drivers and we finally succumbed. A trishaw is a bicycle with a passenger enclosed seat attached to its side. Feeling vulnerable to say it mildly, we rode out into the scrambled traffic entrusting our lives to two strange oriental drivers. This was one of the extremely unwise things we did. Our travel agent told us while traveling in the Asian and Indian areas to use registered guides only. Well, we were protected and through these drivers were taken to a Chinese tailoring store, which was very nice and would tailor to order any article a person wanted in twenty-four hours. Joe bought a beautiful silk shirt and insisted I order a silk suit of which I drew a pattern or picture. The tailor followed it carefully, the sewing was beautiful, the shirt was lined with silk. I can’t say it was very fashionable, but I am still wearing it.
In our hotel I noticed a large tour group crowed around a guide. We decided we would ask the hotel clerk to recommend a registered guide for us. What an inspiration! We were referred to Suzy Wong a fabulous guide who took care of us as if we were her own parents. She was Chinese and her father was a professor who was killed in the war. She knew all the temples and priests of which there were many. The guards on the border she knew and we were taken to parks, palaces, restaurants where only Chinese were the customers, with huge varieties of exotic foods. She was very reasonable as well.
In the parks monkeys were scurrying and chattering over the roads and in the trees. Again there is far too much to tell. Susy kept our tickets until we got to the airport and bid us a fond farewell. As we started out journey over to Bangkok with an English speaking guide, we saw a wonderland hard to describe of places, temples, shrines, goddesses and gods, the famous huge jade Buddha called the Emerald Buddha set in elaborate gold and red splendor, a motor launch trip up the river among the floating markets, shops and past stilted homes where boats served as buses to take people to the city. It was told us that tigers still Jabit the jungles just a small ways back from the homes.
Julia Taylor Neville on the left
After a full day of touring we returned in the evening, we spent a very interesting day watching the classical and fold dancing of Thailand. The costumes were gorgeous and the dancing superb and meticulously performed. Joe took some excellent pictures. It was so different from anything from anything we had ever seen before.
But on to New Delhi, India our next exotic spot. Both Joe and I had always wanted to see the world, but never did. I imagine being able to go to far India and all the other countries we visited. It was a long flight to New Delhi and we were happy to arrive at the Oberoi International hotel, “India’s largest and most luxurious hotel.” Our New Zealand travel agency booked us of the best hotels which we were told would be the safest since we were traveling alone.
Who could on a page or two describe a county as large as India? In the first place we would see only famous areas; New Delhi the capital and Agra when the Tajh Mahal was located. The only available transportation to Agra that would fit into our time schedule was to hire a private car with a guide who could speak English. This was arranged at the hotel and the one hundred twenty-eight mile trip was one of the most interesting and unusual rides I have ever had.
The guide was dressed in Indian style and would stop for us to take pictures, answer questions and tell us about the things we saw. He explained that the two lane road had been made by hand, natives carrying the materials in baskets. It was asphalt in structure. I ran across a note paper pad on which I had jotted down some of the things we saw en-route: women carrying water jugs on heads dress in native saris, a mother elephant with her baby, many camels, white sacred cows, rickshaws, bicycles, loaded carts drawn by what looked like water buffaloes, goats, motor bikes, an occasional car or truck-water wells a little in the distance where women were filling their jugs and by some we saw men washing their faces and bodies by splashing water over them. Hay stacks in strange shapes, something like a round tent, a man on top of a load being pulled by oxen, men carrying large loads on their heads, mud houses, some bricks, pilgrims walking to the Hold Ganges River to bathe. From the map it looks as if the source of the river is near Agra. They dip holy water in jugs and claim it doesn’t spoil, and monkeys and peacocks.
Our guide told us saris make any girl look like a queen. Families give brides several averaging $30.00 or $40.00 a piece for medium quality.
From the time we arrived in India and even on the plans we took when we left. I can’t remember of seeing any native women in hotels, on the streets or out in the county in any native women in the hotel, on the streets or out in the country in anything other than a sari.
When we arrived at the Taj Mahal and viewed that exquisite building, tears came to my eyes. I think at no other time have my emotions been affected so by a man-made structure. Our guide got some cotton over shoes which were required to be worn to protect the marble floors. The entire mausoleum took twenty-two years to build and is completely made from white marble. He showed some other people out of the building so he could explain its beauties. At right angles to the front and side were other beautiful buildings. We visited a marble emporium where artifacts were made using patterns found in the Taj Mahal. We purchased a box with inlay as a souvenir.
There is something sad about being torn too quickly from beautiful places or things knowing you are hardly tasting of what is to be seen and felt, but still so thankful for having that taste.
When we go to the airport in New Delhi we were waiting for the plane to take off and suddenly we realized that our mission as far as New Zealand was concerned was over. It was a sort of let down feeling because a missionary does have special blessings given him when he is set apart. We felt so very far away from home and our loved ones.
We weren’t even sure that we could understand the Indian English when the boarding was called. Can you believe as we were going through the gate to the plane, we were told that there was a dysfunction of the engine and that it would be necessary to send to England for the parts. An official came to gather up the passports of the passengers and we were to be taken to a hotel in mass to wait for the plane to be repaired.
One German refused. It was really something to not have a passport in a foreign land. Eventually we all surrendered out passports and were driven to the hotel. This delay really made us feel abandoned. We knew the air lines had to keep us all together so that at a minutes’ notice we could be transported to the airport. Inexperienced travelers like us could easily get lost.
Not being permitted to leave the hotel made the waiting tedious, still we were thankful the mechanical trouble was discovered on the ground. Another long flight to Cairo faced us as we were eventually shepherded to the plane.
When we were planning our trip to Cairo, we knew that we might have trouble getting a Visa as at that time the U.S. had broken off diplomatic relations with the county. We wrote and asked if we could have one and to our surprise, the government sent us one without cost. Since we had obtained our passports before the 1967 war, they were still good.
Also we were planning to visit Israel so the New Zealand agency made us two sets of tickets one to go to Egypt and on to Cyprus and one from Cyprus to go to Israel. We would not have been admitted to Israel from Egypt nor to Egypt from Israel.
Our stay in Egypt was one of the highlights of our entire trip. Arriving at the airport we were surrounded with a confusion of noisy Arab speaking people. This did not last long before we were paged and met by an official who escorted us immediately through customs to a waiting taxi to take us to the Nile Hilton where we arrived so that we couldn’t see all the various exciting and unusual sights which I shall never forget. Our room faced the Nile River and through it we could get a fine view of the city.
Without the usual U.S. tourists not present, the hotel community had fallen on hard times. We constantly reiterated that we were poor missionaries returning to our home after thirty month. But an American was rich, period. When morning came around we went down to the lobby to inquire about hiring a guide. By now we knew we couldn’t find anything by ourselves. We were introduced to a registered guide who immediately took us under his wing. His coat was clean but slightly thread bare as there were few people in the hotel and no Americans.
He names some of the celebrities he had guided among them Rockefeller, Cassius Clay (I think or was it Joe Lewis) and of the travel tickets and huge tips he had received. We always paid the required rate plus a modest tip. We toured the fancy shops where we were coaxed into buying the camel saddle which has been in our home since, for a very low price. Then we visited the bazaar of Cairo which was unbelievable. Out guide walked us down the middle of the crowded narrow streets where we had to dodge donkey pulled and had pushed carts. Just everything imaginable was for sale.
Looking from our window toward one of the intersections near the river we saw at one time, a camel, donkey cart, three cars, people carrying loads on their heads and a bus. There was a great mixture in the city of the new and the ancient.
Yes, we had a ride in a sail boat on the Nile. It didn’t look like Cleopatra’s either. It was old and manned by two men in “nightgowns” and turbans who managed the large sail in what it seemed to me in breezeless air, but miraculously it moved smoothly along past lush corn fields, three crops a year. Oxen were pulling the wheels which carried the water to the corn.
We pulled up to the shore and the sailors in their gowns got out, picked some corn, made a little tepee fire fanning with their skirts and in a short time we were presented with some roasted corn carefully wiped off with a piece of canvas from the floor. It was delicious.
Of course we saw the pyramids, even walking down into one of them also into one of a god bull which seemed from our point of view outrageous. And to cap off some of the commercialism I had my picture taken on the back of a camel, of course for a coin.
One impressive word about the desert and the Nile. Along a road paralleling the river on one side was brilliant, luxurious green growth and on the other sand. The sand had now weeds or growth of any kind stretching far into the distance.
In the part of Egypt we saw commercialism was not nearly so evident as that in Israel for instance. There was much more natural culture evident.
One interesting place our guide took us was to an ancient Coptic church which was traditionally said to be on the spot of a cave where Joseph, Mary and Jesus lived while in Egypt. Because we were Christian and missionaries, he chose this inconspicuously marked shrine. While in the area we were shown quite a few very old scrolls with ancient inscriptions written upon them. Some were written on deer skin. These were contained in a Jewish Synagogue written in 475 B.C.
In the antiquities department of the Egyptian Museum we could have spent months. One of the major exhibits was the tomb of Tutankhamen. In the museum guide book 1703 objects are listed and some described that have been received from 1823-1922 in the process of excavation and discovery.
In the U.S. during the last two years or more an exhibit of only a small portion of the beautiful artifacts has created quite a stir with great long lines of people waiting to view then.
During our many excursions with our guide, we saw the treasure of Memphis, the ancient capitol of Egypt about twelve miles south of Cairo. Also we were shown many mosques, palaces, modern and ancient homes, tall modern skyscrapers, parks and schools. One morning our guide asked me if I would like to see some “ballet” dancing. I quickly let him know that I would be delighted. So he instructed us to take a nap as we would be up late. When evening came we were escorted to a building which he said had a roof garden and café to see the performances. By then he didn’t know we didn’t drink alcoholic beverages so he did his best to get us something to drink. The awful tasting drinks we were given were terrible.
The roof garden was really a roof garden. We climbed; no elevators. When we breathlessly arrived we saw numerous cabaret tables. When we breathlessly arrived we saw numerous tables. Seated around them were families. Soon there was an announcement which we couldn’t understand that the performance was to begin. I almost fell off my chair. The ballet dancers were gorgeous belly dancers. They were experts, it appeared to me in their dancing, but how would I know?
One easily could tell the favorites by the applause. It was evidently not a tourist haunt as we were the only visitors there. Our beverage, arranged for by our guide, was terrible. We ate most of our meals at the hotel and they were excellent.
Traditionally Joseph who was sold into Egypt was so handsome that the ladies, who were eating melons when they saw him, cut their fingers unknowingly causing blood to flow.
Evidently Egyptian melons were a delicacy in ancient times and when we ate them they were the beast we had ever eaten in our time. There happened to be some Nigerians eating some at the next table and we couldn’t help smiling at their evident relish as they enjoyed them along with us. Reluctantly we left Cairo, our guide and many pleasant memories.
Our flight to Cyprus was short as well as out stay. It was interesting to imagine what the island was like when Paul visited it in his travels around the Mediterranean Sea. We tucked our tickets away which we had used to get to Cairo and brought out the ones to use to visit Israel. In Tel Aviv we found out that Palestine was a “no, no” word when we were asked why we were visiting their country. Obviously we were not up-to-date on the political scene.
Another Hilton Hotel this time with Tel Aviv attached. What a different atmosphere was there from Cairo.
We heard a great deal of English spoken by dozens of wealthy Jews who had flown in to see the spoils after the 1967 war and again sacred parts of Jerusalem which they were unable to see during the Arab occupation.
Now from our room we were able to look over the blue Mediterranean and one of its beautiful beaches which was part of the hotel’s property. Tel Aviv was a very modern city, after taking a short tour of the city; we found that we only had a reservation for one night. All efforts to extend it were fruitless; probably some wealthy person under the table bought it. Every hotel in the city we were told was booked to the limit.
Eventually the Hilton clerk located us a room in a smaller, family type hotel so that we could arrange a three-day tour of the Bible lands. Our travel agency had allowed this time in our itinerary as it was almost impossible for them to give us the necessary information for available tours. The only tour taking us to the special places we wanted to see was one on which a charted plane load of Jewish tourists, evidently with loads of money. A place was made for us, the only non Jews and at that Mormons on the bus.
The guide tried to bring in the Christian area, but the whole three days were spent learning the Jewish point of view of Palestine. It was very interesting however. We were sort of a focal points. When Jacob, a really likable soul and his wife Ruth an attractive beautifully dressed Jewess were asked question about their beliefs and ours, they would always tell us that they would have to ask the Rabbi who was with us.
When we visited the kibbutz (communal) settlement, Jacob asked Ruthie is she would be able to settle in one. “Oh, no Jacob, I could never give all our lovely things away and life like this, but I would like to come back to die in Jerusalem”. This desire was quite universal in the group. Ruthie and Jacob, they told us, had recently purchased an apartment just so many step from the synagogue in New York City.
There were several children on the bus who kept asking their parents when they could see trees. As we traveled along we passed large areas of trees which were sprinkler watered and obviously planted. These children had no doubt contributed money for reforestation. The Jewish parts of Palestine were on the whole more advanced than the Arab areas.
When we rode over Mitle Pass we saw hundred of Arab armored trucks and motorized weapons abandoned as they fled from the advancing Israelis. We visited Nazareth in the hill country, the Sea of Galilee, took a boat to Capernaum to see the ancient ruins. Mount of Beatitudes. Crusader fortress on the sea coast, Haifa, Caesarea, Roman amphitheater, all through Jerusalem, the Temple grounds, Dome of the Rock where the Arab guide carefully showed us the rock were Abraham took Ishmael to offer as a sacrifice, not Isaac. This seems to me to be the root of much of the problems between the Jews and the Arabs.
The Israel Museum, the shrine of the Book-the repository of the Dead Sea Scrolls; Jordan River. There are just too many places to tell about. All during the three days we ate kosher food which wasn’t too appetizing after a while, but had been ordered in advanced for the faithful.
As afternoon of the Friday approached some of the group began to worry for fear of not getting to their hotels before sundown, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. Our guide and driver assured us we would arrive on time which we did. If we hadn’t would be difficult as all traffic ceases, all restaurants and stores are closed. We spent the evening preparing to start home.
Our plans were to spend some time in Greece and Spain, but when we learned from some tourists who had just come from that area there were some political conventions in Greece and their reservations had been cancelled we decided it was time to go home. We had our reservation cancelled, arranged for a flight via Rome, New York, and Salt Lake City. There comes a time when a person can become satisfied. As we were crossing the Atlantic from Rome, we encountered our electrical storm which really frightened me.
To keep the passenger calm it was announced that a movie would be shown on the screen in the forepart of the plane. If we wished sound, we could obtain ear phones for $2.50 each. We paid the price but couldn’t see much of the play as some Jewish Rabbis were talking and stood up after moving their arms about in their enthusiasm over their conversations.
Again when the pilot announced the coast of the U.S. visible, I felt the strong emotion of the appreciation and love of my country. In the airport we called Joe to tell him we would be sooner than expected. How wonderful it was to get home and see most of our loved ones. Anne and family in California, and Bob and family in Arizona were missing. It didn’t take long to become active again in the ward.
We went the rounds of reporting our mission in different wards.
Joe and Evelyn during this time moved down to Palo Alto for Hoe to go to school at Leland Stanford University leaving us with just Bruce and Nancy and families. We were surely thankful to have them. Joe was getting restless. One evening in November or December, Bishop Raymond called on us and after some conversation he asked us if we would like to be ordinance workers in the Salt Lake Temple. Both he and his wife were Stake Missionaries under Joe before we went to New Zealand. We talked about the foggy and icy roads and said that we certainly would accept the call.
Finally Bishop Raymond abruptly said, “Joe, you are a missionary at heart, you would really rather preach the Gospel to the living instead of the dead, wouldn’t you?” Joe admitted that he would but hastened to add that we would be glad to go to the Temple. Bishop Raymond sad that he had wanted to call us on anther mission but thought it would be too soon.
On the last of January 1969 we received a letter from the First Presidency calling us to the Australia West Mission. Needless to say, we were excited and out lives took on a new look. We were told to report to the Mission home April 12, 1969. After a fairly short time, we received a letter from President Milton Hess, telling us of his pleasure to have us as one of his missionaries, the headquarters being in Adelaide, Australia. Already having worked with him in the Stake, as he lived in Farmington, made it even more pleasing.
The routine of preparation began. We prepared the downstairs for renting, and before we knew it we were in the Mission Home. As we were in the general assembly before being assigned to the general authority who was to set us apart. In 1969 we had the privilege of Elder Thomas S. Monson was in charge. When he came to Neville, he repeated our names and said “Neville, Pipiwai, this couple spent some time in New Zealand where there was too much water and now they are going to Australia where there isn’t enough.” He never forgot Pipiwai, nor did we.
For the second time, we were set apart and blessed by Spencer W. Kimball. Perhaps it doesn’t matter too much but we felt very happ about the opportunity.
Another long flight to Sydney then to Adelaide, Mission Headquarters. President and Sister Hess met us at the airport and graciously took us to their home until they would take us up to Broken Hill, a large mining center about 250 miles into the outback from Adelaide. It was truly out in a red soil desert, having little water and few lawns. Comparing it with the parts of New Zealand we had labored in, it was a stark contrast. The homes were built on small lots, mostly surrounded by not too high walls.
We were thrilled to find a very nice chapel similar to the ones we have in Utah. The members were proud of it. It housed a branch whose president was an official in one of the mines. The whole community was run by the mines. In order to obtain a position or job, a person had to have lived in Broken Hill far I believe it was eight years. At any rate newcomers had a hard time to find work.
One the whole the town as anti-Mormon, and those who worked in the mine were fearful of losing their jobs. There were numerous sects however, the Catholic Church was predominant. At one time almost the whole membership of the Seventh Day Adventists were converted. These former Adventists were strong members of the Church.
Our instructions were to try to strengthen the Branch, create a better image, as during the building of the chapel one of the labor missionaries was accused of immorality which can hurt the struggling membership more than anything else. We met with a similar problem in Opoticki, New Zealand. The final effort we were to make, besides trying to do active missionary work was to reactivate the inactive members. Also the president asked us to encourage members to go to the Temple.
As usual we met wonderful spiritual people. Truly the seed of Israel can be found in every land which we have visited and of curse all over the world. We witnessed and helped two families go to the Temple while we were in Broken Hill. It is very costly to go and return from Australia. On the map New Zealand looks just a short distance but it is about 2,500 miles from Broken Hill and another 1500 from Perth. It requires sacrifice-great sacrifice for the members to undertake the journey. Very few people try to go the dangerous journey from Perth to Sydney. While we were working in the New Zealand Temple one family lost a child from the heat.
Some of the people I remember most are the Harbecks, both educated cultured people with great devotion, the Osborns, who went to the Temple. Joe helped active Brother Osborn, the Ashdowns, the other couple who went to the Temple. They really sacrificed to get there, the Thourau, whose only child married a missionary while we were there; Paul Mason fell in love with their daughter, didn’t meet with her alone, asked for a transfer to be out of temptation courted her by mail, after his return home, purchased a diamond ring, came back to Broken Hill and was married by President Hess in the Chapel, then took his brined back to Utah. He said he would have swam back to get her if necessary. The Branch just loved the romance of it all.
Julia and Joseph Neville in Broken Hill Branch Chapel
I shouldn’t start mentioning names as there were so many more great people. While there, we had tow interesting exhibits. The Mission received instruction for all the branches to have an open house depicting different aspects of the Church Programs, present to now, members and investigators. The Branch Presidency went all out with the help of about every member, active or inactive. There was something in every room, the cultural hall and even the chapel. We were assigned the food storage area. President Harbeck told us not to say anything about “This is what we do in America” angle. Whenever we have been in out travels we have noticed the citizen resent such remarks. Finally we came up with the title, “The Emergency Cupboard.” The life-life in Broken Hill is the water system. It is piped from a great distance and if interrupted could be a disaster. In face everything is shipped in so we featured waster and all sort of food staples, but no clothing. The Chemist (pharmacist) was a very good friend and came to the exhibits. When he saw ours, he was really impressed. He said he was going over to the Catholic Gather and present the idea to him for his congregation to start. “Even if the rest do nothing about it I shall for my family,” he told us.
We had a good crowd as I am certain the entire show gave the Church a lift.
Austrailia is noted for its opals and collecting them for theiOpal r beauty was a hobby for our friend the chemist. I didn’t realize how many different kinds and colors there are. He showed us his collection. It was beautiful. I especially admired a light colored “opalescent” one. Later Joe talked him into buying it for me. Joe presented it to me for our fortieth anniversary. It is mounted with a ruby on either side on a New Zealand gold ring which Joe helped the jeweler design. Naturally I prize it highly. The second exhibit in which we were involved was shown in the annual Silver City Fair, which opens its door to industrial and civic displays.
Opal ring that Joseph had made for their fortieth wedding anniversary
Hearing about the fair, we started making inquiries. We visited our friend the chemist again asking for the particulars. He told us to see the manager who was his good friend to see it we could have a booth. We were happy to have assigned to us a space in a very good area. The best space the Adventists could get was outside the tent.
With the help of the other two missionaries and an inactive member who was a carpenter and some materials President Harbeck borrowed from the mine and a great deal of hard work on posters and signs, we erected a miniature theater to show “Man’s Search for Happiness”; the popular missionary film strip. Beside the film room, we had another open area with charts and posters.
