MELETA CLOE BLACK
By Cloe Truman Anderson, daughter
As told to her by her Mother
Meleta was born to Miller Snow and Julia Sherman Black, on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, 26th of November 1896, in a two-room log cabin on West Center Street, in Huntington, Emery County, Utah. She was the fourth child born to this couple, but was the third living child as Nora's twin Cora died at birth. Nora and Cora were born 07 November, 1893, Perry was born 27 May 1895. A total of four sons and four daughters were born to this family and they raised two daughters and four sons. Millers brother, Charles Black, ask Julia when she was going to have a fair, Danish baby. When Meleta was born, Julia told Charles "I have that fair Danish baby." He looked at her and exclaimed, "Julia she would shame the coals," meaning that she was just as black haired and black eyed as the other two babies had been. She never lost her baby hair and the new hair grew in very blond and had black ends. As she grew up she was 4'11" tall, had brown eyes and hair.
Mother's earliest recollection goes back to the turn of the century, 1902, when three families: Miller and Julia Black, Samuel and Margaret Rowley, and Lorenzo and Sarah Young, and their young families, set forth in three covered wagons and journeyed to Fruitland, New Mexico to visit Patriarch William Morley Black the father of Miller, Margaret and Sarah. William Morley Black who was temporarily settled in that area.
The trip was under taken in the summer and took approximately two months to reach their destination. There were just trails to follow and it was a long and arduous journey for the families. The women and little girls wore long petticoats and dresses, long stocking and they walked much of the way. It was a rough, rocky and sort of desert terrain and they got lots of sand burrs in their clothing that irritated their feet and legs. Meleta remembers walking through a wash and picking up a beautiful shinny rock which she kept for many years. When they arrived in Fruitland, at her grandfathers' farm, some Indians came to the farm and wanted some hay. They were given some bundles of loose hay, which they wrapped in blankets and rode off on their horses calling back, "Wino hay, Bill." meaning "Good hay, Bill." She recalls that fresh peaches were ripe before they left Fruitland to come home and how delicious they were. All the food they took from home for this journey was flour, salt, lard, salt pork and beans. They killed rabbits, game birds and deer to round out their food supply.
During the winter of 1901 a terrible epidemic of diphtheria swept through Castle Valley. Meleta was about four years old and was the only child of Miller and Julia's who contracted the very contagious disease and nearly died. The disease lasted about six weeks and the whole family had to be quarantined for that period of time. The children who were well, had to be kept away from the sick child and it presented lots of problems when you were living in a two-room log cabin. A doctor came by horse and buggy from Price, twenty-one miles away, and would swab her throat and administer medication. She got so thin that she could pull the skin on her neck and put it in her mouth. Sister Eliza Brasher came to see her and brought her a small jar of English Current Jelly and a doll hat made out of pink and white crepe paper. The jelly tasted so good that it has been her favorite jelly since that time. Meleta had Diphtheria in about 1900 or 1901. Grandma stayed in one room with her. Grandpa took care of the rest of the family. Meleta had to be kept quarantined.
SCHOOL YEARS
The Black family lived at Center Street three and one half blocks west of the school. The children would run to school every morning come back for lunch and return to school for the remainder of the class work. A class called, "Beginners" preceded the first grade, and the children began school at six years of age. The school was an old four-room brick building and Violet Grange was Meleta's first grade teacher. There were approximately 30 children in each room. They were taught to read, write, spell, and to color and paint. They had a slate at home, but used pencil and paper at school. When the weather was bad her father would saddle up "'Ol Dunk" and all four children would ride to him to school. They would put the reins up over his head and he would go back home. Her second grade teacher was Myra McKee, and third grade teacher was Martha Ashby. In the fourth grade they held spelling bees every week. Adelia Lemmon, was her teacher, and as each student missed a word they would have to sit down. Her cousin Brian Cox and Meleta were always the last ones standing in the spelling contest. Her fifth grade teacher was Maude Wakefield. Marble playing was the favorite past time for the boys and they would shoot the marbles across the hall from one room to another. The teachers seemed to have little control over the marble players.
In about 1909 a new two-story schoolhouse was built, and the first four grades were on the first floor and the fifth to ninth grades were on the second floor. Brother Woodward, the principal, would have all the students stand on the stairs and in the hall, the whole school would begin the school day by singing patriotic songs or songs related to a current holiday. Her sixth grade teacher was Irene Branch, a teacher that she enjoyed very much. She was very pretty and had a keen sense of humor. M. J. Blackburn was her 7th grade teacher. Algebra was introduced and most of the students found it very difficult. During this year she was given the award for being the best reader of the girls and Bill Majors got the award for the boys. During grade school her best friend was May Smith, in high school Vesta Wakefield and Ella Mangum were her best friends. Her teacher, Mr. Blackburn would invite the students to his home for candy bees and on one occasion he took them out into his orchard and taught them how to bud trees. Don C. Woodard was her eighth and ninth grade teacher. Bob Fenton was her first year high school teacher and Mr. Hadapp was her second year high school teacher. He spoke German very well and attempted to teach his students the German Language, but they were poor learners and didn't gain much from his efforts. When she was eighteen years old she completed the eleven years of school that was offered in the community. The school sponsored many dances, plays, cantatas; the students always planted trees on Arbor Day. In her last two years of school the girls had a basketball team. They would go to practice at seven o'clock in every morning. They enjoyed the sport very much.
Meleta loved to learn and thoroughly enjoyed her school years. She was an excellent student, and enjoyed the time spent in the classroom as well as participating in basketball, drama, and loved to attend all of the dances. She loved to dance. She attended a class called beginners, then eight years of elementary and graduated from Huntington High School in 1915.
HOME LIFE
My home life while attending school was very busy. My mother, Julia, sewed all the clothes for the family and knitted most of the socks. The cooking, cleaning, washing the clothes, and making bread was done by Nora and Meleta. I started making bread for the family when Lyman was a baby and was very ill with the whooping cough. I was ten years old at the time and the job stayed with me until I was married. In about 1910 Miller and Julia built a new home on the same location as the old log home. It was a frame home that had two big bedrooms upstairs and a big living room and bedroom on the main floor as well as a kitchen. The children slept upstairs and their father, Miller, always called up the stairs to wake the children, and had warm water ready for everyone to wash their faces as soon as they came down the stairs. He also encouraged everyone to drink a glass of warm water every morning to wash out their systems to start the day something that he did every morning.
The boys, Perry and LaVar would go out to do chores and Nora would start frying the meat and I would start making the biscuits for breakfast. We didn't often have time to wash the dishes before we left for school, but they would always be waiting for us when we got home from school. We scrubbed all the clothes on washboard in tubs of hot water. We carried all the water that we used from the little canal that was across the street. The water was quite riley, so we put the water in barrels and added alum to it to clear and settle the water. We used this water for drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning and for every purpose. We had some floors that were bare wood floors that had to be scrubbed with hot soapy water, the linoleum floors we mopped and then we dipped a cloth in skim milk and wiped the linoleum so it would shine.
We always had a big garden and raised all the vegetables that we ate and canned. We had raised our own beef, pork, milk cows, farm flock of sheep and always had two or three-dozen laying hens to provide for our eggs and for fried chicken and chicken soup. They also had turkeys and used the eggs for baking. My Dad took wheat to the gristmill and would draw flour and cracked wheat and germade cereal (like cream of wheat), as we needed it. The family was very self-sufficient.
We always milked four or five cows, so we had lots of milk. We made cottage cheese, we made our own butter in a tall wooden churn that we pushed and pulled the dasher up and down. Every time we churned, I would take a gallon bucket of buttermilk down to the pool hall and we were paid cash for it.
Our special foods that we cooked for holidays and the Sabbath were chicken soup with home made noodles and our favorite dessert was spice cake. We picked fruit on shares at several fruit farms in the area and ate a dish of berries, apricots, peaches, currents or applesauce for desserts.
The only items we went to the store to purchase were salt, sugar, soda, baking powder, hand soap, spices, extracts, cloth, lace, thread, shoes, girls socks and hats. These things we purchased from: the J.W. Nixon Store or the George M. Miller stores that were located on Main Street in Huntington. Elsie Olsen had a millinery shop where the women bought their hats. I sometimes did house work for her to pay for my hats. She paid her help at the rate of $.50 cents a day. She would have a long list of duties for you to finish before you could leave. I also went across the street to Emma Knight's home and washed tubs full of dishes, jars and utensils. She had a large family of boys and never washed dishes. She would pile them in tubs and when the tubs were full she would hire a young girl to come in a couple of times a week to wash them. I washed them for her many times while I was her neighbor. I went to another neighbors home and worked for Moriah Jones, Benjamin Jones's wife who was part Indian. There I would wash dishes and clean house. Mother, Nora and I would pick fruit, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and currants on shares and bring them home and can them. After I was out of high school, I went out to Millerton Ranch between Price and Huntington and would help cook and wash dishes during the haying season. There I earned $5.00 per week. Soren and Maggie Anderson were operating the ranch. It belonged to the U.S. Fuel Company.