We had at all time during the fair someone moving about the crowd asking the persons in the building what happiness was to them and posted their statements on a bulletin board. We had all sorts of people notice the exhibit but not too many in to see the film. The climax came when we received first award for the non commercial exhibit when, I don’t believe that one of the judges saw the film. The Search for Happiness them caught their attention.
It was a great morale builder for the Branch as it was announced in the local newspaper. In the early days I Broken Hill camels were used to haul the ore to the railroads. There was still a small Muslim Mosque or church as a reminder. A few miles outside of town were some cave drawings resembling other which we have seen in the Escalante days.
The Aboriginals in Australia are called by many “niggers”. They are not Negroid in origin. They are dark skinned, barely wavy hair and have since the Church was organized been able to receive the Priesthood. When we were in Australia there were few in the Church. A family in the branch had adopted, that might not be there term used there, a little Aborigine baby and just adored her. The child was born of a large family and the mother couldn’t care for it. This child, he adoptive mother said was very intelligent and learned faster in some respect, than her own children. The problem later could be social for form our point of view the blackness of the skin and features were not attractive.
I shouldn’t miss relating our contacts with a very special activity in Broken Hill called the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. It was started in the outback of Australia by the Reverend John Flynn appointed by the Presbyterians as first Superintendent of its Australian Inland Mission in 1912. In the performance of duty he found it impossible to get taken care of an area “as great as that of France and Spain combined.”
Tragedies of patients in the very distant and isolated tying to medical help accumulated and found out the only solution was air transport for both patient and doctor. But the problem of contact was necessary. As telephone lines would be impossible, radio had to be the answer. The development of his dream took years but now there is a program that is fantastic.
One of the Flying Doctors headquarters in Broken Hill plus the headquarters for the School of the Air program for children of families who often live as far as five-hundred miles apart. Two way radios are used. The large “stations” ranches have the equipment and with code numbers can communicate with the various flying doctor groups. Medicine chests with numbered medicine and drugs are under lock and key in homes and are prescribed by the doctor by numbers as he talks with the patient’s symptoms. If thought advisable the doctors fly out with ambulance planes to transport them to hospitals.
The natural additional use of equipment was the School of the Air. We visited this school which was most amazing. How everything was unscrambled I will never know. The students are taught various subjects by qualified teachers and assignments are made. Each student had a cod number and when a question is needed given his code number and the answer comes back from the teacher. Through this two way radio system they get acquainted with each other and special get-together events are scheduled. Hearing and watching the key boards was extremely interesting. I will enclose the booklet in my personal history book.
Just a short time before Christmas 1969 we were surprised to receive a letter from President Hess assigning us to Perth area, clear across the continent. We had enjoyed our stay of about eight months and knew we would miss our many friends in Broken Hill.
It would be necessary to fly to Perth and we would have to dispose of our accumulation of things. I am not certain whether we bought a car in Broken Hill, but I think we did and sold it to the couple that took our place. At any rate we were told when we would leave, that we were to buy one in Perth but we would not be transferred out of the area for the rest of our mission.
Flying over South Australia we saw hundreds of miles of sandy desert all along the coasts and far inland. One lonely road passes over this desert and few try to drive it.
Arriving at the Perth Airport in the evening, we were met by Bishop and Sister Johnson and taken to their home on Christmas Eve. The Johnsons were wonderful people and no one could be more hospitable. They were busy preparing the traditional Christmas Eve Carol singing activity. The custom was to drive to the area home of the “shut-ins” and sing. Quite a large number of cars came along to carry the carolers. Not being noted for my voice, I pretended to sing along with the group.
Numerous non member residents came out to listen and offered money, which of course we refused.
The next day between meetings, Bishop Johnson took us out to the beaches to show us the “competition” we had for both member and prospective members.
The story of the Johnsons going to the Temple is interesting. With a great deal of faith, they made definite plans to take their family across the desert to Sydney at a certain time. I believe their story was told in one of the Church publications.
Their home was commodious and well furnished even to having a grand piano. Much of the building having been done by the family. They saved and worked but just couldn’t come up with the price of their air transportation. This happened before we arrived in Perth. Their parents and brothers and sisters were not members of the Church and not too sympathetic with their efforts. They had sole everything they could but the piano. The last minute Sister Johnsons’ brother relented and bought the loved piano. Since the family was very musical it was a real sacrifice.
They took their van, not the modern luxury type, and started out with safeguards for the hot and dangerous trip. All sorts of problems were encountered; they made the trip, did much Temple work for their ancestors as they could staying about three weeks to accomplish it along with their own work and returned.
Seeing the piano in their home, I asked Sister Johnson about it. She replied that the Lord has so blessed them since their return that they were making more money than they had before and had bought back the piano from her brother. They were really a faithful Gospel living family. She had so hoped that we could convert her mother, whom we met and gave the lessons. She was very gracious to us, but didn’t accept the Gospel. Hopefully some day she will.
We labored for a week or two living in a flat the Johnsons found for us. It was very hot and we bought a large fan to help out. The Perth area reminded us of Southern California, with many beautiful beaches and surfers. In a short time we were transferred south to Bunbury, a famous surfer area.
Through one of the members we were able to get an apartment right on the ocean front. It was a very nice place, although rather expensive, but all housing was expensive in Australia. It was a great experience to live by the ocean hearing the waves all the time, from the Indian Ocean. During the winter storms the surf thundered and we had a hard time sleeping.
Every morning we would cross the road, go down the steps and get our morning exercise by running up and down the beach barefooted. We had bought another car and were told we would be there the rest of our mission. Again we were assigned to try to strengthen the Branch which we really tried to do. This time Hoe was Branch President and did a tremendous job. We had at least three baptisms, one in the font in Perth, and the other in the ocean, one in Bunbury and another in Busselton, a coastal town farther down the coast.
On our car we were advised to have a “roo-guard”. Kangaroos are mostly nocturnal animals and in Western Australia in our area though the gum tree forests were frequently hit by motorists. We saw quite a few.
The emu, an ostrich like bird was commonly seen. They were great runners and at one time we clocked one running along a fence line trying to get through as we drove along and he went twenty-five or thirty miles an hour as well as we could tell. They are not a pretty bird. We mailed one of their bluish green egg shells from which the inside had been blown, but it broke to piece in the trip. The beautiful black swan is indigenous to Western Australia, and is seen around waterways in many areas.
The only Koala bears we saw were in the Zoo. They were sleepy when we say them but some of our friends have pictures of them holding and cuddling them.
Now we entered into a program to activate the Branch that was progressing nicely when a surprise call from President Hess came. He was, very much upset as he had received word that we were being called to the New Zealand Temple to finish our mission as ordinance workers. Saying that he had called Salt Lake asking that another couple he had could be sent there as we were just getting and inactive Branch on its feet. He said he was told that when the President had called, he must listen. Within a few days we received our call signed by Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee and N. Eldon Tanner. It was dated May 1, 1970.
Gathering our possessions together and selling our car for practically nothing we flew over to Adelaide where we were met again by President and Sister Hess who took us around that beautiful city. It was there we saw the Koala bears. Another plane to Sydney, and then from there where we flew to Auckland, New Zealand.
From Auckland, we took a smaller plane to Hamilton where we were met by Edna and Paul Layton, long time friends from Kaysville. They were both employed by the Church. He was head of procurement for the whole area including Australia. I believe they were so gracious and had us stay with them until we could get a flat in the Temple housing complex. The Reeders had preceded us by a month and were fairly well oriented by them. Another challenging and wonderful experience for us.
As we have never done ordinance work, the first thing for us to do was to learn the different endowment ceremonies in which we were to participate. The Temple was very busy and we had to do most of our learning by ourselves. There were quite a number of Maori workers who were very efficient. One of the sisters told me that it was very difficult for her as here was the first time she had really had to work by the clock.
I think I mentioned when writing about our first experiences with the Maoris that a standard expression describing time was, “Is it Pakiha or Maori time?” Mostly the Maoris didn’t really pay attention to time. In the Temple it was different. We had long hours doing ordinances and sealing work six days a week. Saturdays we finished at about three p.m. but we had to be there at 2:30 a.m. to take care of those who came from the southern areas who had been riding by bus all day and part of the night before.
Each morning at 7:00 a.m. we had a chapel service where prayer and talks were given. When new groups of Polynesians would come, generally a testimony period would be given. From Tahiti, I remember so well their meeting which was given in Tahitian. We couldn’t understand the language, yet we could feel the Spirit so strong that we seemed to know just what these faithful natives were saying. The Church had constructed community motels for the Islanders who came to the Temple. They preferred to remain with families and friends, quite frequently they would sing all night and do their Temple work all day. They are all very musical and couldn’t imagine anyone being unable to sing.
In some instances many of the Islanders were unaccustomed to wearing shoes. The Temple required all persons to wear slippers therefore they furnished cloth ones to any who needed them.
As a rule the people who came great distances would bring their genealogical records and stay from two weeks to a month to complete their Temple work. One dear elderly sister came from Tonga, the only member of the Church in her family. When she arrived it was discovered that she didn’t have her recommend. The president of the Temple had to call to Tonga and was fortunate enough to locate the Mission President there to verify her record.
President and Sister Brown were excellent leaders and ran a very efficient and spiritual organization. We met people from all over the world, all with the same goals of living the gospel many making great sacrifices to come.
Christmas time in 1970 had several experiences for us. During December the Temple closed for cleaning and repairs giving the ordinance workers a month vacation with the exception of a few days of supervising for Joe. For Christmas Day we were invited by the President and Sister Brown along with the Laytons and the Reeders who were also from Kaysville. The President’s home is spacious and lovely, a change from the small flats housing for the ordinance workers. We really appreciated this delightful get together.
Since Christmas in New Zealand is in the summer, the holiday season almost all the people would be at the beaches, visiting relatives and friends, and touring the islands with their camping outfits. These consisted generally of tents and trailers (not luxury ones, as we have in the United States, but adequate). There are many walking trails where large numbers of back packing trips are made into the bush, mountains and glacier areas. With this time, we had a marvelous chance to see more of the country which most missionaries don’t have.
The first outing we planned was a visit to Pipiwai to see our long time friends made in our first mission to New Zealand. We wrote the Branch President, Charles Tepini telling our intentions. Immediately we received an invitation to come and stay with him. Knowing the Maoris, we decided to take out own bedding along and started out.
The countryside was beautiful as we drove the two-hundred and fifty mile journey passing through tree farms, semi-tropical forests or bush, small towns and larger Auckland, and Whangarli, being the main one. After leaving Whangarie, we had to leave the tar sealed road and travel about twenty-five miles through the “bush” on a dusty road which had considerable holiday traffic. It got dustier and dustier when finally we drove into the Tipini yard. There were numerous cars parked around and dozens of children playing on the lawn. We were enthusiastically received and taken into the house. It was around five years since we had last seen these loving people. There must have been around fifty relatives just getting ready to sit down to dinner on long tables loaded with food. A place was found for us. As screens of any kind are very rare in New Zealand, the flied large noisy ones were buzzing about. We had a wonderful time visiting. After dinner President Tipini asked us if we would like to drive to the New Chapel which was being prepared to be built five years before.
The only reason we hadn’t been to see it when it was dedicated was that I had a bad case of flu and was unable to go. Our names to speak had even been printed on the program. We had been very disappointed. At last we were to see the completed building built around a plan using the original chapel as a cultural hall with all new construction following the plan Joe had helped “Charley: to draw. It was carpeted, furnished just as any would have been in Utah.
The Relief Society room had a thick carpet and we look at it suggesting that we could sleep in the floor. Besides it was not too far from the rest rooms which had showers. President Tepeni wouldn’t hear of Elder and Sister Neville sleeping on the floor. As the school master’s wife was his relative, he had made arrangements for us to sleep in their home which was across the road. They were both Maoris. The school’s faculty consisted of the Master, his wife and Sue Lyndon, an excellent Maori certified teacher who was one of my most admired and loved friends.
Now we enjoyed out stay in Pipiwai-at the Le Horo Branch. Sunday morning we went to Church. There, we saw the congregation arriving in cars, men in suits, boy scouts in uniform with quiet dignity reigning. We were even “shushed” for talking in the foyer. Tears came to my eyes. The members thought I was touched with the beauty of the building, no, I was touched with the change in the people.
Brother Ape, when he saw us, came down from the stand to greet us and put his arms around us; then led us to the stand. He used to drink beer and play cards with Jim Adams all night when we lived in Adam’s store five years before. One thing hadn’t changes-the choir was announced to sing and came up from different parts of the chapel to take their places in the front, singing with their beautifully harmonizing voices. Perhaps they were not so much changed as we were.
In 1966 when we first arrived at the Te Horo Branch, no one could have made me believe that I would be able to love all those people with their dark, smiling faces as my brothers and sisters. The Gospel is true and will fill the earth.
Up and down the valley we traveled visiting these people being welcomed with open arms. When we got back to the Temple we would continue to see reactivated members from the Branch doing their Temple work. They had the gift of faith and even through New Zealand had socialized medicine it was the Elders who were called in time of illness.
Mary Winiata after her twelfth child was cured of cancer in its cobalt stage of treatment by administration, this in 1967. Now in 1971 she was dancing in the Maori culture group and had her thirteenth child. Our happy visit ended and we returned to Temple View.
We had always wanted to visit, the South Island Alps and the famous Milford Sound so we decided to tale a two week tour of the South Island conducted by a travel agency. Only recently had the Hiast Highway been opened so we could travel by bus. The road was unpaved and since Joe could see the sights without worrying about negotiating its winding rough path, we settled down to enjoy magnificent almost unbelievably beautiful country, hardly touched by modern tourism.
The members of the tour were from all over the world; China, United States, England, Australia and a few from New Zealand. Most were wealthy, but us. Two weeks can make it possible to be fairly well acquainted with the diverse passengers. The Chinese couple became somewhat interested in the Gospel and we had some good conversations. They were Christians and had evidently suffered quite a bit of opposition to their religion. Christians were Christians and they couldn’t understand the difference. They were particularly interested in buying jewels and in the cities visited jewelry stores.
Actually we didn’t seem to make much of a dent on our fellow passengers religiously, but we made some interesting friends. As we traveled along toward the glaciers, we learned that it was possible to ride a small ski plane over and around them and even land on them. Joe was immediately converted. I was decidedly not. However when the time came I felt that if he were to be killed I had better go along, as I didn’t want to be left alone. So, on arriving at the St. Joseph glacier I boarded this small plane with Joe, camera in hand prepared to take the once in a lifetime pictures of glaciers, rugged, jagged mountains and white bluish glaciers.
Moaning with fear, I didn’t have the comfort of holding Joe’s hand; he was taking pictures. Climbing out of the plane on glaciers he did hole my hand while someone else took our picture-I have positive proof of that. Yes, we survived, but I have never been the same since.
Our trip to Mt. Cook, the highest peak in the Southern Alps was next. Here we had a luxurious hotel motel to rest in. We saw the moon rise over the snow covered mountains which were very beautiful. The daytime view was equally impressive. Leaving Mt. Cook, we climbed and climbed up to the Haast Pass, with breathtaking views of the Tasman Sea far below. I can’t remember passing any traffic for hundreds of miles as we descended into the Milford Sound area. The approach was through a canyon where small and large waterfalls were cascading down the steep mountain sides. The Sound itself was unique. We were told that the water was so deep in places, bottom hadn’t been found.
An interesting boat trip followed as we went in and out around the perpendicular cliffs which jutted out of the deep water. It was cold and windy but we stayed on deck taking pictures not wanting to miss seeing this country which we probably would never see again. Driving out of the Sound we visited the gold mining country of New Zealand-Yes, it was really like the old west home as far as appearance-ghost towns included. However one river flowed through part of it near Alexandra which was the blue green color of melting glacier streams, of which it was one.
After that area we came to the wheat growing part of New Zealand which is not extremely large as compared to ours here, but interesting. Before going much further we visited Invincargill-the farthest south city in New Zealand. Then on to Bluff, the port where we booked a steamer to Steward Island to the south which had a few homes and estates, but no towns or highways.
Here we took pictures of an elderly lady whose home was surrounded by a beautiful lawn which she was mowing plus cultivated luxuriant gardens which only New Zealand can produce which led up to a point where we could view the ocean.
Warm currents keep this far south island with Mediterranean temperatures. Boarding the steamer, we remarked that we had visited both the most northern and southern tops of lovely New Zealand. We shall never forget it.
My words certainly do not do it justice. It was time now to go back to the Temple and finish our work there. Our work there was very rewarding and we became acquainted with islanders and people from Australia and other countries as well as the New Zealanders themselves. The temple workers were so kindly and helpful.
One day I broke my toe which was painful and made me have to wear a large white slipper as I did my work. Several of the Maori sisters decided to help me by soaking my foot in specially prepared herbal water. Wishing to express my appreciation I bought them each a box of chocolates as I had noted they were very fond of them. The reaction was disconcerting as the said “Oh, no! No pay for doing something for a missionary, Oh no!” Finally I persuaded them it was just like giving a card of appreciation. Cards were given in New Zealand for every conceivable occasion.
In our court for Temple workers lived an unusual Maori couple by the name of Penie. The husband was blind from birth and the wife had a club foot. We were told that an early custom was to have the chief of the tribe to arrange the marriage, pairing couples according to their needs. She could see to care of him who could not. Ne was an ordinance worker being able to go to the Temple himself and manage to adequately do the required work. She worked as a cook in the Temple cafeteria. They were both talented singers and she wrote songs and poetry.
The day came when we were to say goodbye and go home. Temple workers were never excused from their duties for anything like a farewell. Early, about 5:00 a.m. we heard the workers serenading us. Sister Penie presented us with gifts of love that morning which touched us deeply. They sang and sang. What a lovely farewell.
Having always had a great desire to visit the ancient ruins in Mexico and Central America Joe and I had made some plans to go home via Tahiti and Mexico City and do just that.
It was pouring heavy rain as we boarded the huge plane which was to take us over the longest water flight, they told us that commercial plane flew east now instead of west we flew until we came to spectacular Tahiti. Out hotel was luxurious, the service unusually good the surrounding were tropical. Evening entertainment was furnished with colorful, exotic Tahitian singers and dancers. It is a land of contrasts.
Most of the people seemed to be poor as we toured the main island the morning after we arrived. Yes, the scenery with its green steep mountains protruding from the sea, but we couldn’t help noticing the dingy looking buildings and poor appearing natives in the town. Of course the tourist area was elegant. We had expected to spend just one night in Tahiti, but were told of the hotel that a terrific wing and dust storm was in progress in Mexico around Mexico around Mexico City and Acapulco where we were heading and that our flight had been detained.
This gave us two more nights of entertainment and days of sightseeing at the expense of the airline-well, not the extra trips away from the hotel. However, we were anxious to be on our way home as Joe was not at all well, his diabetes was bothering him. The night we arrived in Mexico City and got settled in our hotel, it was obvious that he was really sick. At last he said he was sorry, but felt he would have to go straight home. It was naturally a disappointment for both of us as the trip in Mexico and Central America was to be a dream come true.
I phoned the airport asking for passage on the earliest plane into either Los Angeles or San Francisco. The first plane was scheduled for the next afternoon. Joe was really unable to make the necessary arrangements to get home. The next morning we had breakfast on the roof garden of our hotel and I cancelled all our reservations.
As I sat in the hotel, I thought perhaps we could go to the famous museum and spend out waiting hours there. I got a taxi and we drove through Mexico City, which is a beautiful and interesting city to be in. When we got there I inquired at the information desk about engaging an English speaking guide. We were fortunate in finding an excellent one who was very considerate of Joe, taking us to a general point of interest then have him sit down while he explained the various objects. He was kept busy shooing away tourists who were trying to get the service for free. It was really quite amusing.
The museum was fabulous and had hundreds of fascinating ancient articles pointing out the culture of the ancient Mexicans as well as Mayan culture. There was one exhibit in miniature of almost all the ruins we had hoped to see. We spend about four hours there. I don’t think Joe got much out of it as he would have just sitting there leaning on the Maori Chieftain stick he was carrying which had been given to him by one of our Maori friends.
We then went out to the Airport to wait for our plane. Dad wasn’t able to take care of the tickets of luggage. I found I could do a few things myself, but it was hard to see Joe so sick. I was afraid I would have to hospital him there, but asked the Lord to help get us home. To show how much Joe wasn’t himself. I went to the restroom for a few minutes and when I came out he didn’t see me. I walked over to the desk a minute and found him crying, thinking I was lost.
Eventually, we boarded the plane where the stewardess could see he was sick and very helpful. All he wanted was ice to suck, and ice water. I thought we would never get to Los Angeles where we had to change planes. Joe insisted on calling Bruce to meet us. Evidently he didn’t sound too good to Bruce on the phone as he called Nancy and Drew to come too. As soon as he saw Joe, he took him up straight to the Clinic to be examined and not go home first. It was so good to see the children and have their help. He took him up to be examined even though it was past midnight.
It turned out that he could be treated orally without having to take insulin and so started his excellent treatment by Bruce which brought his diabetes under control. We arrived home the first part of April, 1971. Joe continued to improve but was not completely well.