Our primary means of transportation during this period of time was walking. Dad had a team and buggy that we would travel to Castle Dale to the county seat and to Price to shop occasionally. If we were visiting relatives that were within a mile or two we would often go in the wagon but we mostly walked where we wanted and needed to go. Aunt Nell Brockbank (Orlon's Mother) would take her daughters to Castle Dale, every week with their team and buggy for piano lessons, as we didn't have a piano teacher in Huntington. We had a piano and Nora took lessons for a short period of time. I didn't get to take piano lessons and always wanted too.
The town sponsored plays, many dances, and always had a daylong celebration on the 4th and 24th of July. We would have a parade and program in the morning and baseball games, horse races, foot races, in the afternoon and a dance to round out the day. I always participated in the foot races and many times won first prize. The Relief Society Organization had a daylong celebration on the 25th of February and on the 17th of March. I went to all the dances and plays that were held at the Relief Society Hall on West Center Street. I went with Sam Mathie, Oren Ottesen, LaVar Pierce, Erin Leonard, Iver Truman, Sidney Young and Lincoln Palmer. We didn't go in couples, but were always in a gang together. We would go via horse and buggy to the dances at Davis Hall in Cleveland, and to the dances out to Wilbergs. We would always walk to the dances in Huntington and down to Green's Grove. I loved to dance.
As young girls, Nora and I would always go to Primary, Sunday School, Mutual and Sacrament Meeting. I would meet my good friend Vesta Wakefield at the meeting and we would enjoy them together. The first Bishop that I can remember was Peter Johnson, then Charles Pulsifer, J. W. Nixon, Antone Nielson, Frank Grange, Heber Leonard, Ray Johnson and Perry Wakefield. The deacons would pass the sacrament by carrying a glass and a pitcher of water. The glass was passed to each individual along the bench and everyone took a sip of water and passed it on to the next member, when the glass was empty they would refill it from the pitcher and start the process over again.
Many times I came home after a dance and would have to mix bread before I could go to bed. The homemade yeast was much slower acting than the yeast cakes and granulated dry yeast that is available to day and it was necessary to keep a start of yeast from one batch of bread to the next. If your yeast went sour or spoiled, you had to go to a neighbor to get a new start. The bread was mixed at night and placed near one of the coal stoves to keep warm, it would rise all night, was kneaded down the first thing in the morning, let raise again and then molded into loaves, let raise again and then baked. Six loaves would last for two days, so we mixed bread every other day.
Uncle Frank Sherman, mother's bachelor brother lived with us for four years. In 1912, my grandparents, William Morley and Anna Maria Hansen Black were expelled from Old Mexico, where they had lived for twenty-five years. They had gone to Old Mexico to escape persecution from the Federal Government for practicing polygamy. Old Mexico was now in the throes of a devastating civil war and both factions of the warring parties was robbing the Mormon Settlers, and they were forced to leave every thing that they had accumulated for twenty five years and come back into the United States. They left Mexico in wagons and got to El Paso and from El Paso, Texas they came by train from El Paso to Price, Utah where my Dad picked them up. They lived with us for 2months. Grandmother, Maria, taught us how to count in Spanish, and to speak a few words in that language. I had an older cousin, Alice Cox, who had a severe illness as an infant and was left deaf and dumb. She was trained to communicate through sign language by spelling the alphabet with her fingers and hands. I was one of her cousins who she taught to communicate by that method. She would read us stories out of the Bible by spelling the words out with her fingers and hands. I have taught a few of my granddaughters to communicate in this way.
MARRIED LIFE
I married Iver Oscar Truman, 16 August 1916, in Castle Dale, Utah. We lived with my folks for a short time after we were married, and made many moves in the next few years. Woodrow was born at my folk's home, 04 November 1916. Shortly after he was born we moved into the Walter Rowley home that had just been built. They had moved out south of Huntington, to live in their farm home. We lived in that home for five or six months, and moved into the Johnny Jensen home. We lived there for a short period of time and moved on Center Street to a house by Leander Lemmon's home. Iver got work in the mines in West Hiawatha so we moved into a house up there. It was in a steep canyon and you had to climb steps to go to the outhouse. On 30 December 1918, Bud was born. I went to Huntington to my parent's home for my confinement. It was during the World War I and many of the young men were in the service as well as all the doctors. Aunt Maggie (Margaret Rowley) and mother attended me during his birth.