Since we had not seen Joseph T. and family for a long time, we decided to go to Maryland in time to see Joseph M. graduate from High School. Joseph W. wanted to drive, but Bruce told him he wasn’t that well yet. Like a good patient he followed the doctor’s advice and we flew back to Silver Springs, Maryland and had a fine visit with Joe, Evelyn and family.
As usual they were gracious hosts but Dad really wasn’t interested in going sightseeing, but Evelyn and I did quite a bit as she knew Washington D.C. like a book. I really enjoyed our excursions. The whole area back there was beautiful as well as historical. In due time we returned and then began to wonder if we would be called to work in the new Ogden Temple which was due to open for ordinance work the first of the year after the training of the workers and the dedication would be over.
Since we had been called to work in the New Zealand Temple, we wondered if part of that was to be prepared to work in Ogden. Rumors had been around that no persons over seventy would be called and we were both seventy-one. Also we had heard from one of the Stake Presidents there that only temple workers who would be able to accept change would be called. Having just came from a mission field where we had been extremely busy the thought of being “shelved” was hard to take.
Nevertheless, in September we received a letter asking us to meet the new Temple Presidency for an interview. We were happy and felt honored to be called which we were after the interview. As it is well known now, the Ogden Temple along with the other new Temples have quite a different construction requiring new methods of handling those who come for endowment work. However the ceremonies, of course, are the same. We had several meetings of instructions. The actual training couldn’t begin until after the dedication.
We had one meeting in the Temple to become acquainted with the physical plan of the different and assigned to act as guides in the public open house to be held.
This experience and ones that followed during the time we worked there were important and pleasurable to us and we considered them to be a blessing even when at times we became tired. Temple work is not just standing around being pleasant and helpful. It was impressive to be present when it was dedicated and to see and hear President Joseph Fielding Smith deliver the dedicatory prayer. After this we were assigned to four different shifts.
Joe, having had quite a great deal of experience in training was asked to take charge of the second and third floors. Since I was his wife I was to take care of the sisters. Throughout our work in the Temple we worked together in our assignments, which was another blessing to have had.
We have always been compatible and during the last two years before we first went to New Zealand, I would go with Joe on his appraisal assignments, to Arizona in the winter and Colorado in the summer. Twenty-four hours a day could be a test on the love for each other of any couple. We seem to pass with flying colors. As far as I know neither of us wanted to vacation alone.
Joe was assigned from one department to another to help in the efficiency of running the Temple and I was given to the supervision with the sisters. It was a matter of convenience as couples were used together. It was where Joe was needed which determined my position. I loved working with him, but wasn’t always the best person that could be chosen. This lasted until the latter par of 1972 when Joe heard that his name had been submitted to the First Presidency to be made a sealer.
At this time he was have serious trouble with his ankle which he had broken slightly while in Australia but was not discovered by the doctor there. Arthritis had set in and the bone was badly affected. The Ogden specialist would not attempt surgery because of his diabetes so Bruce sent him to a specialist at the University of Utah Medical Hospital who agreed to operate.
The possibility of being a sealer was very important to him so he postponed the operation until he should receive word whether or not he had been accepted. When word came to meet President Harold B. Lee in his office December 11th with his wife, he was very pleased and honored. There was one other couple in his office for the same reason. They were not ordained, but had the sealing power conferred upon them to seal in the Ogden Temple “in behalf of both the living and the dead.”
This cannot be conferred by any other than the President of the Church. Each blessing received was very different from the others. Joe’s was very suitable and appropriate for him. It was a choice experience for both of us to meet with President Lee on this occasion.
Within a few days he was in the hospital to have his ankle fused. The operation was successful with no apparent complications. This required that he wear a cast from his groin to his foot which was hard for Joe to tolerate. He was home for Christmas and as soon as he could have the cast shortened enough to bend his knee he was back to the Temple to learn the sealing ceremony. I was the chauffer and since I had not driven while we were on our missions, I felt very unsure of myself. We only went in the day time.
After he had memorized the ceremony I again was placed with him. I did some of the secretarial work in the sealing office. Office work was never a strong point for me, but with plenty of time I was able to do the necessary typing and arrangements of the lists for sealing for the shifts we were on. The necessary typing was to make out record cards not the long Temple lists of names of the dead to be sealed.
During the time Joe was a sealer which was about two and a half years, I had many faith promoting experiences working with the proxies who came to do their family work and seeing the joy they had to be able to accomplish it.
One day as I was working at the ceil, and elderly sister was waiting to be taken through for her own endowments and whispered to me that this was the happiest day of her life as she would be able to see her family united at last. I told her that I hoped my husband would be able to do the sealing. We then parted. When I was talking to Joe on the way home, he said “I had a most interesting sealing to night.” He then proceeded to tell me this sister’s story. It seemed she had been looking for a church for years that could unite families. Before the death of her mother she was a Catholic, she told her daughter that some day she would find a church that could unite the family. She lived just out of Chicago and had been inquiring about the teachings of different churches. One day while looking for names and addresses of churches in the newspaper, she was forcibly attracted to one the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. No address was given. After making inquires someone told her the Church was in Salt Lake City, Utah. She immediately wrote a letter to Salt Lake asking if the Church united families.
Anyone who knows anything about missionary work could tell you the answer was yes, it was one year from her baptism that indeed her family was united. She had brought with her the necessary names and Joe had the privilege of performing the sealings.
Joe loved his work in the Temple and people loved him. As I relate this experience I would like to testify that I too loved my work in the Temple. It was a great experience of us. While working there we had a vacation once a year during the renovation period. Generally we would take Gay along.
Three interesting ones, I remember, were a trip to Glacier National park, a trip down to Glen Canyon Dam, taking another boat trip through the beautiful scenery and finally sentimental journey to see and take pictures or the different house we had lived in. Unfortunately many of them were no longer to be found. Really after a span of forty-eight years we could hardly expect the earlier homes to still be intact.
We took pictures of the homes where Joe first courted me as well as the one from which I was married. The one on H Street was still there but remodeled. One of the houses in Cedar City was still standing, but the other was torn down near the College of Southern Utah.
We found three of the ones we lived in, in Escalante, the Davis home, the Liston home and the King home. We visited with the Spencer’s who lived across from the Kings. Andrew Spence was one of Joe’s companions in the Eastern States Mission. We traveled up to Posey Lake, where we say the spring and the remains of the little cabin with the old frames for our tent. The area was as beautiful as we remembered.
We found the Madison duplex which we used as a trade in one our present home for which I am indeed grateful. Last of all we visited Gunnison, Colorado where we spent at least two delightful summers where Joe appraised the land on the Gunnison River which is not covered by a large dam.
Speaking of Dams, Joe appraised all the surrounding land that was covered by the Glen Canyon Dam. Most of his appraising had to be done by helicopter because of the inaccessible and rugged country. We saw it in all of its stages. The movie, “The Greatest Story Ever Told” was filmed on the bottom of the lake before it was started to be filled. The producer wanted an area that could never be duplicated. There were camels and sheep, a place for John the Baptist, to baptize Jesus. Indians were used for Arabs.
Cypress trees were made from trimmed Cedar trees nailed to stands which were moved where needed and all sorts of Biblical looking “props” even a simulated Temple wall. Not long after the filming water came in and the setting is on the bottom of Lake Powell.
During the spring of 1975 after what seemed to them an extended courtship, Valerie and Win decided to be married. As Joe and Evelyn were living in Maryland, it was uncertain where they were to have the wedding ceremony. Eventually they decided to be married in the Ogden Temple asking Joe to perform the marriage.
I am certain that he was hoping but not daring to expect to have that privilege. We had a shower for Valerie at our house inviting the family. With her parents so far away Lee Gurr offered to help and arrange to have the reception in the Oakridge County Club of which she was a member.
Evelyn and Joe had a wedding breakfast at Bruce and Beth Ann’s home. Everything was lovely. The ceremony was impressive and Joe just beamed as he performed it. It was a great source of happiness to him.
Shortly after the marriage of Valerie and Win, Bruce was talking to Joe noting how thrilled he was that he would be doing the same thing for the rest of his grandchildren, but he said “no” not elaborating further. I did not hear him say that, however. Unfortunately he was unable to seal any of the others. Less than one month later he left me. Whether Joe had a premonition of his death I do not know. A few other things that I remember in retrospect indicated that he did.
Early in the spring, he decided to organize the things in the garage which I had urged him to do for a long time. There was nothing that I even mentioned to improve the yard that he didn’t make a direct effort to accomplish. He had always tried to please me in every way but now he seemed doubly anxious to do so. There was sort of urgency about him.
He blocked paved the patio and made two planters, one on the south of the house in front of the railing and one around the rose garden on the east side of the driveway. He decided we were to have a new car. Always being interested in new types of cars, he was attracted to the American Motors deluxe Pacer with its many attractive features and insisted that I go with him to try it out knowing my preference for automatic drive, the new car mush have it and everything else for easy driving. Normally he did not enjoy having me drive when he was in the car, but after we purchased the Pacer, the first thing he did was to literally make me learn to drive it, which was a surprise to me.
Even in our reading together he would ask me what I would like even though the material might be very familiar to him. After working very hard in the yard, on May 16, 1975, he suggested we go to the Kaysville Theater to see a movie which he had heard was good. When we got home, he changed into his pajamas and robe, had some ice cream and we settled down to do some reading in the History of the Church. Suddenly he said, “Julia, I feel faint” and fell from the chair to the floor. Needless to say I was terrified. I rushed to the phone and called Bruce. The line was busy: I went back to the library to Joe and he was still in the same position. I was frantic. I then called Dr. Amano and he got a hold of Bruce who came right over. I really didn’t think of death but did think it might be a stroke. Bruce made a short examination and said, “Mother, he is gone.”
What I would have done without Bruce, I don’t know. I am eternally grateful for what he did that night and after to help. He called the mortuary, the Bishop, Nancy, Joe, Anne and Bob. Bishop Felt came over. I was in a state of shock. Not bearing to see him taken from the house I went into the bedroom as he was carried out.
With the help of the Bishop, arrangements were made for the funeral service. After Bruce and Beth Ann left, Nancy and I went to bed. Neither of us could sleep, so I brought out the Patriarchal blessings of the family, as many as I had, and we read them all beginning with Joe’s. Somehow it was a comfort to me and also revealing to see how the spirit of inspiration works as they are given. Everything possible was done to help me. All our children were so helpful. A large crowd came to the viewing including many of the Temple workers. President Halverson from the Temple spoke and it all seemed unreal to me.
As time goes on, and it does; I begin to realize how blessed Joe was, not to have become senile or helpless, dying when was vibrant and happy working in the Temple and enjoying the family. Over four years later now it still hurts. I appreciate the scripture: “Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither is the woman without the man, in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 11:11. My hope and faith is that we shall be together again.
After Joe’s death, life for me changed almost completely. We had always been companionable, never wanting to go on vacations or out socially without each other. For at least ten years, we had been companions and sweethearts twenty-four hours a day. When Joe began appraising full time and I had retired from teaching, I would accompany him on his assignments most frequently to Phoenix in winter and Gunnison, Colorado in the summer.
Then we were called in the later part of 1965 to the New Zealand Mission where we spent thirty months. After being home for about nine months, we were called to the Australian Mission where we spent about fifteen months and from there to spend nine months in the New Zealand Temple, returning to Utah in April 1971.
Then we flew back to Maryland to visit Joe which was a treat as we hadn’t yet seen him since our return. On our return we were called to serve in the Ogden Temple, where we worked together until Joe’s death. A sort of daze encompassed me when one day I was asked to come back to the Temple as an ordinance worker. It was my salvation, however returning brought poignant memories. I had to force myself to visit the sealing department where the sealers greeted me so sympathetically. I began to face reality. It was not too long before I knew I couldn’t cope with the house, the yard and the rental house next door.
The automatic sprinkling system suddenly refused to work properly and water spurted out from a connection in the far end of the lot. I didn’t even know how to turn it off or where as Joe had taken care of such things all the time. Fortunately, my dear friend and neighbor, Melvin Hughes was home, it was nearly dark, but he knew where and turned it off. The next morning he spent a great deal of time trying to repair it. I kept telling him I would call Ogden and get help, but he said he was looking for a valve which he thought was causing the trouble and kept looking in spite my protests. Finally the back door bell rang and there he stood saying “It’s fixed, Joe and I fixed it.” He told me Joe showed him where the valve was. It was in a very hard place to find.
From that time on I had a strong feeling that I should sell the place. I knew that no one so soon after such a shock should make important decisions; still I felt the pressure to put the whole property up for sale. Drew was a realtor at the time and I asked him to sell it. The Wilhelmsens were renting the little house and Drew asked them if they would like first chance to buy it. It was a good buy according to the market around here and I had many people interested. However, I was happy when Roger and Cally decided to buy it as they are really a very nice couple. This was October 1975.
Then the period of showing the house was a nightmare. I had numerous offers but none were conclusive for buying something else. I looked and looked at homes and condominiums and became more and more confused. I had a good chance to trade for a condominium but panicked. I called Bishop Felt and asked his advice. He was very understanding but said it wouldn’t be right for him to make the decision.
I asked if he wouldn’t come over and talk to me and perhaps help me see more clearly. He graciously came over and listened. Finally he asked me what the alternatives were and when I would go if I sold it. I told him as I saw it; it would mean a condominium or an apartment. He asked me it that was what I really wanted to do. I answered with a definite “no”. “That being the case,” he said, “we shall see what we can do to help you until you can see more clearly what to do.” As a service project for the priests of the ward, it was agreed that they would take care of the yard for one year and they did, bless their hearts. I suddenly felt as if a great burden was lifted from my shoulders. It was really an ambitious project which included much physical work for the boys and their leaders, much more than just cutting the lawn. The drainage system was broken and clogged in the lot next door and other problems arose. I still love the boys and men who were so good to me.
In the later part of 1975 our dear friends the Featherstones were called on a mission to Nauvoo, Illinois as guides at the Visitor Center. I was so happy for them and it turned out to be a great blessing for each of them. Whenever any of my friends are called a pang of envy comes over me wishing that I also could go with Joe on another mission-perhaps someday.
It was in 1975 that Anne and Bob moved into their new home on Mt. Carmel Drive in Claremont, California. During the school year of 1975, at BYU Joe met Mary Jane Gardner, a lovely girl from Logan, Utah. They chose December 27 for their marriage. Joe and Evelyn came to stay with me for Christmas with their family which I enjoyed very much. Unfortunately on the day of the wedding in Logan, I had a really painful muscle spasm which put me to bed. I couldn’t raise my head even. It was a great disappointment for me not to be able to attend the wedding. An in 1975 ended its eventful year.
1976-Early in the year there were to be two great grandchildren born and blessed. Valerie Jordan gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, her first child on the nineteenth of January. It was a great event, Win’s parents coming clear form Tennessee to be present on the day of its being blessed and named. A large group was present on February the sixteenth. She was named Kendra. On the twenty-sixth of January the next year Mary Jane Neville gave birth to a handsome baby boy, another great event. We went down to Provo to be present at his being blessed and named. Joe and Mary Jane decided on the name of Jeremy.
During 1976 Bruce and Beth Ann went to Thailand to bring Roark home from his mission. They had a very interesting trip and were thrilled to have their son home again.
Both Jared and Kent received their Eagle award during the year.
On Memorial Day we had a gathering at Bruce’s home which we called “Remembering Grandpa Day.” Many of the grandchildren and their parents were there. We placed a microphone in the middle of the room where we were sitting and turned it on. Each one was to tell their remembrances. At first there was a certain reticence, but before long we were enthusiastically recalling experiences from early childhood of our children through his life including the grandchildren. The resulting tape is a treasure to me.
For some time I had been having trouble with my eyes as cataracts were forming in both of my eyes. I first noticed a change in them when we were in New Zealand. I was told one was starting in my right eye. The ophthalmologist suggested I wait until I get home, which would be about six months and then go to a good eye doctor. However, I found some confusion in mu vision and the Reeders suggested that I go to an optometrist who had been trained in England. He examined my eyes and explained about how cataracts act and told me he could make me some glasses that would help. He said when cataracts start the shape of the eye changes. Well, the glasses were wonderful and helped for three years and I finally went to Dr. Wynn Richards whom Bruce recommended and he took care of them from then on.
By May my vision was deteriorating to the point that it was interfering in my reading names in the Temple. He told me when cataracts begin to affect your activities was the time for surgery. One day I found that I was making mistakes in reading and so I resigned on the spot just two weeks before the day that he had scheduled surgery for June 30, 1977. It is a traumatic experience to have eye surgery. After all one only have two eyes.
Everything went well and I was released from the hospital with the understanding I would have the second eye done in about six months. In August Jeanne announced her engagement to John Lingard, a fine young man she had met at the University of Utah. To all the exciting preparations were again in swing for her marriage later in the month. The shower and tying the quilt was held at our home. It is a delightful experience to meet together as a family and visit, open gifts and meet the groom. Then on August 26, 1977 the marriage took place in the Salt Lake Temple. A lovely reception was held at her home that evening.
Joe and Evelyn invited Gay and me to come to Maryland to visit them. How wonderful they treated us. Joe took time off his work and drove us to all the important historical places around Washington, Maryland and Virginia. Through part of the time Anne Marie and her friend were with us as well as Gloria Broadbent. We were entertained as well as educated with a better appreciation of our historic past as well as the present political situation.
Another wedding was to be performed this time in Arizona. Bob’s daughter, Julie married Lennie Greer in the Arizona Temple. Bruce and family, Anne and family and other relatives of the two families (bride and groom) were attending. Lyda and I were the two grandmothers on Julie’s side. Previous to the wedding, the aunts of Julie had a lovely shower for her at Bruce’s home. Maxine had planned an exceptionally beautiful reception in a center especially constructed for formal receptions. I enjoyed the whole affair flying home shortly after.
In September Brett was called on a mission to Finland, reported to have a request for the country with the hardest language and coldest climate. He left for Finland in October. He, as well as Joe, Scot, Roark fulfilled fine honorable missions.
A sad ending to 1976 was the death of a dear friend Melvin Hughes. No one could have had a better neighbor. There was nothing that he would stop at to help anyone. Joe had given him the missionary lessons and baptized him. He was one who fixed the sprinkling system after Joe’s death. I was asked to give a tribute to him at his funeral. It was one of the most emotional experiences which I have had. It was also the first funeral I had attended since Joe died.
1977-Through January, February and March my activities were more or less routine, working in the Temple and trying to make an active life for myself. Then came the announcement that Jan was engaged to Don Harris and was planning to be married on the twenty-ninth of April. She was attending B.Y.U. at the time and was to graduate before going home.
The aunts and I had then now become traditional to have a shower at our home. It was really lovely for me to have it for her. Of course I went down to the festivities in California. They were married in the Los Angeles Temple as planned. Bruce and family and Bob and part of his family came over for the wedding and reception. Anne and Bob had a beautiful home wedding out on their patio and lawn. A large number of friends and relative attended.
Julia Taylor Neville, Laguna Beach, California, about 1977
Joe and Evelyn came to Utah at October Conference time to find a place to live as they were on assignment for the government for a rather indefinite time. They left David and Jared with friends. We had an enjoyable visit with them. However, David had a serious accident on his leg just after they left to go home which was frightening to them. He was hospitalized and his let was in a cast for weeks.
The next family wedding was in the offering. Scot announced his engagement and plans to be married on the 21st of October, 1977. Another shower was held at Bruce’s which was very lovely. I was unable to attend their wedding which was held in the Mesa Arizona Temple.
On the 27th of November Julie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl whom they Mary Ann. She has been such a delight to Maxine and Bob. Not to be outdone, Valerie gave birth to another darling baby girl on the 12 of December 1977. I went down to Provo to see he blessed and named Kimberly.
On December 8th, we were shocked to hear that Stacy had been in an automobile accident resulting in very serious breaks in her legs. She was hospitalized for weeks in traction and spent Christmas there. Fortunately she recovered but with quite a deal of scarring.
Again I would like to emphasize the importance of the family and its importance to the plan of salvation. At present the Church is reiteration with more force its place in out progression.
We ended 1977 with our traditional Christmas Eve party which I look forward to every year.
Julia Taylor Neville’s Patriarchal Blessing
Salt Lake City, Utah, January 14, 1919
A blessing given by Hyrum G. Smith, Patriarch, upon the head of JULIA TAYLOR, daughter of Ezra Oakley Taylor and Ida Whipple Taylor, Born August 6th, 1900 at Salt Lake City, Utah
Sister Julia Taylor: By virtue of the Holy Priesthood and according to thy desire, I place my hands upon thy head and give unto thee a blessing, which I pray the Lord to direct that it may be a comfort and a benefit unto thee throughout this life because of thy faithfulness. The Lord has had a tender watch care over thee ever since thy birth and He has blessed and preserved thee in health and in virtue, and has given thee and important mission which it will be thy privilege to live and fulfill, and to enjoy the blessings as they have been promised under the New and Everlasting Covenant unto the chose daughters of Zion in these last days. Thou are of the lineage of Ephraim and although in thy youth, thy name is written for good in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And if thou wilt continue to be humble and prayerful, observing the teaching of thy parents, keeping thyself pure in thought and deed, letting thy habits be free from the follies of the world, the Lord will preserve thee from thine enemies, both the seen and unseen, and will yet give unto thee precious opportunities to work out thy righteous desires and to fulfill thy mission in honor. Therefore, strive to live worthy of these blessings; let they teachings and thy habit be worthy of emulation, for it will be they privilege to stand up as a teacher, to defend the Truth, and thine associates, both young and old will honor thy teachings and bless thee for they words of comfort and confidence and in the use of thy time and talents, studying also thy strength and going not beyond thy physical powers, but observing the laws of Nature and the Word of Wisdom; that thy hours of work and thy hours of sleep may be well proportioned. Continue also to be humble and prayerful before the Lord, and thou shalt be comforted in the discharge of thy duties through the whisperings of thy guardian angel, which will come unto thee as a Still Small Voice, and doubts will be removed from thy mind through this source. It will be thy privilege also through faithfulness, to receive thy blessings in the House of the Lord, and to enjoy the blessings as they have been promised unto the honorable mothers of Israel. Be faithful, therefore, in the performance of thy duties, and the Lord will comfort and sustain thee even unto the end of thy days.
This blessing I seal upon your head through thy faithfulness and seal thee up again the posers of the destroyer to live and finish thy mission upon the earth, and to come forth in the Resurrection of the Just with thy kindred and loved ones, by virtue of the Holy Priesthood and in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
LETTERS WRITTEN BY JULIA TAYLOR NEVILLE
Letter from Spencer W. Kimball to Joseph and Julia Neville
March 22, 1949
Dear Brother and Sister Neville,
It was so kind of you to have us in your home again, to a delightful hour and a splendid meal; to enjoy the association with your guest and your incomparable family. Realizing I was coming back to your Stake and would probably see these splendid sons, I wondered how much they would have developed, and they have not disappointed me. They seem to be stalwarts, strong and progressive. It is a delight to see them developing so well, and your lovely daughters also, must make you proud of them, too.
Please accept our since thanks, and with kindest wishes,
Faithfully yours, (signed) Spencer W. Kimball
Letter to Julia Anne Neville Gustaveson, when Barbara was born, from Julia Taylor Neville with information about the other grandkids
September 29, 1959
Dear Anne, Bob,
Congratulations on a new daughter (Barbara). Immediately I have the urge to run to see you but the school would howl if I went, traveling again so soon.
In the first rush of relief and delivery you sounded thrilled. I do hope the baby is good and Anne gets along O.K. The stark reality of taking care of a new baby with two others can be overwhelming. I am mailing the dress and a Norwegian cheese knife that we brought from Norway. The handle was made by the Lapps. It really slices cheese from a largish piece nicely.
Today I am going to the doctor to have the stitches removed. I washed the breakfast dishes this morning to see how I was coming along. It too all I had so I guess I am weaker than I imagined.
Bruce seems somewhat better but I don’t think he know what is wrong with himself. Evelyn and Joe said Jared seemed to be improving. He is crawling now. His eyes will have to be operated later in.
Jeff is playing the piano and is all over the place. I imagine he will be walking before long.
Bruce’s kids are a handful but really cute.
Chris is growing away like Jeff. He is going to be a big one.
Did anyone tell you Dad grew a beard while we were away? I suppose I did because I dislike it so much.
We are glad Bob is enjoying his work so much and hope all goes along well with him.
Take as good care of yourself as you can.
With love, Mother and Dad
Letter written from Julia and Joseph Neville from her mission in New Zealand (hand written by Joseph Neville)
Dear Anne and family,
Just a word to say hello and hoping you are well and true to the faith. Also a favor to ask. Did Christy ever receive a letter from Sandra Michael?
P.O. Box 90. Opatiki, New Zealand.
She is 8 years old and a Standard 2 school.
These Michael’s are a fine family of investigators and one of the children, if Christy does not want to might help the good along. Also put an Air Mail stamp on the letter it takes so long by surface.
Sent you a clipping from the local paper by Air Mail Second yesterday with a notation whether we ever sent you a copy of the annual we gave to the Mission President. Mother thinks we did, I can’t remember if I sent it off. Just after discovering your letter that Carl was going to be operated we received a telegram marked Urgent. Mother of course was scared, but it turned out that it was a telegram from the Mission President asking me to be his Special Representative at a Rotary meeting where Richard L. Evans, the Rotary Club president was speaking. Mother is having a hard time with her directions and keeping shiayle, which is north. It doesn’t seem logical to her to be looking at the sunset on the Pacific Ocean to be looking east and that the sun is to the North of us. The only constellation in the skies that I can recognize is Orion which shows strongly over head. It seems to me the skies leave more stars in the in the Northern Hemisphere.
(next part, hand written by Julia Neville)
We are settling down now, but still have two elders with us who will be leaving Friday. I have started a new home Primary and a R.S. There are so few members I really don’t know how they will turn out. It is a very difficult experience here and just as challenging.
We hope Christy is O.K. also Carl and the rest of you.
With love,
Mother and Dad
Letter from Joseph and Julia Neville from their Mission to New Zealand
May 30, 1967
J and J Neville Report
Unrehearsed and uncopied
Typed by Joseph William Neville Jr.
May has been an enjoyable month in receiving news from the home front this is most likely as to Mother’s Dad and Dad’s birthday-It helps a lot, and we are most grateful for the respect you have for us. We look back and we can see where we made mistakes and feel with the help of the Church gives today perhaps we could have done a better job. However we feel that the Lord answers prayers and our first marriage night we prayed for choice spirits and have prayed since for blessings upon them and their posterity. Joe wrote us about a Temple session, a solemn occasion, and one of the couples said his son had written them about such an assembly in the St. George Temple. In this connection we were reading the Book of Joel Chapt 1: 14 & 15 was very interesting. Chapt 2 vs. 3-6 sounds like modern warfare and the last 4 verses contains scripture quoted by Moroni to Joseph Smith. We celebrated my birthday twice-literally and by proxy. Literally we spent the day in moving to new quarters. By proxy we went to the circus last night. About three weeks ago we got notice to be out of the house by May 29th. The owners were coming home to celebrate their daughters 21st birthday-It is a Maori home and do they celebrate. Before moving I answered the phone and the party calling said she expected Polly to answer but tell her leaving Sunday, there she was coming with a bus load of 40 people-and that is just a starter. We advertised in the paper and got our friends working for us and prayed about it and we had the choice of places ranging from L4 to 15 pounds per week, a pound is equal to about $3.00 our money. We met quite a few people this way and perhaps have located some investigators at lease some call backs.
I do not know how we accumulate so much stuff but I got a sore back from moving or coincidental with the moving. We are moved into a flat that is part of a large old farmhouse (80 plus years). The main part of the house is lived in by the owners of the farm named Tom Steele. Our new address is P.O. Box 252, Opotiki, NZ. Phone number of Steele’s is 861 (do not call collect).
We live 2 ½ miles from our other residence and 2 miles from the Post Office. The people we are renting from seem to b extra nice and the husband is figuring on visiting England and the United States this summer. He is one of the three chosen to represent New Zealand in England on some agriculture programs, he leaves in July.
We enjoyed the circus-the Ashton Circus-133 year old and the largest in Australian. It was an interesting one ring circus where star performances duplicated themselves in various acts and helped with the chores, but we had a ring side seat and go the circus flavor. For instance when the Lion act was over and they were taking down the wire cage around the ring protecting the customers your mother said I do not like these boys with their long hair. Well the particular boy with long hair that we were looking at turned out to be a beautiful young lady star on the flying trapeze and a dance.
Last year at one of the outings in Pipiwai your mother took a whip and made it crack much to my and her surprise. Miss Loraine Ashton billed as the only worlds lady whip cracker (they had not heard of your mother’s feat) and she could crack the various types of whips with accuracy–cutting off pieces paper held up by people, etc. The man that rolled a ball with his feet up and down an incline was good. We were so close we could see some of the actors sweat out their part. It seems a hard way to earn a living. But the side show was watching the expressions on the cute Maori children.
Another point of interest I have not heard the last of yet is that I receive a summons to appear in court in Whangarei about 400 miles from here account of the car accident I had last March when a motorcycle hit me broad sides. The hearing was 10 AM yesterday the 29th. I was represented in absentia. I have not heard the results but could lose my license which will leave mother to drive.
Mother and Dad
Next section hand written by Joseph Neville
Dear Anne, Bob and family,
Thanks for the birthday remembrance and the picture of Carl-a wonderful looking baby. The money you sent will help pay my traffic violation fine. The fine is 5.00 pounds, Court cost of Pound 1-0-0; attorney fees of Pounds 7-0-0. A Pound 1-0-0 (one pound) is worth $2.80 our money.
Next section hand written by Julia Neville
The new house sounds wonderful and the pictures of your five children with you in the middle is certainly priceless. Tell Jan the oldest son of the Steeles (where we live) saw it and said she looked like the girl in the Sound of Music. He is 12 years old and very much a gentleman.
I have found a pen pal for Barbara, she is the same age and a really cute Maori girl. Her parents are the really strong leaders of the dependent S. S. here. She looks like Irish, not Maori. Her name is Cerilyn Collier P.O. Box 80 Opotiki, New Zealand. I hope it works out for Barbara’s sake.
With love,
Mother and Dad
Letter from Julia Neville from their Mission in Tayranga, New Zealand 26 Jan 1968
Dear Anne, Bob and family,
We do appreciate your writing so regularly, it really helps us.
You asked if we have learned much of the Maori Language. The answer is “no”, but we have learned the basics of pronunciation and if the words are spelled we can pronounce them fairly well but after we are misunderstood as our accent is American and everyone here has the English accent with the New Zealand pronunciation.
There are 15 letters in the language; the five vowels a, e, I, o, u and h, k, m, n, p, r, t, w, wk, ng-all ä, ĕ, [I (ĕ)], ō, u as ōō, wk as f, ng as si(ng) the g not being sounded. This won’t really help much as you need to be around the Maoris to get it right. One of the sisters in Pipiwai wrote a testimony in Maori for Dad. He tried it out and they all laughed (kindly laughter) and said it wasn’t the testimony but the way he said it was funny. We probably are picking up N.Z. words and expressions unwittingly.
Our works includes trying to activate inactive members, introduce a new-Share the Gospel plan and with it to proselyte in cottage meetings. We can make only a dent I suppose, but still are really hoping with faith, work and the help of the Lord to see some of the great growth prophesied by President Brown.
With love, Mother and Dad
Letter from Julia Taylor Neville from her Mission in New Zealand
Not Dated; written from Pipiwai
Dear Family,
Two Saturday’s ago Dad thought it would be a good idea to go to one of the beaches and watch the ocean and perhaps help me to feel better. We stopped by the by in Whangerei to pick up another family, or I should say another couple from Gunnison, Utah, who are assigned there. They are especially wonderful people. We rode out into the country and onto the familiar metal roads and after about seventeen miles we came up a winding road, turned around a point of land and there was a spectacular view of the sea with cliffs, rocks protruding from the water, reminding us a great deal of Laguna Beach, only there few people around. The water was blue-blue, the sands white, with green growth right down to the beach. Wondering how to get down, we were start by some young people from behind, running barefooted along a not very well defined path. The girls were attractive, even though wearing bikinis. Dad having his first close up could scarcely take his eyes off the girls. It was the first really warm day we have had so everyone was taking advantage of it. They seemed to know where they were going. So sure enough we soon came to a protected bay and beach which was really lovely. One of the young men came over to talk to us. He is a farmer and was on a week’s holiday as he had been taking care of the farm while his parents had been on a trip over to the continent. He is the typical New Zealander, who thinks that his country has the major problems of mankind solved, even if they do not have all the amenities of the America’s. He is well educated, belongs to the Church of England, is satisfied with his church, and admires what the L.D.S. people have done for the Maoris. He went to the temple before it was dedicated and was impressed with the beauty of it, was given the “Mormon Bible” which he had not read. No one would ever persuade him to change his religion. The last two years there have been about a thousand converts in the New Zealand mission and somewhat fervor in the South New Zealand Mission, yet President Brown, who was her in October prophesied that New Zealand would have the greatest growth of any mission in the Church. The pressure is tremendous here naturally.
However improvement is being made. We hope to be able to do some proselytizing some day. We are pretty much tied up with routine, Branch work, which we enjoy.
November 5th is Guy Fawkes’ Day, which is celebrated something similar to the way we celebrate the Fourth of July. It is an English custom, and most of the people do not know just what they are celebrating. He tried to blow up Parliament a long time ago. Anyway fireworks are in use, and it is a mystery that all the children and the grown-ups as well, don’t get blown up as there is no restriction on their use. We were invited up to the District President’s for this occasion, but I was too sick to go. It is really discouraging to have two sieges of flu in a row.
Saturday we had district Trail D. Wilder’s Round-up, and Sunday Primary in one hour. We traveled about 160 miles round trip to the round-up. The decorations were simply marvelous. The sister in charge in a fairly recent convert. Tepees, by the dozens were across the stage. Church wagons using bicycle wheels, covered small tables, witch doctors, canoes with cactus plants in them, all the board in elaborate costumes. All sorts of drawings, and tables filled with food. Pipiwai is nothing like this. We had two graduates and they surely enjoyed the evening. Sunday we had 54 children participating in the program. It went off surprisingly well, considering all the ups and downs in getting it ready with no practicing all together. We were surely blessed as I had been unable to be to the last two Primaries. I really prayed that someone would help me and the Maori school teacher when I explained to her my predicament, took hold and even practiced the children during school hours with the band master and his wife helping her.
The other day one of the sisters sent down a native fruit that grows in the bush for us to try. It’s tewbre, which looks like a thick leafed white flower. They really enjoy watching our reaction to their foods. It tastes a little bit like a pear, but with its own flavor. I can’t say I enjoyed, but Dad liked it.
Love Mother Neville
Christmas in Pipiwai by Julia Taylor Neville
Having arrived in New Zealand the early part of January 1966, we were eagerly awaiting our assignment. Finally the day came when we were told that we would be laboring in Pipiwai, a tiny area way out in the bush, twenty-five miles from the nearest paved road, little realizing what that would mean.
Since we had to ride 125 miles to visit our new home-to-be, we left early Sunday morning from Auckland, headquarters of the mission.
No one who has never been there can conceive of how beautiful the hilly country is. Fern, exotic plants, and trees and the native fern-tree abound and I remarked that this surely must be like the original Garden of Eden.
On our way we encountered car trouble. After every effort to find out what was wrong and to find any help other wise, President Barnes asked us to get back into the car and said that we should have a word or prayer. Joe told the Lord that if He wanted us to get to Pipiwai, we needed His help. As soon as the prayer was finished, he stepped on the starter and to our relief the engine started right up.
Later, we were informed that the mechanic who had repaired the car told President Barnes that he could not understand how the car moved let alone took us 250 miles to finish our trip.
With much anticipation and some apprehension, we drove up to the little chapel. It was filled to capacity with smiling Maoris who had come to see the new missionary couple for whom many had been fasting and praying as the branch had been having problems.
But that was eleven months ago. Now we know all the members not only by their legal names, but also by their pet or “chosen” ones.
After we found out that the whole community, both members and non-members, had combined to build the chapel in twenty-nine working days, including felling the trees, sawing them into lumber, and putting everything together, we were really impressed with the strength and faith of these wonderful people.
In this chapel we had many beautiful and faith promoting experiences combined with some frustrating ones.
Here it was December first, Christmas was coming, our first in the mission field. It was hard to believe, as we were half way around the world “down under” and besides it was summer time, no atmosphere for the holidays.
Know that the Maoris tired to follow all the instructions received for Zion, I assumed the program in the “Instructor” would no doubt be used. In due time, we were told to start planning. The feeling for Christmas was catching on.
Then the cast for the program was to be chosen. Using the obvious, Mary Winiata just had to be the Mary as she had a new baby the thirteenth, who by permission was name Joseph after “Elder Neville.”
Besides it was a miracle itself. Mary was being treated with cobalt for cancer during her pregnancy and was not expected to live, but with faith and administration by her husband, she had recovered and was able to rejoin the Maori Culture dancing and singing group from Pipiwai shortly after its birth. Who but Sonny, her husband should be Joseph: the rest of the cast consisted of volunteers.
Costumes were a problem but not for long. Crooks and striped blanket for the shepherds, fancy dresses were found from the members, and with the addition of sashes and gold foil decorated crowns, for the wise men; an old white sheet for a robe and my large long filmy white scarf suggestive of the realms for the angel bringing “good tidings of great joy”. Mary managed a blue robe and headdress and Joseph a striped robe and dark headdress.
“What about a Christmas tree?” I asked. They had never had one before and had never thought about such a thing. To me not to have one was unthinkable. Sonny Winiata was a favorite in the community and was always full of ideas. He drove the rickety old school bus and picked up the students all along the valley. As pine trees were plentiful along his route. I asked him if he would cut one down for me and bring it down to the chapel. Always obliging and eager to help, he soon announced that there was one waiting for me at the church. There it was large and bare.
“How can we make it stand up?” I thought. As if he had read my thoughts, Sonny said, “Mary has a large crock at home. If we put the tree in it and pile rocks around the base, it will stand straight and we can pour water in it to keep it green.” It was a different stand but effective.
Not realizing what problems might result by starting from scratch to decorate a tree, I started thinking. Buying anything seemed impossible as money was scarce and the city far away.
Among the many delightful things in New Zealand are the extra delicious strawberries. They were then in season and sold in aluminum boxes about the same size as ours. Noticing the boxes shining as the light caught them, I wondered how they could be used to help decorate the Christmas tree. Experimenting with a pair of scissors, I found that long shimmering streamers could be made by cutting narrow strips round and round the box ending in the center of the bottom. Also stars, bells and other shapes could be designed from the smooth square bottoms.
In Te Horo Branch was a lovely Maori school teacher by the name of Sue Lynd. She managed, through much sacrifice to go to school and be trained to teach. She and the head master or principle comprised the faculty in the small Maori school.
Possessing creative ability and initiative, and being wonderfully willing to help, the project of trimming the tree began.
During their art period, Sue had the children help cut out pretty paper Japanese lanterns according to the old fashioned style used when I was a child. They were hung on the branches. Next strawberry boxes were collected and countless silver trimmings were cut out. Then cut from cleverly folded white stiff paper were stars making striking contrast with the dark green of the tree.
Rummaging through the confused merchandise of the all purpose general store, post office and gas station in which we live. I discovered some colored rubber balloons. Why couldn’t they be used for colored balls? Indeed they were. Now it was finished and how beautiful it was. The parents and children gather round from up and down the valley to admire the tree.
Sue thought the small foyer should also be decorated. So the children and their parents were asked to lend their prettiest treasured Christmas card to string in rows on the walls.
Built across from the front of our little chapel, was a platform stand on which was a small podium, a row of chairs and a piano, the only “luxury” in the building. This was to be the stage for a great presentation.
At last the anticipated day arrived. Fresh flowers grown by the members were arranged across the front of the stand. At the side glistened the Christmas tree. Christmas music played as the congregation was arriving. The beautifully told story of the nativity was then unfolded.
Mary on the arm of Joseph, slowly walking up the aisle and with him took her place on the platform, following were the shepherds with their crooks, the angel with her message of good tidings of great joy, the wise men with their gifts and finally the baby was tenderly placed in the arms of Mary.
Tears were in my eyes and also in the eyes of the rest of the audience. Why was this so touching?
Certainly not for its professional excellence.
The Christmas tree which had seemed so important was forgotten, but the power and the impact of the spirit of Jesus Christ on that Sunday morning as His birth was so reverently portrayed by those humble Maori saints can never be forgotten.
Newspaper Article from Joseph and Julia Neville’s Mission to New Zealand
The Opotiki News, Friday, March 31, 1967
Mormon Missionary Couple Move to Opotiki
Elder Joseph William Neville Junior and his wife Julia Taylor Neville, of Kaysville, Utah, USA have been assigned to the Opotiki Waimana area as special representatives of President C. Douglas Barnes, President of the N.Z. Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints-the Mormon Church.
They have come from 13 months in Pipiawai, a county area north of Whangarei. “It was a real change from the city life we were accustomed to back in the States, but we soon grew to love the area, especially the people,” said Mrs. Neville. There are one of 10 missionary couples working the North Island and like their young counterparts, have come to New Zealand for two
years at, their own expense, to bring the message of their church. In the States Mr. Neville was a civil engineer and later a real estate evaluator. Mrs. Neville, a grand-daughter of John Taylor, the third President of the Mormon Church, is a graduate of the University of Utah, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. She worked for many years as a high school English teacher. They have five children, including twin boys, and are proud grandparents of 26 grand children.
Always keenly interested in community activities, Mr. Neville served as the chairman of the Kaysville Planning Board and has been an active member of the Rotary for the past 15 years. He and Mrs. Neville recently renewed their acquaintance with Richard L. Evans, world president of Rotary, when he visited Hamilton.
“Opotiki is one of the friendliest towns we have ever visited,” said Mr. Neville. “We want to thank all who have gone out of their way to make us feel welcome.” They plan to stay here for 10 months and will be living in the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Hudson, in Ford Street.