It was the custom at that time to keep women in bed for at least ten days after having a baby and when you got out of bed you were so weak, that you couldn't walk or begin to take care of yourself or the infant. It was necessary to have help during your confinement for a couple of weeks after the baby was born. Mother usually came and helped me for several weeks after my children were born. She lived close enough that she could be with me part time and also take care of her own family. Sometime after Bud was born we moved to Blackhawk (near Hiawatha) where Iver worked in the mines. In about 1920 we moved back to Huntington and lived in a rock home at the mouth of Huntington Canyon that belonged to Uncle John and Aunt Nell Brockbank.
Living in Wattis (three miles north of Hiawatha) and Hiawatha where Iver worked in the coalmines and also lived in a rock home in Huntington Canyon. In 1920 we bought the home on second west and second north, which Iver's father had built.
In 1920 the two-room log home that Grandpa Truman had built on 2nd North and 2nd West was for sale and we bought that home and lot from Chris Johnson and moved into it. Karl, Sherald and Cloe were all born in this home. I have lived at this location for almost 70 years. We were happy to have a home of our own even though the space was very limited and the conveniences were few. In the kitchen we had a washing machine, a milk cupboard, a kitchen table and a big old black Majestic coal cooking stove, these items were all on the south wall of the kitchen, on the west wall there was a small table a 50 # flour can, and on the north wall there was a kitchen cabinet, the door to the living room, the wash bench and behind the door the work clothes and out door coats were hung. We carried water in a bucket, from a hydrant about twenty feet from the kitchen door for all our all our culinary use, washing and cleaning. Our Saturday night baths were taken in a No.3 tin tub set next to the kitchen stove, to be close to the hot water and to keep warm.
The living room had two double beds, the trunk, the sewing machine, the chiffonnier, the ornate old pot bellied stove, the sideboard, a small table in the middle of the room and four or five straight back chairs were the furnishings for our home.
Iver and Meleta had five children, four sons and one daughter. They were all active in the church programs and were very active in the school. Iver and Meleta were very supportive all their children's athletic activities and scholastic achievements. She was a good homemaker, sewing many of the children's clothes, and made many beautiful quilts that were pieced and quilted. She picked fruit on shares at a number of fruit farms and did lots of canning.
All of the boys were very active in school sports; North Emery High School didn't have a football program, but played baseball in the fall. All the boys played basketball with the high school team. Woody and Sherald were always starters; Bud and Karl were usually reserves but got quite a lot of playing time. They were all active in the track meets. Woody ran the half mile and pole-vaulted, Bud was a hurdler and relay race runner, Karl set a record in the district in the mile race and also ran relays and Sherald was a hurdler and pole vaulted and represented Utah State Agricultural College (USU). We attended all the sporting events at our school as well as many in the other schools in the county.
The children all married and moved away from Huntington. She helped Iver with the chores and helped with the farm operation. They liked to take trips into Idaho, Northern Utah, and Southern Utah to visit their children. She often went to help when there was a new grandchild born. On 01 January 1963 she had helped Iver put cattle in a corral so they could be hauled to Salina to the auction the next morning, during the night Iver suffered a severe heart attack and died a few hours after. It was a very difficult time for her. They had been married 46 years. She sold the cattle and rented the farm. She sold the car and the pickup because she didn't drive and never learned. She remained in Huntington during the spring, summer and fall and went to live with her daughter Cloe, in Tremonton during the winter months. When in Huntington, she and some of the other widows in the neighborhood and ward would have Sunday dinner together, and would hold Family Home Evening at each other's homes. They would get together often to alleviate their loneliness.
SECOND MARRIAGE
In February of 1965, Meleta's favorite cousin Ivy Brockbank died. She was living in Tremonton with her daughter at the time, and she and her daughter went to Ogden to the funeral. Ivy was married to Orlon Brockbank, who was Meleta's husband's cousin. The four of them had always been very good friends, and had a lot of association with each other.
In March Orlon started coming to Tremonton to see Meleta, and in April he told her, he thought they just as well pool their resources and get married rather than both of them being alone. Meleta visited with each one of her children and all of them told her that it would be fine with them if she married Orlon but the decision was hers.