Neville’s Reporting from Tauranga, New Zealand-Mission
10 Park Street Tauranga, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand
26th January 1968
The first Saturday of the year we attended a wedding of two young Maoris. We receive a very nice invitation enclosed a self addressed and stamped envelope with the RSVP. The invitation was in very good taste on expensive paper. The Law in New Zealand requires that every wedding be a public wedding ceremony with any invited that care to come to the ceremony. This portion of the wedding was performed in the Chapel at the Temple Bureau of Information. Then those so favored assembled into the sealing room in the temple, where there was standing room only and none of that left. Both wedding ceremonies were beautiful, but it was our first experience of two wedding ceremonies of the same couple within the hour and the contrast between the ceremony that issues a divorce decree at the same time that a couple are married and the ceremony that seals them for time and eternity was certainly magnified. The first was interesting and delightful, but the second swell you up with joy that tears were brought to your eyes. Then off to the reception. There was a crowd of over 300 arriving at the same time over half of them non church members, but failed to see anyone smoking or drinking anything that was in any degree spiked. The reception began naturally, in this county by a toast to the Queen, who by the way was the only one toasted to that did not reply, but I presume that is the prerogative of royalty. Then they toasted to the bride’s parents, then the groom’s parents, then the bridesmaid, then the grooms man, and finally the bride and groom, all with responses and butlers running around with a pitcher in each had filling up the glasses with punch without a kick in it. The response of the father of the bride was most interesting, but the response given by the father of the groom was the one I most enjoyed. The father of the bride toasted also to his mother in Maori who was there a mere 92 years young with a tattoo on her shin, a sign of being a daughter of a famous Maori Chief. The father of the Groom looked quite Jewish-his grandfather was the first Branch President of the Church in New Zealand, the name Paerats. How the wedding has brought sunshine into this heart, the clouds have gone away. When the boy was small, he and the mother made arrangements for their children when old enough to be married, a good old ancient Maori (and other custom), but his friend’s daughter went away and did not keep the bargain. But this couple have been courting for seven long years and how impatient he had been for this day to come, and why they waited so long (they both in their early twenties), but now his body was full of joy. I contrasted this situation with my situation when your mother and I were past the middle twenties and our parents wanted the marriage delayed. Anyway your mother was curious and we looked up Brother Paerata and your mother asked him why he was so impatient about seven years of courtship. Answer-His great grandfather among other children had just one son heir, and he is among lots of children his father’s only son, and the groom among other children is the only son, and this man like unto Abraham was and is praying for the son to get married that the family name may be carried on. Well, if none of the rest of you have enjoyed this story I thought Bob G. would. And then the wedding dinner, a sumptuous and regal banquet, chicken, beef, strawberries, all kind of relish, crayfish, pavlova, trifle, you name it and it was there, all kind of soft drink bottles to open, it was interesting to look down the tables when leaving and the only bottles not opened were the Coco Cola. Beautiful music everything on a high and good taste level, a beautiful Samoan lady sang an impressive love song to the couple. After the dinner a look see at the presents and they were numerous, and then off to home. Well end of this story and page one.
27th January 1968
Greetings:-The lack of proper communication can sure cause misunderstandings. For instance, when we first came to New Zealand among the Maoris when we left they would say “hurrah”-a shout of joy, so I thought, and everywhere we went at the parting they shouted hurrah; hurrah! You can imagine how we felt until we finally found out that in Maori was saying “goodbye.” Among the European New Zealanders, commonly known a pakehas instead of saying goodbye they say “tata.” I read in the paper a New York attorney had published an English-American Dictionary of about three thousand words so to overcome embarrassment, such as going in a store here and asking for suspenders, you would receive a pair of garters, etc… All this to lead up to the following story. New missionaries were coming into Tauranga and my wife had invited them to tea (dinner in American-Kai ub Nairu). Just previously we had been invited to tea and the lady of the house for desert served a piece of delicious mince meat pie, together with pudding and trifle. She asked whether I would like another piece of pie, my mouth watered, I said “no” to be polite and she took me at my word, my mouth still watering. We were in a bakery shop to get some bread and I thought a fruit pie would be quick and easy to serve the Elders so I asked the waitress if she had any fruit pies and she replied no, that she only had mince meat pie left, that started my moth watering again and I said fine. You mother, to get things ready, fixed some steaks to fry and then put the mince pie into the oven to warm up and then soon from the oven arose the aromas of meat-yes, I had forgotten; for the past two years in the butcher shop you do not ask for hamburger, you ask for mince; there are two kinds of mince, steak mince which is the leanest and had the better cuts and ordinary mince and a little bit cheaper to buy, but not as good. Well, we had steak and meat pie for dinner and the wife whipped up something else quickly for desert.
The Maoris are a wonderful people and their faith has taught us much. We were invited to tea by a Maori High Councilman-and this is part of the story he told-He has eight children, is a wharf worker and has to be careful to stretch his salary to house and feed the children. He had been a counselor in the Bishopric and was notified that the Stake President wanted to see him; he had premonition that it was to be a high councilman. In this office it would entail a lot of traveling which would mean an added expense of getting a reliable care instead of a bomb, (a jalopy) and the extra cost to cover the extra mileage, but he felt if the Lord called him the Lord would provide. Then the Stake President talked with him, the State President asked if he had the means to provide transportation to cover a lot of travelling. He told the president that if the Lord called him to a position he had faith that the Lord would provide means for him to accomplish, as he told Nephi of old that he would provide ways for people to keep his commandments-and then he was ordained a High Council man- and he says “do you know that within a week a man came to his home and approached his wife to do some “commercial Cleaning”, charwoman you. This was after shop hours for about two hours-shop hours 5 P.M. here; he gets off work at 5 P.M., so he can come home when she is away from the family and this additional work is just enough to cover the extra expense of being High Councilman. His wife rejoiced in being able, besides taking care of eight children to help her husband in his high calling-O’ the spirit and faith of these people is wonderful.
Tauranga is the nicest place to live in that we have seen in New Zealand. It is quite a favorite place for holidaying, especially for the deep sea fisherman. We passed the wharf the other night when they were weighing in a 262 pound Marlin and I read in the paper the prize so far this year is 578 pound broadbill, both these fishes are of the sword fish type. They say the broadbills are harder to land than the marlins. I kind of wish they did not have missionary rules against going fishing-I think this deep sea fishing would be great. Saw the editor of the paper and got quite a write up with pictures in it. This seems to have made quite an impression the Saints; also those we meet.
Joseph and Julia Neville Australian Mission Report No. 1 April 1969
Broken Hill
New South Wales, Australia
(originally typed by Joseph William Neville Junior on a blue air mail letter, it was a carbon copy)
To the Neville Tribe:
As you all know, but for a matter of record we celebrated Joe’s birthday by going in the mission home presided over by Pres Taussi where we heard from several of the general authorities on missionary work. On Wednesday the 16th we were set apart about 11 AM by Apostle Spencer W. Kimball who gave us blessings that many people would be brought to a knowledge of the truth, advised us to open our hearts and love the people, that we would be able to help train for leadership that we should take care of ourselves and we would have health and strength that our minds would be retentive and that we would be blessed beyond our normal abilities. At the commencement of being set apart he said the church had sent us to see a lot of the world and that when we returned the church still had more countries for us to see. It was nice to have Nancy, Beth Ann and Bruce with us on being set apart. After being set apart Bruce took us out to dinner which was very enjoyable. We left Salt Lake at 6:10 PM Wed. the 16th and felt good about the send off of 12 grandchildren, 4 children, the bishopric and Verna, Sherrill, Kerol, and Ezra. At San Francisco we were met by Joe and his family and enjoyed seeing them. Also to our surprise we saw Bob Gustaveson for a minute at the airport as he was catching a plane back to Pomona. We received a certificate from the Airline for passing the equator and arrived in Adelaide about 11 AM Friday the 18th just 26 hours after leaving Salt Lake on Wednesday the 16th. Figure that out brought about by the new math on Aeroplane transportation. It was the longest night I have ever seen and partly slept through.
We were met at the plane by President Hess and his wife, taken to the chapel where they took away our passports for safe keeping, filled out some forms, gave them our money to pen bank accounts for us and then Sister Hess took us home while Pres. Hess interviewed the missionaries. Saturday we were taken to Broken Hill, 340 miles north easterly from Adelaide for our new assignment and we stayed at a motel there Saturday and Sunday nights and they had a District conference at Broken Hill where they have a nice chapel. Monday we got some temporary housing, an old stone home where if you go to the toilet if it is raining you get wet but it is clean and far superior to our first quarters in Pipiwai. We spoke at the Sunday School session.
Broken Hill is a mining town, the mines that made Herbert Hoover famous-the largest lead –zinc mines in the world. It is on the fringe of the outback. We spent most of the week looking for better quarters, met the President of Rotary and the secretary of Rotary getting our “Prep Book” together, we got a 10 ½ x 14 ½ sketch book, cut up Bruce’s plan, our old one, put in an addition, eliminated some and ended up with 22 pages. We have a Missionary conference tomorrow in Adelaide today, Saturday, Stake Conference tomorrow. Sunday and have driven down for it and at present are at President Hess’s home. They are treating us nice. In New Zealand we thought going 165 miles one way for conference was quite a trip but now we go 350 miles one way.
(The next part of the letter was hand written by Julia)
Dear Anne and family. It was great to see Bob for a minute in San Francisco also to talk to all of you before we left.
We were wondering how you came along with your physical. Do write to us and tell us the news.
We are using the “preparation” daytime to write these letters. This consists of free time on Saturday until 5:00 PM for working on ironing, cleaning, letter writing, shopping and recreation. One movie a month maximum. We have a small Toyota sedan to squeeze into. Broken Hill has a population of 30,000 and is on the fringes of the outback. Kangaroos are around, but scarce. We saw three dead ones on the road killed by motorists at night driving. The Radio School for remote areas is located there plus the Royal Flying Medical Corps which services by radio to all the outback areas with advice and plane ambulance when needed. We love you and pray for you.
Mother and Dad
Newspaper Article about Joseph and Julia Neville in Bunbury Austrailia
South Western Time, Thursday, March 19, 1970
United States Church Mission in Bunbury
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Neville of Kaysville, Utah, USA, are in Bunbury for several months as representatives of the Australia West Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
As president of the Bunbury branch of the church Mr. Neville will train local member to carry on the work by themselves. There is no paid ministry in the church.
The Nevilles, who spent the first part of their two year call to the mission in Broken Hill and Scarborough, said they have found Australians to be imaginative, compassionate and hospitable people.”
Mr. Neville holds a Professional Lands Surveyor’s License in the State of Utah; he is a real estate broker, a senior member of the American Society of Appraisers and is a member of the Kaysville Rotary Club.
He was chairman of the Kaysville Planning Board for several years. Mrs. Neville, a granddaughter of the third President of the Mormon Church, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Utah and taught in State high schools for a number of years.
Newspaper article from Joseph and Julia Neville’s Mission to Australia
United States Church Mission in Bunbury
From the South Western Times, Thursday March 19, 1970 (Australia) Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Neville of Kaysville Utah, USA, are in Bunbury for several moths as representative of the Australian West Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As president of the Bunbury Branch of the Church, Mr. Neville will train local members to carry on the work by themselves. There is no paid ministry in their church.
The Neville’s, who spent the first part of their two year call to the mission in Broken Hill and Scarborough, said they have found Australians to be “imaginative, compassionate and hospitable people.”
Mr. Neville holds a Professional Engineer and Lands Surveyor’s License in the State of Utah; he is a real estate broker; a senior member of the American Society of Appraisers and a member of Kaysville Rotary Club.
He was chairman of the Kaysville City Planning Board for several years.
Mrs. Neville, a grand daughter of the their president of the Mormon Church graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Utah and taught in State high schools for a number of years.
Neville’s Tentatively Last Report from Australia, with Joseph William Neville Junior Bearing his Testimony to his Posterity
(Typed by Joseph William Neville Junior)
20th May 1970
That is an odd heading with 11 more months expected to do in the mission filed, but this is what is happening:
EXHIBIT A: Telegram from President Hess-“THE FIRST PRESIDENCY HAS CALL YOU AS NEW ZEALAND TEMPLE WORKERS FOR REMAINDER OF MISSION STOP PHONE ME COLLECT ADELAINDE 231009 WEDNESDAY 7 AM YOUR TIME.”
EXHIBIT B: Details of phone call-Telegram received about 6 PM Tuesday 12 May after a light night’s rest we got up early to go down to the public phone at post office Wednesday morning and placed a phone call “person to person” collect to President Hass. Was informed that in Australia no person to person calls collect. Then I thought back to what some American did during the War on the person to person phone calls, blushed, and then put in the call collect by number. Call was transferred to President Hess-(1 ½ hours different time between Adelaide and Bunbury). He told us that he was getting in touch with the Temple President to see how long he could keep us here, and that he told Salt Lake that we were in a critical position. I should have said key instead of critical, and asked if he could substitute but they said no the Presidency said Neville, well he said you do not go against the First Presidency, that no new couples were coming to July but he would see what he could do and for us to send him a phone number where we could be reached, which, which we did. He said he would arrange transportation.
EXHIBIT C: President Hess’s letter date May 12, 1970.
“Dear Brother and Sister Neville: Enclosed please find a letter from the First Presidency calling you to spend the remainder months of your mission in New Zealand as temple workers. By the time you have received this letter, we will already have had a chance to discuss this matter on the telephone. Your work in this mission has been outstanding as a couple, and you have performed wonders in the Bunbury area. I am extremely sorry to see you leave your mission, both from the standpoint of the excellent service rendered and also the opportunity we have had to renew our personal association.
May the blessing of our Heavenly Father always be with you.
Sincerely your brother, Milton J. Hess, President Australian West Mission”
EXHIBIT D: The enclosed letter dated may 1, 1970 from First Presidency.
“Dear Brother and Sister Neville,
Due to a need for qualified ordinance workers in the New Zealand Temple, we are extending to you a call to complete the remainder months of your mission in the New Zealand Temple as temple workers. You come to us highly recommended by the priesthood leaders in your home stake and in your mission, and after careful consideration, we have felt it proper to extend to you this call. President Hess will be in touch with President Brown of the New Zealand Temple and will assist you in making the necessary transportation arrangements. President Brown had been authorized to set you apart as ordinance workers.
We are indeed grateful for your dedication and service which have qualified you for this assignment. May the Lord’s blessings continue to enrich your lives.
Sincerely yours,
Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, N. Eldon Tanner, The First Presidency
Each of the above had signed in a different kind of ink.
Since writing the above have been down to the post office to see the mail but no letter from anyone, however we did get a copy of the America, a magazine subscription which Sherrill sent us as a Christmas present which is quite nice.
Since the last newsletter we finally made it to the Shoreline Flats, the top flat facing the Indian Ocean, like a pent house we can see the Indian Ocean South and the sunsets are gorgeous and wonderful. But history repeated itself it is now two years since we obtained a cottage on a beach at Mt. Manganui, thinking there we would stay the rest of our New Zealand mission, but after staying there three weeks we got the message to move within one week to the City of Christ’s Church in another mission, only we are now waiting for word of when we move and we are working on problems of disposing of cars, electric fan, electric fry pan, electric tea kettle, etc…, if not for the word of the First Presidency we would probably have stayed here the rest of our mission. However although it has taken us a long time to do so we believe in the inspiration of the Priesthood and are happy to accept the call that came to us. We hope that our children will be able to do this quicker than we were.
We had a baptism of a little girl by the name of Fay Thomas a short time ago as she turned 8 years old. Her parents are immigrants and are going to return to England in October as they do not particularly care for it. She was baptized in the Indian Ocean on a chilly Saturday morning; it was a young missionary’s first experience at baptizing and he was so excited that after the baptism I had to shout at him to stop him from going into the Ladies Change room instead of where he left his clothes.
Inasmuch as Fay’s parents are saving their money to return to England, they do not have T.V., a car etc… The little girls like to read and as a measure of discipline, they threaten not to let her take out a book from the Traveling Library and that keep her in line. We gave her a book of Mormon on Baptism and she treasures that dearly, will not let anyone else touch it, etc…
An after thought on being transferred away from the beautiful beach scenes-Maybe the Lord knows what a great temptation for us to watch the ocean when we should be doing something else, for instance it is taking me twice as long to write this letter, between writing a word and then watching the surf, the surf riders, the swimmers, today is out of season and a hot day.
In the High School here one hour a week they have religion classes, where they go to a room of the different faiths of their choice, if I were staying longer would see if I could get a room. From what I hear from the students the ministers are united in one subject-telling untruths about Mormonism in those classes. In the Bunbury High School each room has a fireplace; to keep warm a wood fire is built there in. It has been quite chilly and in talking to the Typing teacher who happens to be LDS, it has been too cold to type, but the High School regulations say not fires are to be built until after June 1st, and then no wood to be put on after 12 noon. Such regulations are to satisfy the custodians who have to bring in the wood and clean out the fireplaces, figuring from noon to after school would give time for the fireplace to cool off. Last Saturday we had a baptism in Busselton in the Indian Ocean a place about 35 miles south of Bunbury, the first baptism in the Busselton Area, a girl 21 years old, a very brilliant girl who has had one year of University, which is quite unusual for either boy or girl here as they get out of school at 15 years and few go beyond that. Mother is teaching a lady whom we hope to baptize this Saturday. Before I turn this letter over to Mother for her comments I want my children and their children to know that there is no question whatsoever in my mind that Jesus Christ created this earth and that before that you and I an all the people of the earth lived with him where this gospel was taught under the direction of our Heavenly Father and that we are actually spirit children of God, and the reason for this earth is to give us a mortal body and to test us in following the teachings of our Savior. That the circumstances that we are born in have in a measure been brought about by the way we behave in Heaven before we came here, and the way we act here will depend on our conditions in the world after this, also that Wisdom of the wise shall depend on our conditions in the world after this, also that Wisdom of the wise shall perish when they announce theories contrary to the principles of the gospel. A good example of how this is being done is some studying I have been making of the Book of Mormon. When it first came out the Wisdom of the wise said it could not be true to certain things, like ancient civilianization’s existing on the American continent, that the Indian Race was the vanishing American, no such thing as cement in ancient time, and other things contrary to what was said in the Book of Mormon, 95% of this wisdom by the brilliant students has not been counted as foolishness and eventually so will all this letter to preach, but did write the above to testify of what I believe when I am within a week of being 70 years old.
Now to turn the letter over to mother for her comments and blessings, Dad (J.W. Neville Junior)
Hand written below)
Dear Anne,
Just to o.k. the report and state we still are waiting for further information. The new assignment is a complete surprise to us and of course we had mixed emotions about leaving.
We are enjoying our work here, but as we couldn’t be here too many months at the most, we should not think of the sadness of leaving. Thanks so much for the tape and the Mother’s Day check. It was very thoughtful of you. Hearing all your voices was really wonderful.
I can see why the Primary could be too much for you. I wouldn’t be too reliable at his point in my life to give advice on Primary as it would be entirely too much for me now, but when I was younger I suppose I could see it differently. We send our best and pray for you.
Mother Neville
Memories of Julia Taylor Neville
about her Grandmother Whipple and her Parents Ida and Ezra Taylor
I remember going to visit Grandma Whipple on the back of house was a built on kitchen and dining room. Grandma always had a table cloth on the table and a spoon dish, a white milk spoon dish. The minute we would get there we would sit down and expect something to eat almost immediately. She kept her food in this cellar, a little ways off the kitchen. It was a dug out cellar with stone step leading down to it and shelves of stories on each side. She kept the milk on these shelves and would skim the cream to make butter, and bands of salt pork, pickles and apples stored in this cellar. To me it was good smelling-“it seems to me, I can smell jam.”
Grandma was always busy, she was always sewing rags for rag carpet or crocheting or working with her hands. Mother told me that had never seen her sit down without working, knitting. Mother’s job was to get wool for this knitting and was to go out to the barbed wire fences and get wool from them where the sheep would walk against them. She would bring it home for her mother to prepare to spin. Mother at one time was so disgusted impatient that she wasn’t getting much wool that she saw an old big sheep she jumped on its back and pulled off a bay full of wool.
In Grandma’s house all the floors were covered with rag carpets, woven in strips and (___) upstairs. The upstairs was fascinating to me. They had beds with rope springs. They had cotton ticks filled with straw for mattresses and feather beds. Grandpa made most of the furniture they had in the house.
Grandmother came to our house to stay when mother went to California and took Mary with her. Grandmother came to stay with us. I can remember sitting on her lap and her combing and braiding my hair, and telling me stories. She was always cooking for us, a very motherly Grandmother. She always wore her hair parted in the middle and pulled tightly back. Uncle Anor took care of her until she died and I thing she was 69 when she died.
The yard at Grandma Whipple’s was fascinating to me. They had a hydrant (pump) that you primed with water I pumped to get water out. That was a delight for me to go and pump it. I was admiring it one time and Grandmother came out and said, “I want to tell you a story.” At conference time the Indians used to come in their wagons and drive into the big lot and camp. One time a squaw came in and she had a nice little papoose on her back. She took the papoose to the pump and gave it a bath from the water from the pump. The Indians would come into be fed and she fed them for a week.
One interesting thing mother (Ida Gay Taylor) told me was that when she was young and the Manifesto was no into being that her mother would accompany her to Church so that some polygamist would not talk her into marrying him. She would chaperon her to church and back.
House: The front door opened into a hall; in the hall was the stairway. The stairway had rag carpet on it. Mother (Ida Gay Taylor) used to tell what they would get for Christmas. Each child would get one present. Mother’s generally was a book. All of the older girls in the family worked. Mother was the youngest girl. The family was poor; the father had died in (?) and left Grandma with 9 children. Mother would go to the U of Deseret and carry her shoes in a bag. She had one dress.
Mother told about the modesty of the day. She finally had enough of her schooling to teach school. Her skirts would drag the floor in the schoolroom; she thought this was terribly unsanitary. She shortened her skirts an inch from the floor to keep them clean and the principal almost dismissed her because when she walked fast sometimes he skirts swished and you could see her ankle.
My mother when she first started to teach. My mother often told me about wash day when she was a girl. I asked how many times they washed. She said once a week. They would gather their petticoats and all of their clothes and a great big copper tub. They would heat the water on an outdoor fire and boil the clothes. “We didn’t change our clothes everyday. Deodorant in those days was baking soda slush rubbed under the arms.”
Going up Cottonwood Canyon to the Saw Mill: Mother said they would go into the woods and pick berries. She finally got her mother to permit them to wear their brother’s overalls if they would promise not to let anyone see them in them, especially men. They would go into the bushes and pick berried and make jam from them.
Ez and our father (Ezra Oakley Taylor) and mother (Ida Whipple Taylor) loved the outdoors. And every summer we would go up City Creek Canyon. We would hire a buggy or a wagon and spent the day or sometimes camp in the canyon. My very earliest memory is falling in the creek in City Creek. Father would love to go on walks, nature walks, he would tell us about the flowers and the rocks. We would really have a very enjoyable time. City Creek Canyon was my playground. I had sandy rock hills that we would jump and run down and would (_______).
He was a good hiker. He liked to fish. He would go up on the Weber and fish. He hiked with a group of friends up to Twin Peaks.
Mother was a very nervous frightened person in some ways. We had a furnace. Father always had the latest inventions. On Canyon Road, I think we were the first to have a Motor Man washing machine. Father was the old washing machine that we (_______) to turn and attached a leather strap from his dental office to a (______) underneath. The hired girl who was helping mother got her hand in the wringer and mother then was frightened to use it again.
We had a steam furnace in the basement. On top of the furnace was an iron safety valve. One day it did go off and that frightened mother so after that we used stoves to heat the house. The new owners of the house years later said it was a very good furnace. We had a big screened sleeping porch across the back of the house. We slept there in the summer and winter.
Every summer we went up to Montana to Aunt Mary’s. We went up on the train. It was so hot and dusty. They had a big swing and the hired man would swing us up high. This was up in cowboy land. Father had a good time. Mother was a good sport. On the train when it was so hot, father bought some cold beer the only drink he could get. She was quite shocked at that.
We went up to Charleston up Provo Canyon to the Murdock’s home. We would go up to Uncle John Whitaker’s on the Weber. One particular summer when Gay was a baby, dad hired a team to take our belongings, our tent and everything to Park City. The rest of us met them with the wagon and went up to the Weber River to spend a month. Mother would cook and baby Gay would cry all the time, the tents would leak ……(Missing something)
(Missing)……all the bananas we could eat it was a real treat for the children. They would have programs. The president of the church would always be in attendance.. Joseph F. Smith, married one of J.T. cousins. I can still see him with his long beard. The family reunions were the most interesting things in the world. We walked the eight blocks to the street car and transfer and arrive at the family Reunion and all of our cousins, and eat all we could eat. I remember being in costumes for being on the program.
Another fascinating place to go was my father’s dental laboratory and office. My father was known all over Salt Lake for being an expert dentist and maker of false teeth. It has been only recently that I have met people who had teeth he had made for them. In the place he had quite a combination of red wax that he used for impression and he would make us little dolls of the red wax. He would put quick silver in our hands.
He made a doll house for Mary and me on Christmas (1905). It was wonderful workmanship. He liked to work with wood. It was a surprise and we knew nothing about it until Christmas morning. It had been hidden on the side of the front porch. It was a six room house all furnished with dolls that were dressed and each room had an apple in it with a candle in it for light. It had a bay window, doors. The front door was oval and had stained glass. That was quite a Christmas that year.
The custom of Christmas at our house was that we would always get a Christmas tree Christmas Eve and trim it Christmas Eve. We always had candles on it that chipped on. They would be lit with mother very carefully guarding them. We always had a marvelous Christmas. Mother would sew doll clothes and sit up all night. We would go to be with our clothes on to try to make things happen a little faster. We could not see our presents until we all got dressed and had breakfast.
One Christmas, I don’t know just what happened, but Christmas Eve came and we didn’t have a Christmas tree.
(Page is missing)
He (Ezra Oakley Taylor) was very particular about his clothes. He always wore a white patterned vest that was washable. He liked to look nice and we were proud of the way he looked, he was a handsome man.
In his dentist office he used linen napkins and he would pay us to iron them.
Mother had a surprise baby when she was 45 years old. It was Pat. And nobody ever was pretty or as wonderful as Pat. She naturally got a lot of attention and whenever Mother would go out of sight, she would scream and cry and it was hard. It was hard on father as he was 50 when she was born, more like a grandpa.
When I was in High School our class had an excursion from Salt Air on to Bird Island (in the Great Salt Lake) it was hatching time for seagulls. It was a very fascinating thing. Some of the girls were taking dates. I didn’t have any date to take but I had a younger brother. I had a new dress to wear and the fashion at the time was a bobble skirt, which was a tunic skirt over it. My brother had to lift me on the street car and on and off the boar (because of the tight skirt). The whole island was covered with nests and baby seagulls hatching. When I was in high school, I was the secretary or vice president or something of the senior class. We were going to have a party at the Nelson home; the third floor was a ballroom. I had a date to go with the son of the owner of this house. I was very thrilled because he had a car. I think the only boy in the class who did. He arrived to pick me up in the car and the whole neighborhood came out on porches to watch. Mother let me go to the ZCMI and I bought my first high heeled buttoned shoes. We did some dancing and then boys had some games planned. They had a blind fold fame and I was called first to go in with my blind fold on. I went about 3 steps and I fell flat on my face. It is a true example of pride cometh before a fall.
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She did not help me a bit. Joe came before it was finished. I was about 22 or 23. She thought it was about time for me to do it. Mother was a great reader and so was father. We would go to the library from Canyon Road. Mary would take me and I got my (_________) stereotype viewer. We would carry as many books home as we could carry. I had read all the books for High School long before I got to High School. Mother would read to us in the evening around the stove in the dining room. Father would be reading his newspaper and mother would be reading the books. She would entertain us by telling us stories of when she was a little girl.
Remembering my Grandmother and my Mother Ida Whipple Taylor and Julia Taylor Neville By Julia Anne Neville Gustaveson
Susan Ann Gay was a third wife of Nelson Wheeler Whipple, who was my Great Grandparents. Susan Jane Bailey, his first wife, was ill and needed someone to attend to her while Nelson Wheeler Whipple went up to Parley’s Canyon to work in the saw mill. The woman that helped out was Rachel West, widow of John West who died in St. Joseph, Missouri. He married Rachel West March 12, 1853. Susan Jane Bailey and Rachel West were polygamist wives of Nelson Wheeler Whipple. On June 6, 1856, Susan Jane Bailey passed away.
Subsequently he married Susan Ann Gay, his third wife, my great grandmother on Sunday, February 9, 1857. They were sealed in Brigham Young’s office by Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to President Brigham Young.
My Great Grand Father Whipple died after they had been married 30 years, leaving her a widow at 46 years of age. He was 23 years older than her, when he died at 69 years of age. According to my mother, Julia Taylor, the cause of his death was “inflammation of the bowels.” My grandmother, Ida Gay Whipple was fourteen years old when her father died. He mother then became a struggling widow. One of the stories that my mother told me was when I grandmother was a young child her job was to collect wool off the fences as she walked along the roads, that sheep left when they brushed against the fences. It was a tedious work because it took so much wool to spin. One time she got so aggravated she jumped over the fence and grabbed as many handfuls of wool off the back of a sheep.
My mother also told me that at one point, Ida Gay Whipple caught a severe case of typhoid or diphtheria and during this illness she lost all of her straight hair. As she recovered her hair grew in very thick and very curly. It eventually grew so long that she could sit on it. However it became a nuisance, she finally had to get it trimmed so she could manage it. She always kept it long and piled up on her head. My mother said she had to help her wash and comb it. Ever since I remember my grandmother she had white hair. She was thin and had a slight limp. My mother thought she must have had a case of polio at one point. Possibly at the time she was so ill.
My grandmother was a lot of fun. She used to let us sit on her lap while she told us stories about Indians, and the early pioneer days. However, when we got big enough that our feet would touch the floor we could not sit on her lap anymore, but she still told us more stories.
My grandmother was one of the early students at the University of Deseret, which later became the University of Utah. She had one dress and for special occasions she had a white lace apron that she wore over it. One time she got in trouble when she was riding a street car and lifted up her skirt slightly to get out and someone reported that she was exposing her ankles.
My mother grew up in a home at the mouth of City Creek Canyon. It faces to the west, but is on the east side of the creek. It was a two bedroom home, where they had 6 children, two boys and four girls. It had a wraparound porch to the north of the home, and in the back there was a sleeping porch. In the parlor there was a beautiful wood carved mantel for the fireplace. My grandfather always wanted to be a carpenter and he loved working with wood. However, his father, John Taylor, insisted that he go to dental school, because they needed dentists in Zion. So he used his wood working skills and carving skills, and became well known throughout the area as the best false teeth maker around.
Another project he enjoyed was making a doll house for his two little girls, Mary and Julia. He made it in his back laboratory at the dentist office, and arranged to have it brought up to the house before Christmas where he hid and covered it until Christmas on the north wraparound porch. On Christmas of 1905, she and her sister came into the parlor, and there stood this amazing doll house with 6 rooms. Each of the rooms had an apple with a lit candle lighting each room with its contents. The doll house is two storied, with a balcony, and a front porch. The parlor has a bay window, and the front door is wood with an oval glass. The main floor on the outside has four pillars which are white, and the floor of the porch is a light green. The windows have colored glass, as well as clear glass. The house is burgundy, and has white accents. There is a balcony that is also light green, and has a white railing. The roof is dark green, and has two chimneys.
When she was a little girl when she was playing with the doll house she tripped and fell and the left corner in the back of the house, and cut her head open, and would show her granddaughter the scar which the house made on her head, and the chip off the roof.
At one point Mary and my mother decided that they wanted to modernize the doll house, and make the hallway and the parlor one open room. They had their father cut out the wall dividing the hall and the parlor to one spacious open room.
The sisters enjoyed playing with the doll house, but they had one problem. His name was Ezra, their little brother. He liked to sit on the chairs like the dolls did. They had to constantly fix or replace furniture. Their mother helped them make upholstered furniture, such as arm chairs make of card board, and fabric. Her sister, Mary, was gifted and skilled even as a young girl in sewing, and made many items for the house.
Later my Aunt Gay played with the doll house and then her little brother; Irvin took Ezra’s place as a furniture destroyer. The next possessor of the house was my Aunt Patricia. She liked to put on plays with the dolls in the doll house, and also to redecorate. By the time the four Taylor sisters grew out of the house it had many layers of paint, and wallpaper on the inside. The windows were flecked with paint. After the four Taylor sisters graduated from the doll house plays the house was stored in the attic of my grandmother’s “E” Street house. That is how I first remembered the doll house was looking at it and other treasures in my grandmother’s attic. When we moved from Escalante to Ogden I was ten years old and my mother gave it to me to play with. By the time I came along there was some furniture left and I decided to paint and paper the inside again. I was never too satisfied with the job. My mother showed me how to make tables from the lids of small oatmeal boxes, and other sorts of cardboard furniture. I made braided rugs and curtains, and table cloths for it, but they were the efforts of a ten, eleven or twelve year old, and looked it. When I was almost fourteen we moved from Madison Ave. in Ogden, to Washington Terrace in South Ogden, which was built as temporary war time housing for government workers.
There was a severe housing shortage in the Ogden area at that time as people were moving in to work in the military defense plants. My parents had the opportunity to let the government divide our duplex into four rental units. Therefore we had to move to one of the Washington Terrace barracks like units. Each barracks had two units, one on one end with a door, and one on the other with another door. We lived on the three bedroom unit, and the other side had one bedroom. There was a small living room, a small kitchen. When we lived in the Madison Ave. house Dad made a big table that we could all sit together as a family. When we moved to Washington Terrace, Dad had to cut it smaller so we could all squeeze around it in that small kitchen. My sister, Nancy and I had the smallest bedroom, so there was no room for the doll house. My parents then stored it at my Uncle Sherrill’s house. My mother was very worried that his four little girls would ruin it. But my grandfather had made a very sturdy house, and there was only one broken window. The house was there until we moved to Kaysville, by that time I was a senior in college. It was then put in my mother’s basement where my daughter Barbara liked to play with it. She thought that it was off limits, and that she might get in trouble playing with, but she did it anyway. Every time we came to visit, she would disappear and fix, clean, and play with it. She brought glue from California, as well as dolls to play with it. One day she was playing in the store room with the doll house in it, and mother observed her interest. Barbara was 15 years old, playing with the doll house.
During Easter vacation of 1975, my daughter Jan was on a semester abroad through BYU, and my husband stayed at home while I and my daughter Christy drove up with to visit my parents. During this visit mother asked me if I would like to bring the doll house back with me to California, and if Barbara wanted to restore it in its original way. Mother had already had given me the doll house, but it had been left in the house in Kaysville, but mother asked if it would be alright if Barbara had it. I told mother that I would be happy to do it because at the time we had room in the station wagon. My dad carefully loaded it into the back of the station wagon and that was the last time he ever did anything for me, and he died a month later.
At one point my grandfather decided to modernize the houses and put in some kind of furnace. However, one day the furnace exploded and that was the end of that furnace and my grandmother would not have any more “new fangled dangerous machinery.” Even after they moved to their newer home on “A” Street, she would not have a furnace, a refrigerator, or an electric washing machine. She would not allow my grandfather to buy a car or move to the county in Holladay, Utah.
When my mother was growing up, my grandfather used to take my mother and her siblings on walks up City Creek Canyon very often
Mother said that she could still remember going around when she was three or four years old, sucking on a baby bottle. Then the other kids in the neighborhood made fun of her for being such a baby, so finally one day, she just got disgusted and threw her bottle in the bushes and that was the end of that.
During the early times when my mother was a little girl, a lot of Indians came around begging for food and clothing. One time my mother heard someone knock at the door, and she always liked to run as fast as she could to be the first to open the door, but this time when she opened the door she saw this huge Indian standing in front of her with a scowl on his face. She screamed and ran away as fast as she could, even though the Indian told her he did not mean to frighten her, she never ran to be the first one to open the door again.
Some Christmases I Remember Growing Up with Julia Taylor Neville and Joseph William Neville
by Julia Anne Neville Gustaveson
Some Christmases I Remember
Cedar City, Utah – 1934
I was five years old and I still believed in Santa Claus in a sort of hopeful way. My Dad, I found out later, did not really encourage believing in Santa because when he was a child he didn’t think Santa was fair. He had lived in a small home in the rich Federal Heights area of Salt Lake City. He just could not understand why Santa was so much more generous to the rich kids than Santa was to him. One time he decided to hang up his stocking even though his mother told him not to bother. He then found a piece of coal in it on Christmas morning.
My three brothers and I huddled together to discuss the problem of Santa Claus. How could he come to our house when we lived in a basement apartment without a chimney? We finally decided he could come because he was magic and jump through walls. How could he have enough toys in his sleigh for all the kids in the world? How could he find all the children’s houses in one night? We went to our Mother with the problem. She was rather vague and I don’t remember exactly what her answer was but I went to bed quite hopeful and prayed that it would snow in the night so that Santa could get around faster in his sleigh.
Finally morning came and all the monsters in the closet and huddling in the corners disappeared and at last it was Christmas. I was almost afraid to go into the living room to see if Santa had really come. I had awoken several times in the night thinking that I had heard bells or strange noises in the living room, but we had been warned the night before that Santa could not possibly come if he thought we were not asleep.
Finally our parents told us to get our clothes on (that was a rule in our family) and come to breakfast. We always had to dress, make our beds, and have breakfast before we could make ourselves “sick” our mother said on the goodies in the stockings. We then lined up according to age with the youngest going first. The twins, who were the youngest, at the time must have taken turns. I don’t exactly remember how they handled that. The next year we had a baby sister who was the first from then on.
This was the last time I believed in Santa Claus. But I had a wonderful Christmas and all of the girls in the neighborhood envied me. The reason I stopped believing in Santa Claus was that all the great surprisess I got were not from Santa but from the loving people in my family.
Our country was in the depths of the “great depression” in 1934. My father, a mining engineer in the silver mines in Eureka, had lost his job when the mines closed. We had been living with either my Grandparents Taylor or my Grandparents Neville in Salt Lake City. My father sold can openers and other kitchen gadgets in an attempt to make a living and finally found a job in Cedar City working for the Utah Parks company, building roads and trails in Zion Canyon.
In his work my Dad used a lot of dynamite blasting out roads and tunnels in the solid rock canyons. Dynamite was shipped in substantial wooden boxes. So over the period of four or five years, we put the empty boxes to good use for cupboards and other household type furniture such as stools to sit on. But on this Christmas under the tree was a wonderful treasure chest for me with hinges and a lid with a lock on it. My Dad had made it for me from dynamite boxes. He had painted it gray and put shiny black hinges on it. In my treasure chest was a beautiful doll with (real} hair and eyelashes and eyes that opened and shut. I named by doll Gwendolyn because it was my favorite girl’s name at the time and I planned to name my little girl Gwendolyn when I had one and became a Mother some day.
As you know that didn’t happen when I had four daughters and I assume you are all glad you were not named Gwendolyn even though you might not like the names you got, just remember you were not named Gwendolyn.
The other girls in the neighborhood all had new dolls. But nobody except me had a doll with a whole trunk of beautifully hand made clothes. My doll had many dresses, even hats, leather gloves and shoes which must have taken my creative Aunt Mary months to make. She had even made me some dresses out of the same cloth that she made some of my doll clothes. I loved those things then, but now I think of them and appreciate them more than ever when I think of the work she put into them.
I don’t remember what my brothers got for Christmas that year, but it seemed like a great Christmas to me.
I found out years later more about that Christmas. It seemed that when we first moved into that basement apartment, my father was unable to pay the rent. So the landlord let us live in it free until my Dad got a job. Somebody else owned some cows and gave us milk for the twins and the rest of us for Dad doing the milking. Mother occasionally did substitute teaching to help with the finances but could not get a full-time teaching job even though she was a certified teacher because the jobs were saved for the men who needed to support their families. My parents were having a really hard time just before this Christmas and were worrying about having any Christmas at all for us. They were really upset one day when a package came in the mail sent by my Grandparents Neville. All that was in it was a brand new white shirt for my Dad. They wondered why they just sent a white shirt for Dad and nothing else for the rest of the family until they looked more carefully and found a five-dollar bill stuck in the pocket of that shirt.
With so many caring family and friends we had a great Christmas that year and I decided that it was much better than having a Santa Claus.
Escalante, Utah --1935
My Dad had a new job. He was now employed by the United States Forest Service. He was working for the Civilian Conservation Corps commonly known as the CCC and for the Works Progress Aministration or the WPA. Escalante is in Southern Utah east of Bryce Canyon. At the time it was very isolated from the rest of the world, especially in winter. To get there roads went over Escalante Mountain or over “Hell’s backbone” ridge northeast to Boulder and then North on the Acquarious Plateau. One time a young couple tried to drive across the plateau in the winter. Their car broke down. The husband walked to Boulder for help and left his wife and infant child in the car. Apparently the wife had panicked and wrapped her child in blankets and tried to walk after her husband for help. When the husband returned with help, they found his wife’s body frozen to death, but the bundled up infant was still alive.
Even though we were excitingly preparing for Christmas, the story of the poor dead Mom haunted me. For years, when we traveled in cars in the winter time, I would always make sure there were some blankets in the car and I usually carried matches in my purser even though I was a non-smoker. However after living in California for the last 42 years I have become a little lax about that sort of thing. Now I carry a cell phone.
I loved school in the first grade in Escalante. There were no kindergarten classes in either Cedar City or Escalante. All I remember about starting first grade in Cedar City was the first day. My baby sister, Nancy, was less than three months old. A severe whooping cough epidemic was going around and Mother didn’t want the baby exposed to it. Catching whooping cough was often fatal for a young infant. Therefore we were not allowed to get close to the baby and mostly we had to look at her through a window. When it came time for school to start, Mother assigned my brother, Joe, to take me to the first grade classroom. He dutifully took my hand and led me to the classroom. Then he told me to go in by myself and he went off to the third grade classroom. I went in and tried to stand by the teacher’s desk. It seemed like I was invisible. All of the other children arrived with their mothers and pushed ahead of me. Finally all of the mothers were gone and the other children were sitting at desks in rows.