On 04 June 1965 Meleta and Orlon were married in Huntington. They lived in Ogden for nine months until Orlon retired from his employment with the forest service. They moved to Huntington and lived in her home.
They became very involved in the Senior Citizens activities and attended that groups parties throughout the county. They became part of a 30 member Senior Citizens Band, and went to nursing homes in Carbon and Emery Counties entertaining groups. Meleta played the cymbals and Orlon played the rhythm bones. The band took a trip to Grand Junction, Colorado to entertain at nursing homes. They took two trips to Hawaii with the Senior Citizens.
They both enjoyed good health, they went fishing several times a week in Huntington Canyon, they went to the Thursday night dances at the senior center, and took in all the horse races in their area, and went to Payson and Richfield as well. She said all of the men wanted to dance with her because she was the best dancer. They would go and visit their children in their various homes a couple of times a year.
Meleta was still canning fruit and making their bread when she was ninety years old. In the summer of 1990, when she was ninety-three, she spoke of being tired and lacking the energy to do her work and the things she wanted to do. She went to the doctor and he suspected a tumor. She found out in October of that year that she had colon cancer. She got along well with no pain, until the end of November, when she had to be hospitalized for a week. She was discharged from the hospital and went into the Park Way Care Center in Price and in less than four weeks, on Dec. 31, 1990 she died and was buried in Huntington Cemetery beside Iver. She lived to be 94 years old.
By Cloe Truman Anderson, daughter
As told to her by her Mother
Meleta was born to Miller Snow and Julia Sherman Black, on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, 26th of November 1896, in a two-room log cabin on West Center Street, in Huntington, Emery County, Utah. She was the fourth child born to this couple, but was the third living child as Nora's twin Cora died at birth. Nora and Cora were born 07 November, 1893, Perry was born 27 May 1895. A total of four sons and four daughters were born to this family and they raised two daughters and four sons. Millers brother, Charles Black, ask Julia when she was going to have a fair, Danish baby. When Meleta was born, Julia told Charles "I have that fair Danish baby." He looked at her and exclaimed, "Julia she would shame the coals," meaning that she was just as black haired and black eyed as the other two babies had been. She never lost her baby hair and the new hair grew in very blond and had black ends. As she grew up she was 4'11" tall, had brown eyes and hair.
Mother's earliest recollection goes back to the turn of the century, 1902, when three families: Miller and Julia Black, Samuel and Margaret Rowley, and Lorenzo and Sarah Young, and their young families, set forth in three covered wagons and journeyed to Fruitland, New Mexico to visit Patriarch William Morley Black the father of Miller, Margaret and Sarah. William Morley Black who was temporarily settled in that area.
The trip was under taken in the summer and took approximately two months to reach their destination. There were just trails to follow and it was a long and arduous journey for the families. The women and little girls wore long petticoats and dresses, long stocking and they walked much of the way. It was a rough, rocky and sort of desert terrain and they got lots of sand burrs in their clothing that irritated their feet and legs. Meleta remembers walking through a wash and picking up a beautiful shinny rock which she kept for many years. When they arrived in Fruitland, at her grandfathers' farm, some Indians came to the farm and wanted some hay. They were given some bundles of loose hay, which they wrapped in blankets and rode off on their horses calling back, "Wino hay, Bill." meaning "Good hay, Bill." She recalls that fresh peaches were ripe before they left Fruitland to come home and how delicious they were. All the food they took from home for this journey was flour, salt, lard, salt pork and beans. They killed rabbits, game birds and deer to round out their food supply.
During the winter of 1901 a terrible epidemic of diphtheria swept through Castle Valley. Meleta was about four years old and was the only child of Miller and Julia's who contracted the very contagious disease and nearly died. The disease lasted about six weeks and the whole family had to be quarantined for that period of time. The children who were well, had to be kept away from the sick child and it presented lots of problems when you were living in a two-room log cabin. A doctor came by horse and buggy from Price, twenty-one miles away, and would swab her throat and administer medication. She got so thin that she could pull the skin on her neck and put it in her mouth. Sister Eliza Brasher came to see her and brought her a small jar of English Current Jelly and a doll hat made out of pink and white crepe paper. The jelly tasted so good that it has been her favorite jelly since that time. Meleta had Diphtheria in about 1900 or 1901. Grandma stayed in one room with her. Grandpa took care of the rest of the family. Meleta had to be kept quarantined.