Then the teacher looked at me. I was no longer invisible. “Who are you she demanded?” I told her my name. “Where is your mother?” she questioned. I answered all of her questions the best I could but I didn’t know the answers to all of them. The teacher didn’t seem very happy and I was about to cry. I don’t if I really did or not, but the teacher told me to sit in the back of one of the rows of desks. This is the only memory I have of my first grade schooling in Cedar City. I must have gone some other days and I have tried for years to recall those days. My only guess so far is that I didn’t like it, and erased my recollection of those days. I do remember, however, moving to Escalante. It was a real adventure. By this time my brother, Joe, had caught the whooping cough, as had the rest of us except the baby. We were all recovering, except Joe who had a cough so bad that he threw up a lot. My mother was still trying to keep Nancy from catching the whooping cough. However, we had an old car. I can’t remember what kind it was. I was only impressed that it had blinds that could be pulled up and down on the back windows which was something to do to pass the time on a long drive. Mother had hung up a sheet between the front and back seats to keep the germs from making the baby sick. Poor Joe was coughing his head off (as people used to say) and I was afraid he would throw up on me. The twins were flipping the blinds up and down on the back windows and finally Dad stopped the car and threatened to spank us all if we didn’t settle down and be quiet and not play with the blinds. Something must have happened to those blinds. I don’t remember them being in the car after that.
It was dark when we finally got to the old hotel in Escalante. Dad had made reservations for us there for two rooms. Mother, Dad, and Nancy were to sleep in one room and Joe, Bob, Bruce and I were to sleep in the other room. There were two double beds in it. The twins got to sleep in one bed and Joe and I were to share the other one. I was still afraid that he might throw up on me. I stopped worrying about that when I needed to go to the bathroom, which was a more urgent concern when I asked my Mom where the bathroom was and she told me there weren’t any. She took me out to the outhouse which was dark and smelly. When Mom took me back to our room I asked her about what if I needed to go in the middle of the night. She showed me a chamber pot under the bed. I decided I would hold it all night. It was getting really dark and I couldn’t find the light switch. The hotel didn’t have light switches either. They had kerosene lamps. For the nearly four years we lived in Escalante, kerosene lamps were the major source of light for us. There was a power plant in town that worked once in a while but most people didn’t have electricity in their homes, nor did they have running water. We stayed in homes that had cisterns that were filled with water which came out of the mountain streams. When you needed water you had to pump the water into a bucket and carry it into the house. If you wanted hot water you could put it in the water reservoir on the side of the stove or warm it up in a big kettle. If you used it for washing or bathing you had to pour the dirty water in a bucket and take it outside and dump the water. It was something like year round camping. We did have a round tin tub so we could have our Saturday night baths in the kitchen. After each one of us had a turn in the tub with the same water, we would use the water to mop the kitchen floor, and then discard it.
This is quite a detour from Christmas in Escalante when I was in first grade, but I wanted you to get a feeling of the setting in which I lived at that time. I shall now describe our school and the home in which I lived during that time.
The Escalante elementary school had eight rooms, four on the first floor and four on the second floor. Grades one through four had classrooms on the first floor and grades five through eight were on the second floor. Instead of a water fountain there was a bucket filled with water in the middle of the first floor hall. In the bucket was a dipper. If a student wanted a drink of water he waited in line and drank out of the common dipper. I don’t know if there was a principal’s office or for that matter a principal. During my tenure there I never had either the privilege or necessity of visiting such a person.
My mother took me to school to register me in the first grade in Escalante. I was very happy about that. This classroom, like all of the other rooms in the school had a black potbellied stove in the middle of the room with a bucket of coal to replenish the fuel on a cold day. The floors were made of wood which were treated by something that made them smell like kerosene. Glass windows let in light from outside. The rooms were much brighter on sunny days. All of the rooms had desks on runners with ink well holes. We did not work at tables as most students do now. The teacher had a desk and there was a blackboard at the front of each classroom.
My first grade teacher was Mrs. Lee. She was nice and I thought she was great. She paid attention to me.. Instead of learning to print, we started our writing with cursive writing in the beginning. There were not a lot of visual aids which sometimes might have made me more subjective in my interpretation of things. I remember learning a Christmas poem: “Why do bells for Christmas ring, Why do little children sing; Once a lovely shining star; seen by shepherds from afar, gently shined upon the hay, Where a loving baby lay, And his mother sang and smiled. ‘This is Christ the Holy child’ ”. I might not remember the words exactly right. But I just could not figure out why the baby Jesus had holes in Him any more than anybody else.
But I do not remember worrying about it too much as the most important thing was about to happen. The whole school was putting on a Christmas program. I was chosen as the lead dancer of the doll Christmas parade. I don’t have any idea why I was the head dancer except maybe because I was the tallest. All of us Neville kids took some kind of weird pride in being the tallest ones in our classes in Escalante. My mother made me what I thought was the most beautiful costume imaginable. It was made from dark green crepe paper. It had multiple rows of gathered ruffles for the skirt and when I turned in it, the skirt stood far out. I guess it really was “far out.”
I was very excited as I started getting ready for school. I was standing in front of the stove in the kitchen where it was warm. As I was putting on my dress, I noticed some strange pink spots on my chest. I regret to this day that I ever asked my mother what the pink spots were. She looked at my spots and told me to put my pajamas back on. I had the chicken pox. I didn’t feel sick at that point. I was just upset. I wanted to dance in the Christmas program. Instead I got put to bed and my mother took my wonderful costume over to the school for another girl to wear and take my place in the Christmas program. My only comfort was that I thought I would at least get my costume back after the program. But I never did. I asked my mother why I didn’t get it back and she told me it wasn’t important.
Not only me, but all three of my brothers had come down with chicken pox by the time Christmas vacation had started. I was not very popular with my brothers because we had to stay in bed and could not go out and play in the snow with the other kids.
We lived in area where the hills and mountains were heavily forested and people were allowed to cut their own trees. My Dad arranged for someone to cut two trees for us. One tree was downstairs in our living room and one was put upstairs in our bedroom where all four of us slept. We each had an army cot to sleep on. We rented four rooms in that house. Our living room used to be Mrs. Davis’s dining and the main thing I remember about that room was a cracked window that had yellowing tape over the crack. Our kitchen was some other room with a rag rug.
My parents pulled off the rug and we had a bar wooden floor in the kitchen. Mother had her electric stove and washing machine in the kitchen. She also had a big black wood-burning stove for cooking and heat and used the electric stove for a cupboard and put a board over the burners for counter space. As far as the washing machine is concerned I guess it was just stored there. The only thing I remember about that was the time when my brother, Bruce, fell off a horse and broke his arm. My mother had been drying the silverware when the news cane via the rest of us. She had dropped the silverware in the washing machine and was not able to find it for several days.
Back to Christmas. My parents tried to make the holidays as pleasant as possible by letting us decorate our own tree. They got us colored paper, scissors and paste and we spent a lot of time making paper chains to put on the tree. We made a paper star to put on the top. We also tried to make presents for our family. I made my mother a waste paper basket by taking a cardboard carton and cutting out circles, triangles, and squares and pasting them randomly on the outside of the carton. I really was proud of my efforts.
Ogden, Utah –1942
By this time, World War II was raging and Dad’s defense related job had taken him to Tacoma, Washington. We were left home living in a rented duplex at 2436 Madison Ave. in Ogden. Dad was looking for a place for us to live in Tacoma. With the war, many of the people had left their farms and their small towns and were moving to the larger cities where the defense industries were located. He had driven up to Tacoma in our only car and finally found a room to rent in a church member’s home. As the Christmas season arrived there seemed to be little hope of us joining him in Tacoma and his job did not allow him to come home. The defense plants were operating in three shifts per day six or seven days per week. It was difficult for my mother. She could only shop in small amounts at the stores and she would take some of us with her to help carry the groceries and someone else would have to take care of Nancy. She ordered some things for us from the “Monkey Ward” catalog, and she was busy making goodies in a box she was sending Dad. But there was no Christmas tree. Mother explained that we needed to save our money and it was too hard to get a tree home without a car. We children were really disappointed at the thought of not having Dad home for Christmas and not having a Christmas tree. I was really shocked when I found that not only Dad was not coming home for Christmas. But he was also going to work on Christmas day. In his letter he said they had to have a crew work on Christmas and he might just as well work and let somebody off who had their family with them. It makes perfect sense to me now, but it really bothered me then. Dad later sent us a picture of him with the young family with whom he lived. The mother and father were smiling and holding their young baby. Dad was sitting apart from the rest of the family looking rather dejected.
Meanwhile Mother could tell that we were really disappointed about not having a Christmas Tree that year. She finally relented and gave us some money, an amount she thought would buy us a small tree that we could carry home.
We walked down town along Washington Boulevard looking at all of the trees for sale along the main drag which would have been four blocks from where we lived. I learned the names for the early presidents of our country really well because of Ogden’s street naming system. We looked at all of the places trying to find a tree that we liked and we could afford. We couldn’t find anything that satisfied us until we saw this tree on 20th Street, about another four blocks from where we lived. We asked the seller how much the tree would cost. It was almost ten dollars and we only had about half that much. We kept wandering around trying to find another tree, but none of them were very nice compared with the tree on 20th street.
We want back to the man on 20th street and were happy to see that the tree was still there. We asked him how much the tree cost again. He looked at us and lowered the price down a dollar or two, but we still didn’t have enough money to buy the tree that we wanted. We looked around some more and it seemed that a lot of trees were being sold and there were not too many to choose from. We went back to the man on 20th Street and asked him again how much the tree cost. He finally said. “How much money do you have?” We carefully counted it out and told him what we had. Finally he said, “Well that’s how much it costs.”
We were thrilled, but didn’t realize the tremendous task we had taken upon us. We had eight city blocks to carry this big tree, four of the blocks were up hill. Fortunately it was winter and we had gloves or mittens. We lifted and pulled and dragged that tree up the hill. Our faces got scratched by the bristly pine needles. We were battered and bruised by the time we got the tree home, but were triumphant when we brought the tree in the house. Mother seemed completely amazed that we could get a big tree for that amount of money and was impressed that we could get it home. I never forgot that Christmas and the satisfaction we had of bringing that tree home. I often wished I could thank that man again for his generosity to us four kids.
It was still disappointing not having Dad home for Christmas, but having that nice tree helped us all be more cheerful. Dad was never able to find us a house in Tacoma, but he did manage to get a transfer back to Ogden so we could all be together again. He had spent the whole winter in Tacoma where it rained a lot and he didn’t have a garage for the car. When he got home with the car, the only car door he could open was the driver’s side door. The rest of the doors were rusted shut and Dad had to take the car into a repair shop to get the doors unstuck.
My Mother Julia Taylor Neville, by Julia Anne Neville Gustaveson
Written in 1979
When thinking of the liberated woman, one usually conjures a vision of a young, braless, frizzy or stringy hair, placard carrying, vociferous woman campaigning for the Equal Rights Amendment during her lunch hours and coffee break. This is as bad a stereotype as the one of the hapless, harried discomposed housewife with the children hanging onto her skirts.
My vision of a liberated woman is an old lady with abundant white hair piled in waves and curls on her head. Her face is lined in a pattern which reveals that she has smiled and laughed often, more than she cried. But she had done both. She is my mother.
Her fame is centered mostly in Kaysville, Utah, with fingers of her influences radiating wherever her hundreds of students and dozens of posterity take it. The Maoris of New Zealand and the people in the out back of Australia also remember her and admire her.
Mom doesn’t categorize herself as a liberated woman. Her freedom comes form her mind and from her ability to adapt to situations. She puts it this way. “I do what I have to do.” Her advice is, “Never say you won’t do anything, I’ve done nearly everything I said I would never do.” And she has done a lot of things that would surprise the people who knew the way is which she was brought up.
Mom was the daughter of my grandfather, a prosperous and respected dentist in Salt Lake City. Her grandfather was the third Preside of the Mormon Church and successor to Brigham Young. Mom’s father loved her and indulged her, and her mother was prim and Victorian. Things in the home were done and said “properly,” and some things were never said at all. Sex or any of its aspects was one of the unmentionables.
Teaching and secretarial work were the only “respectable” professions for women in Mom’s youth. So mom graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in English Literature and a secondary teaching credential. Her first teaching assignment was in Sugar City, Idaho, a small village in South Eastern Idaho.
When she arrived in Sugar City, no one wanted to board her. Some teachers from previous years had quite “racy” reputations. The president of the Board finally took her in until she established a “decent” reputation, which didn’t prove easy, even for a girl of Mom’s upbringing. The School Board wanted to be very progressive and in addition to her English assignment, she was assigned to teach the first health and sex education class in that community. Mom is a little vague about exactly what she taught in that class, except that she told the girls they should take daily baths. She thought she was going to be fired when most of the mothers descended on her. “Did Miss Taylor realize what she was asking?” the mothers wanted to know. Bathing in Sugar City at that time meant pumping water from the cistern or drawing it from the well, heating it on the kitchen stove, filling the round tin tub, bathing and then carrying the water down to the ditch to empty it. Mom did not really realize what she was asking until she was confronted with the same situation years later.
Mom felt that she was finally well-respected in the community when the girls in the school play asked to borrow her flapper dresses and other clothes for the play. She realized the mother’s sill had reservations when she saw they play. Sleeves were sewed into all of her sleeveless dresses.
My mother deeply loved my father and told him that she would “go to the ends of the earth with him.” When she said that, she didn’t think he would take it quite that literally. She went as a bride to Eureka, Utah, a small silver mining town where Dad was a mining engineer. Dad found some rooms to rent. The landlady said that if mother were a “nice clean girl,” she could use her bathtub once a week. Her first tow children, a boy and a girl, were born during the Eureka days less than two years apart. Then misfortune fell upon my family along with practically everyone else in Eureka. The Depression came and the mines closed. Mother and Dad had lived high in the twenties and had saved no money. All they has was an insurance policy they have to cash in to get Mom and the twin boys who were born sixteen months after their daughter, out of the hospital. Mom had no place to go with four children with the oldest three.
Mom had said that she would never do it, but she moved into her mother-in-law’s home with her husband and four babies.
“Those were hard times,” she said. “Dad went out every day looking of work. I tried to keep the children quiet and I would be so tired at the end of the day. Anne was sickly, the twins were colicky, and Dad would come home so discouraged. He couldn’t find work anywhere. Sometime would worry and thing maybe he would just leave and follow the trains like so many of his friends did.”
Dad finally found a temporary job in Cedar City, Utah. Mom was elated to be on her own. She got up at five o’clock every morning to wash diapers and baby bedding, but it was still better to be independent. She had three children in diapers. The twins were allergic to rubber pants and they would be wet and cry in the middle of the night. The basement apartment was not heated at night and sometimes some of the bedding would be frozen stiff. Dad’s temporary job ended and Mom tried to get a job as a teacher. No one would hire her, except as an occasional substitute. The teaching jobs were saved for the men who were breadwinners. My parents had to go on Church welfare. Mom said it was hard to go to Church and listen to the Bishop preach that the “righteous should never be seen begging for bread.”
After Franklin Roosevelt was elected and the WPA) Work Projects Administration) was established Dad got a job pushing a wheelbarrow full of cement to build a sidewalk in front of the college (in Cedar City). Mom managed to save out enough from the grocery money to get Dad a pair of work gloves after his hands became raw and bleeding from pushing the wheelbarrow. Dad sill had to wear out his good suit, though, as he could not afford regular work clothes. Dad’s wages were meager, so Mom and Dad decided to grow a vegetable garden. Mom spend days picking up rocks and hauling them out of a side lot. Then the people who rented the upstairs of the house thought gardening might be a food idea and decided that they were entitled to their choice of plots since they paid rent and the landlord was just letting our family stay in the basement apartment until they could afford to pay rent.
Rocks were hauled again as Mom cleared the back lot which was even rockier than the one on the side. She always got a lot of pleasure remembering that her garden grew better than the others. She had a small triumph. Dad finally got a job helping build trails and roads through Zion National Park. Things were getting better economically when Nancy, their fifth child was born. However, Mom had a new worry. There was whooping cough epidemic in Cedar City and her four other children had it. Whooping cough was often fatal to new babies. Mom kept the baby in isolation for three weeks when Dad announced that he was transferred to Escalante in the south central part of Utah near Bryce Canyon. This was a beautiful and isolated area which Mom called “the end of the world.”
There were no paved roads, no sidewalks, no running water and no electricity. These things were difficult for Mom to cope with, but were not as difficult as being an “outsider” and having no friends.
The town was close knit and isolated. Nobody wanted us. Nobody wanted to rent us a place to live. Nobody wanted to sell us milk, meat or eggs which were not sold in the store. She still felt like a beggar in a hostile world, even though she now had money with which to buy things. She sent her children to school wondering how the other children treated them and cried herself to sleep at night into the pillow so that Dad would not hear her.
A poor old lady who really needed some extra money let us have three rooms in her old house. The windows were cracked and patched with tape and cardboard. Mom used the big room for a kitchen and took up the rag rug from the board floor. There was a big cast iron stove with a water reservoir and she used her electric stove for a cupboard and her electric washing making for a clothes hamper. She acquired a couple of round tin tubs and a scrub board. In Escalante, Mom learned to make soap, chop wood for kindling, build fires and adapt in other ways.
But the social adaption was the hardest. Dad soon became superintendent of the Civilian Conservation Corp Camp which was another project started in the Roosevelt administration to provide jobs for young men. However, the townspeople were wary of all CCC people.
Mom saw things from a different perspective and stopped crying in her pillow. The ladies in town were as afraid of her as she was of them. She looked the town over and picked out several ladies that she thought would be nice friends. She invited them to a luncheon. They all came. The linens, the china and the crystal were on the table. From that time on, Mom was an established part of the community, except for the elections.
The town was one hundred percent Republican and the people did not want any Roosevelt Democrats spoiling their records. “People often vote with their stomachs,” Mom explained. Some of the workers came to Dad and reported that they were not being allowed to vote because government employees could not vote.
Dad took Mom away from her ironing and marched her down to the polls. “Julia,” he said, “you stand in line right here and don’t let a single person enter this room to vote until they let you vote first. I’m going to round up the rest of the camp workers.” For several hours Mom stood resolute while the law was checked out. She was the next one who voted.
In 1939 Dad was transferred to Ogden, Utah and Mom was finally back to civilization. However, she like Escalante and cried when she left.
World War II brought other adaptations for Mom. Dad worked for National Defense at Hill Air Force Base and we moved to Washington Terrace, a government housing project. The walls were not air tight and the sand sifted through them whenever there was a strong wind, which was often. The bathtub was grey cement. The only way Mom could tell if tit was left clean or not, was be feeling it. She could never get her children to clean the tub much under these circumstances. She did, however, think it was an improvement from the Escalante days when she had no bathtub at all.
Washington Terrace was hot in summer. No grass, trees, or flowers changed the landscape of the sifting dunes surrounding the unpainted barrack-type structures two thousand people called “home.”
Mom decided she was going to do something to change the situation. She bought grass seed, flower seeds, and planted a couple of trees. Faithfully she watered her sand, five or six times a day, so that it would not dry out. All of the neighbors laughed. “You can’t grow grass in nothing but sand,” they taunted.
“I can,” she replied. And she did. Then everybody planted grass. The sand at Washington Terrace became covered with green grass.
One day the superintendent of schools knocked at Mom’s door. “We heard that you used to teach school.”
“Yes,” Mom replied, before I married.”
“We are desperate for teachers. Would you do it now?”
The superintendent made it sound like part of the war effort. Mom was patriotic and decided she would try going back to teaching on a “temporary basis.”
The “temporary basis” lasted until Mom retired at age sixty-two. She loved teaching and her students loved her. Many of her students remember her as the teacher who taught them to love to write.
During her first twenty-four years of marriage, Mom had never had a home that she owned, and one of her passions was to get one. She lived in cabins, tents, housing projects, duplexes and rented rooms. She told Dad that if she died and he brought his new wife to a nice house, she would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Finally she and Dad purchased a new home in Kaysville, located between Salt Lake City and Ogden. Situated up on the bench, it overlooked the Great Salt Lake in the west and the mountains on the east. During the next few years her five children married and left home. Many of Mom’s friends wondered why she had such a big house for just her and Dad. “This is the way I like it,” she would say. “I will always have a place for the children and grandchildren when they come home to visit.”
Her reign ended abruptly. But as Mom said later, “After I finally got my home, it didn’t as make much difference as I thought it would.” My parents were called on a mission for the Mormon Church to work with the Maoris in New Zealand, and she left her new home.
They were assigned out in the “bush.” Again Mom had a hard time finding a place to live and finally rented a room with kitchen privileges above the general store. They shared the kitchen with the proprietor and the bathroom with everybody who came into the store. Mom donned her “gum” boots and waded through swamp forests to visit her flock. She balanced across swinging bridges and was chased by a bull, but she stuck it out for her two year calling. She loved the Maoris.
A year after their return from New Zealand when my parents were both sixty-nine, they were called on another mission, this time to the outback of Australia. The small mining town there was even more primitive than Eureka where she had gone as a bride. At first my parents were not welcome in this isolated town, but Mom having been through the problem before, figured it was just a matter of time. She persisted with her projects and finally won first place in the “non-commercial” booth of the county fair. They established a small branch of the Church in Broken Hill. In two years Mom and Dad moved back to Kaysville. They were almost seventy-two. They decided to rest. Mom’s idea of rest is sleeping in until about 6:00 a.m. and working until noon, then taking an afternoon nap and getting back to work for another few hours. People who are work oriented can always find work to do. My parents were called as ordinance workers at the Ogden Temple. They had the early shift. Mom got up at 3:30 a.m. three mornings a week, piled her long white hair on top of her hear and drove with Dad the twenty miles into Ogden. She said she didn’t mind it except when they had to “break track” as the first ones across the road after a snow storm.
On their days off, they gardened, painted their home, and maintained a rental that they owned. They owned a vacant lot which they put into grass so Dad could practice his golf. They planted vegetables in the back. They raised enough to feed half of the town.
Then one day my father dropped dead suddenly of a heart attack. Mom at seventy-five was alone and had to adapt to widowhood. But she still wanted to keep her independence. She would not live with any of her children. She still shovels snow, teaches Sunday School and other church classes, gardens and keeps her house the gathering place for her posterity. After having cataract surgery on both eyes and having a problem of depth perception she has had to give up driving her car. Until a week ago she hopefully kept her car parked in the garage, waiting until she “could see better.” Then the doctor told her she would never be able to drive again and that he could not certify her in order to get a license with the Department of Motor Vehicles.
I’m going to sell my car,” she announced. “It is a hard step to take, but I have to face life the way it is.” She does what she has and wants to do. She bought herself a microwave oven for Valentine’s Day. “I know Dad would have liked me to have it,” she said. Now she is taking cooking classes.
She wears heavy glasses now, and is bent over, but somehow she seems to grow taller all the time.
When someone asks me who a liberated woman is, I think of my seventy nine year old mother.
Eulogy of Julia Taylor Neville, by Julia Anne Neville Gustaveson
Julia Taylor Neville, born on August 6, 1900 in Salt Lake City was the second child of Ezra Oakley Taylor and Ida Gay Whipple. He older sister was Mary. Added to the family were Ezra, Gay, Irvin and Patricia who survive her. In her history, Mother described her early life in this family, “My memories of my childhood and growing up were almost all happy with the sense of being loved and important.” Mother also wrote about her parents and each of her siblings in loving terms. She wrote “To me, Mother and Father were really impressive.”
Mother was proud of her pioneer lineage, and of their contributions just as we, her family, and her friends are proud of her and her accomplishments. As Mother described “one of the grandest occasions of the years was the Taylor Family Reunion,” always held on November 1st, her Grandfather John Taylor’s Birthday. I am sure Mother has now attended an even grander family reunion, with Dad, her parents, her sister, her grandparents and many of those same people she used to see at the family reunions.
Mother’s and Dad’s courtship started in a freshman English class at the University of Utah in 1919. However, it didn’t end on June 11, 1926 when they were married in the Salt Lake Temple. It continued in a beautiful way until Dad’s death on May 16, 1975. Their example of a loving and joyful married has been a model for me, and I believe for my brothers and sister. Our parents didn’t fight. Mother said that they got most of their disagreements resolved before marriage. She wrote, “Tis a fact that ‘true love never runs smoothly’ and so it was before our marriage, but after, our love and devotion never ceases.” When my parents were in their seventies, they felt very complimented when a young man in their ward had observed how close my parents were. This young man invited my parents to accompany him and a young woman on a double date.
Bravery is not necessarily not being frightened, but in doing things even when you are frightened. My mother was a brave woman. She had nearly drowned in a creek when she was a baby and was always frightened of water. One of the requirements for graduation from the University was to pass a swimming test. She writes of her graduation. “June 5, graduation day came. It was hot, the exercises were long, but finally I received my diploma which almost retained me as I had not passed the swimming test. After graduating from the University of Utah in 1923, Mother found a teaching job in Sugar City, Idaho. She wrote of this undertaking. “Today, a trip up to Sugar City, Idaho wouldn’t be anything special, only a few hours trip, but in the fall of 1923, for a city girl who had led a comparatively sheltered life and never been away from my family before, it was quite an event.” In the fall of 1924 Mother taught English in the L.D.S. High School for two years.
Many acts of courage are commonplace, but nevertheless, for one who makes it through them; they are still acts of courage. Having a baby is one of them. In referring to her first child’s birth, “It was a long and difficult delivery, the baby after long hours of labor, had to be delivered by forceps, on April 12, 1927. I hemorrhaged and nearly lost my life. His name was to be Joseph after his father whom he resembled a great deal, at his birth.”
About two years later I came in. Sixteen months later, twin sons, Robert and Bruce were born. Mother, indeed, had a “fearful foursome” with four children, the oldest being only three. Nancy followed five years later, but has since caught up with us all. That completed the family until we started to add in-laws and grandchildren. In addition to her five children, Mother’s posterity, now includes 26 grandchildren and 58 great grand children. This posterity will continue to grow. There are more grandchildren to marry and more great grand children to be born. Mother has always been proud of her posterity, and Dad even went so far as to say that he expected each generation to be an improvement upon the last. As I think of what Mother has accomplished in her life, I personally wonder if I am up to that challenge. Mother has always been my idea, and the person that I wanted most to emulate.
I remember another time when mother exhibited her bravery in driving a car. We were living in a mountain cabin situated above the town of Escalante, Utah. Frequently Dad took us all in the pickup truck as he surveyed and worked building the road from Escalante to Boulder. On one such trip the boys and I rode in the back of the truck while, Mother, Dad and Nancy rode in the cab. We had to drive over a “hogsback” and a bridge called “Hell’s Backbone.” The road was a one-lane narrow dirt road with a steep drop off on each side. We in the back of the truck considered this a very scary drive, and we had the natural instinct of the ostrich. In order to protect ourselves we covered our heads with a canvas tarp. This same road was also frightening to Mother. On this particular jaunt, Dad’s boss, the superintendent, found Dad and ordered him to accompany him on another expedition, leaving then, from our location in Boulder Mother had to drive back to the cabin in the pickup. Mother was afraid. “However,” she reasoned aloud, “I never drive off the road when it is on the lever, why should I drive off the road because there are deep drop offs on each side.” I guess Mother transferred some of that fear to me, and I will never forget that ride back. I don’t remember if I covered up my head with the tarp, but I do remember that it seemed like a very long drive as I prayed all the way. For me it was a profound lesson in overcoming fear and staying on the “straight and narrow.” You won’t fall off to the side if you keep your eye on the road.
In addition to becoming brave, Mother also said she had to learn humility. It was during the depression “we knew what humility means. To get the babies (twins) out of the hospital, we had to cash in our last resource, a building and loan certificate. Here we were with four children, the oldest just three and without funds. Joe could get an occasional labor hob, but that was all. We were so short of money that Joe couldn’t afford to buy work clothes, so had to wear his suit pants on whatever work he could find. We stayed with my parents and them for a while with Joe’s. The whole experience being very difficult for everyone concerned… Neither of us were quite the same ager those humbling experiences. At last Joe acquired an engineering job with the National Parks service in Cedar City. It was only a summer job but we were so thankful for it. To be in a home with our children without being a burden was a great relief to us, although we appreciated the wonderful help we had received. The Depression deepened and the banks failed. This put us on the Church Welfare. We were unable to pay our rent for a long time. I shall never forget our kind and noble landlord, who never once asked us for our rent who even gave us some money at Christmas time for the children. We kept track of what we owed him, however, and eventually paid him every bit of it.”
“These experiences taught us many valuable hard to learn lessons. Since then I have had so much more compassion and understanding for those who are unemployed or in distress. I also learned to be able to receive help gracefully, that the world could to go on without receivers as well as givers of gifts. I can’t pretend that at times it has not been hard to be on the receiving end. Even now since I have been having surgery on my eyes, I am dependent on others to help me out.”
After working with the parks near Cedar City, Dad became employed as an engineer and them camp superintendent for the forest service and we moved to Escalante. It was a real adventure for me and my brothers and gave us unique experiences for our generation. However, for Mother, it was not only an adventure, it was a challenging and in some ways frightening experience. She gave up the modern conveniences of the thirties for the rigors of country living without plumbing, electricity, except on occasion, central heating, paved roads, and store where she could buy such items as fresh meat, vegetables and milk.
She described in detail the difficult conditions under she lived. “Was I thrilled with all this? To my credit what tears I shed, even if all this was a good experience for me. To my credit what tears I shed were in my pillow and never around my husband, but they were shed, even if all this was a good experience for me.” Mother was at first; lonely in Escalante and thought she would never have any friends. My parents volunteered for Church assignments and finally got a few, but were never invited into people’s homes. They were distrustful of the C.C.C. officials.
“That lonely first winter,” Mother wrote. “was finally made more bearable when I got desperate and decided to have a luncheon and invite some of the ladies I had liked, and even the captain’s wife (protocol didn’t allow the military to socialize with the civilians) and the foreman’s young wife and doctor’s wife . It was strictly non-Emily Post, but I didn’t care. Everyone invited came. It was a huge success. On this cold winter day, the ice was broken. From them on, we were accepted in the community.”
Mother always created what I considered a nice home on the inside wherever we lived, but always longed for a pretty home on the outside. One time I remember her telling Dad that if she should dies and he bought his new wife a pretty home, she would roll over in her grave and haunt him. Finally she moved to Kaysville and had her pretty home. She told me she really appreciated it and enjoyed it, but after all her experiences in moving around, and then fulfilling tow mission, her home was not as important to her as she thought it would be. She said that her experience in life, and her ability to serve and be with Dad and her family were much more important to her, and her friends in Kaysville and other areas meant al lot more to her than a house.
Mother resumed her teaching career in 1943. She said, “I was almost drafted to teach in the Terrace School as the war was still on and teachers very scarce. She taught in fifth grade, and then to Junior High in the Weber School District. After moving to Kaysville, she got a job teaching English at Davis High School. Mother’s influence lives on through her students including one California Stake President who referred to Mother as his “favorite teacher.” Mother served in the Young Women’s Program, Primary and Relief Society as a teacher and in the presidencies. She also belonged to several professional, political and service organizations. Then, as if she didn’t have enough to do, she and Dad had their gardens every year starting with their victory gardens during World War II.
They took off the summer of 1959 to go to Europe on a BYU educational tour.
Mother resigned from teaching in 1962 and travelled with Dad in his appraising work. After Dad retired, Mom and Dad were called on a mission to New Zealand. They left in January 1966. Where they were assigned to Pipiwai in New Zealand, Mother said that she then knew why she had the Escalante experience; it was to prepare her for Pipiwai. Their quarters there were three rooms in the back of the store, a bedroom, a living room, a small closet and a storage room. There was one bathroom across the hall to be shared with the owner and his Maori housekeeper, a “flush” toilet to be shared with the customers and the owner, and a wash room. It was dirty and sparsely furnished. She wrote, “I could have wept-but missionaries don’t do that. I would have taken the next plane home, but missionaries don’t do that either.”
Mother adjusted and became very fond of the Maoris. Dad helped the branch apply for a new chapel. When they returned on their second mission and went to Pipiwai to visit, they were told that this chapel was a fulfillment of prophecy. Years before, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith and Elder Hugh B. Brown at different times had prophesied that the day would come when the Te Horo Branch would have a beautiful chapel. Little did we know that we were in the middle of prophecy being fulfilled.”
Mother was never too fond of flying. According to her history, one of her braver acts was to accompany Dad in a small ski plane that could land on a glacier in the New Zealand Alps. She wrote, “Joe was immediately converted. I was decidedly not. However, when the time came I felt that if he were to be killed, I had better go along as I didn’t want to be left to live alone. After completing their mission, they took and extensive tour before coming home, including Singapore, India, Egypt, Israel and other places.
After being home less than a year, Mother and Dad were called to the Australia, Adelaide Mission. From there they were called to finish their mission as ordinance workers at the New Zealand Temple. They hated to leave Australia, but enjoyed their temple work back in New Zealand. Mother often talked about how the Maori people of New Zealand had the gift of faith, and mentioned instances of how people had been saved and cured through ministrations of the Priesthood. She also told us about how she was saved by the ministration of the priesthood, when she, as a baby was blessed by Karl Maser, and that she would be a blessing and comfort to her parents. Mother also spoke of many faith promoting experiences that she had, and that others had told her about while she was working in both the New Zealand and Ogden Temples. She wrote, “As I relate this experience I would like to testify that I loved my work in the Temple. It was a great experience for me.” Mother worked as an ordinance worker in the Ogden Temple form it’s opening in 1972 until 1977. Mother stared going back to the temple again doing endowments in March 1978 after her eye surgery. She said that “For some time I have been feeling frustrated about not being able to do anything much for anyone else.” This temple service gave her the opportunity to serve others. In May 1980 Mother performed 27 endowments which she said was “a record for me for one month.” Mother’s faith in the resurrection was illustrated by one incident she related when working at the temple. The sister workers wistfully bemoaned their lost youth as the helped the young brides. Mother remarked, “Don’t feel badly, it won’t be long until we look good again.”
That’s what Mother was like: she had faith and showed her faith by her works of righteousness. She gained wisdom through her life’s experiences and frequently disbursed it to us with her axioms. After my colicky first child was born, I asked her how a person could survive with more than one baby. She responded, “You do what you have to do.” Then she added, “You know, Anne, never say you will never do something, I think I have ended up have to do almost everything I said, I would never do.” I couldn’t help thinking about that conversation as I sat by her bed one day during her last difficult illness. However, what set Mother apart is not only doing what she had to do, but the way she did it. In life we are to do some things and endure others. Mother, I believe, did both well. She was outstanding in her accomplishments and endured to the end of this life in patience and faith.
For Mother’s Day last year I wrote her a poem in which I tried to express my love for her:
When first I slept upon your knee, I dreamed that someday I would be A mother patterned after thee.
While nurtured in my infancy Your mother love flowed always free To pass to those who came from me.
Although my cord of life was cut at birth, You suckled me while here on earth With wisdom of eternal worth.
My daughters now, have daughters too, And in their veins flow genes from you. And your mother love is passed anew.
I say these things knowing that Mother still lives and that we too will reunite with her, and out Father in Heaven some day if we are worthy. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Letter Written by Julia Neville Gustaveson, to her nieces when she gave each niece a piece from Grandma’s (Julia Taylor Neville’s) Cedar Chest
January 15, 1990
Dear Niece,
To me, most of the contents of Mother’s cedar chest are tangible reminders of a legacy of memories from a mother who made a gracious home under the most humble circumstances. As a child, I always thought of the cedar chest as the “treasure chest.” It was not a place where things were put and never used. Many of the linens are worn and stained, but those are the ones that bring back the fondest memories.
Mother had a note place on the guest towels, “Guest towels; a must for 1925 hope chest.” There were enough for each granddaughter to have one. Als, there were enough handkerchiefs so each granddaughter could also have one. Mother was brought up in what was for the times a reasonably affluent and proper home for the early 1900’s. She was the granddaughter of President John Taylor and a neighbor to President Heber J. Grant. One of her cousins was also a granddaughter of President Grant, and frequently mother’s cousin invited her to sit with her in the President’s box at the matinees in the Salt Lake Theater. These were the days when mother cried because her father wouldn’t buy her a new hat to wear to a basketball game. She wore a hobble skirt on and outing to Bird Island in the Great Salt and had to be lifted in and out of the boat because she didn’t dare lift her skirt up far enough to step in and out of the boat by herself. These were also the days when only certain jobs were proper for genteel young ladies. Telephone operators, store clerks, and professional actresses were not among them. Thus upon her graduation, Mother became an honorable teacher in Idaho and the reeducation of Julia began. According to country Idaho standard, mother was a “racy flapper”. She was humiliated when one of her students borrowed her sleeveless flapper dress to wear in a high school play. When the girl appeared on the stage, sleeves were sewn onto the dress.
However, Mother returned to Salt Lake, finished a year of teaching there and was married. Mother took her wonderful hope chest and moved to the mining town of Eureka. Dad finally found a place for them to live where the landlady said that if she were “a nice clean girl”, she could take a bath in the landlady’s tub once a week.
After she was married, Mother never had what might be termed a “pretty home” until the end of 1950 when she move to Kaysville. In face, Mother and Dad lived in some rather strange places. The first home I can remember was a two bedroom basement apartment in Cedar City. I used to watch mother carefully iron her guest towels and luncheon cloths. She took turns with a group of friends having afternoon bridge games and luncheons. She used her best dishes and linens and I always thought it was so elegant.
Our next abode was some rented rooms in an old house in Escalante with cracked windows taped with brown tape and bright floral wall paper. Mother made some pretty curtains to cover the make shift dynamite box cupboards. However, there was one cabinet with glass where Mother could display her best Haviland china. I still remember how upset Mother got the day Vio, the hired girl, chipped one of the plates. Mother was at first lonely in Escalante. Mother was at first lonely in Escalante living under difficult circumstances away from family and friends. She went to church but was not given a calling and felt very discouraged. Finally she got brave and decided to have a luncheon. She picked out some women she thought seemed nice and invited the. She set up her luncheon on tables and her best china and much to her surprise everyone came. This was the year I was in the first grade and my 7th birthday was coming up. Mother brought s surprise birthday party to my classroom for the whole class. She laid out the refreshments on one of her linen table cloths. After the party, Mrs. Lee, the teacher explained to the class about how the table cloth was real linen made from flax and how nice it was. Most of the kids seemed really impressed, including me. Maybe that was one of the reasons some of the people in Escalante thought we were so rich. The following summer and two more summers after that we lived in a two room cabin up in the mountains. We had a spring that ran by the cabin for a refrigerator. In the back Joe, Bruce, Bob and I each had a corner of a tent with a wood floor to sleep in. I used to sing myself to sleep, and wondered why some of the boys complained. I think I was still a monotone at that time. A little further out back was a two-seater outhouse. I was surely creepy to find your way out there in the dark. I guess the cabin was not built according to code, because when Joe or Bruce went back there one tine, the cabin was in ruins, but the dog house was still standing.
For two winters we lived in the King’s house. Mother continued with this group of friends who had afternoon luncheons with the pretty cloths and best china. It was there that Mother decided I should learn some of the fine points of gracious serving, ironing and embroidery. Mother embroidered some placemats and a centerpiece set and edged each piece with some blanket stitches. She bought me a pot holder set to embroider and taught me how to do the outline stitch and the blanket stitch. How I struggled with it and felt woefully inadequate when I compared my work with Mothers. I gave my set to her for a gift. She kept it in her cedar chest and a few years ago, gave it back to mer. It really wasn’t too bade for an eight year old.
The last winter in Escalante we spent in Listen’s house. I really thought it was quite elegant. It was two stories, and for the first time in my life I had a room of my own. However, it was very cold and lonesome up there and I used to get scared. I even got more scared one time when we went down to the neighbors to get the milk. Two of us would go down with a big galvanized milk can and buy milk every night. However, I seemed to have a chronic cough most of most winters, and this one night I started to cough when we were buying milk at the neighbors. The lady thought I sounded terrible, like maybe I had the croup. She told me about all of the children she knew that had died of the croup. I never liked sleeping in that room after that, because I was sure I was going to die with nobody to save me. I was grateful when sometimes I could sleep warm under Mother’s and Dad’s down comforter when I babysat Nancy down stairs. After Dad and Mom came home, Dad would carry me back to bed upstairs. I was embarrassed to tell my parents I was afraid, but after I complained a lot about m stomach aches, they seemed to figure out the problem and put me in a room at the top of the stairs with Joe. I surely blew my only chance to have a room of my own. Anyway, it was while we were living in this house hat Mother bought me a cross stitch sampler and herself a cross stitch table cloth to embroider. I still remember the long talks and instructions I got from her for a lot of things other than embroidery while we worked on our cross stitch projects. It means a lot to me to have that now that Mother is gone.
Mother’s next home was a dingy looking duplex in Ogden covered with layers of soot coming from the coal-burning trains a few blocks away, and from everyone’s coal burning stokers. I think the original color of the bricks was yellow. Mother said that we all moved in late one night and the electricity was not turned on. Our furniture was still in storage so we took blankets and laid them out on the floor in the dark. The next morning when we got up Mother said, if she didn’t know better we have all turned into “a bunch of black babies.” We were completely covered with soot. Mother spent a couple of weeks scrubbing, then the dishes were in the cupboard and the linens came out of the cedar chest, and it was home and I was proud of it.
Our next home was in Washing Terrace. It was a small, drafty, barrack-type temporary war housing project, and some people had trouble telling which unit was outs on the outside, but could never mistake it on the inside. Mother had a flair; and I was never ashamed of where we lived, even there, where some people thought it was not quite a respectable place to live. Mother finally got her pretty home when we moved to Kaysville. She was fifty years old and had waited a long time. She left it for four and a half years, living in rather strange places while she and Dad served missions. She confided in me that while she enjoyed her home, it really wasn’t as important as she thought it was. I think the reason for that is she knew how to make a home wherever she was. While going through Mother’s cedar chest, I dusted off a lot of old memories and hope I haven’t bored you too much with them. I just wanted you to know that his towel and handkerchief I am sending you have a lot of meaning to me, and hopefully they will to you.
Love, Aunt Anne