SCHOOL YEARS
The Black family lived at Center Street three and one half blocks west of the school. The children would run to school every morning come back for lunch and return to school for the remainder of the class work. A class called, "Beginners" preceded the first grade, and the children began school at six years of age. The school was an old four-room brick building and Violet Grange was Meleta's first grade teacher. There were approximately 30 children in each room. They were taught to read, write, spell, and to color and paint. They had a slate at home, but used pencil and paper at school. When the weather was bad her father would saddle up "'Ol Dunk" and all four children would ride to him to school. They would put the reins up over his head and he would go back home. Her second grade teacher was Myra McKee, and third grade teacher was Martha Ashby. In the fourth grade they held spelling bees every week. Adelia Lemmon, was her teacher, and as each student missed a word they would have to sit down. Her cousin Brian Cox and Meleta were always the last ones standing in the spelling contest. Her fifth grade teacher was Maude Wakefield. Marble playing was the favorite past time for the boys and they would shoot the marbles across the hall from one room to another. The teachers seemed to have little control over the marble players.
In about 1909 a new two-story schoolhouse was built, and the first four grades were on the first floor and the fifth to ninth grades were on the second floor. Brother Woodward, the principal, would have all the students stand on the stairs and in the hall, the whole school would begin the school day by singing patriotic songs or songs related to a current holiday. Her sixth grade teacher was Irene Branch, a teacher that she enjoyed very much. She was very pretty and had a keen sense of humor. M. J. Blackburn was her 7th grade teacher. Algebra was introduced and most of the students found it very difficult. During this year she was given the award for being the best reader of the girls and Bill Majors got the award for the boys. During grade school her best friend was May Smith, in high school Vesta Wakefield and Ella Mangum were her best friends. Her teacher, Mr. Blackburn would invite the students to his home for candy bees and on one occasion he took them out into his orchard and taught them how to bud trees. Don C. Woodard was her eighth and ninth grade teacher. Bob Fenton was her first year high school teacher and Mr. Hadapp was her second year high school teacher. He spoke German very well and attempted to teach his students the German Language, but they were poor learners and didn't gain much from his efforts. When she was eighteen years old she completed the eleven years of school that was offered in the community. The school sponsored many dances, plays, cantatas; the students always planted trees on Arbor Day. In her last two years of school the girls had a basketball team. They would go to practice at seven o'clock in every morning. They enjoyed the sport very much.
Meleta loved to learn and thoroughly enjoyed her school years. She was an excellent student, and enjoyed the time spent in the classroom as well as participating in basketball, drama, and loved to attend all of the dances. She loved to dance. She attended a class called beginners, then eight years of elementary and graduated from Huntington High School in 1915.
HOME LIFE
My home life while attending school was very busy. My mother, Julia, sewed all the clothes for the family and knitted most of the socks. The cooking, cleaning, washing the clothes, and making bread was done by Nora and Meleta. I started making bread for the family when Lyman was a baby and was very ill with the whooping cough. I was ten years old at the time and the job stayed with me until I was married. In about 1910 Miller and Julia built a new home on the same location as the old log home. It was a frame home that had two big bedrooms upstairs and a big living room and bedroom on the main floor as well as a kitchen. The children slept upstairs and their father, Miller, always called up the stairs to wake the children, and had warm water ready for everyone to wash their faces as soon as they came down the stairs. He also encouraged everyone to drink a glass of warm water every morning to wash out their systems to start the day something that he did every morning.
The boys, Perry and LaVar would go out to do chores and Nora would start frying the meat and I would start making the biscuits for breakfast. We didn't often have time to wash the dishes before we left for school, but they would always be waiting for us when we got home from school. We scrubbed all the clothes on washboard in tubs of hot water. We carried all the water that we used from the little canal that was across the street. The water was quite riley, so we put the water in barrels and added alum to it to clear and settle the water. We used this water for drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning and for every purpose. We had some floors that were bare wood floors that had to be scrubbed with hot soapy water, the linoleum floors we mopped and then we dipped a cloth in skim milk and wiped the linoleum so it would shine.
We always had a big garden and raised all the vegetables that we ate and canned. We had raised our own beef, pork, milk cows, farm flock of sheep and always had two or three-dozen laying hens to provide for our eggs and for fried chicken and chicken soup. They also had turkeys and used the eggs for baking. My Dad took wheat to the gristmill and would draw flour and cracked wheat and germade cereal (like cream of wheat), as we needed it. The family was very self-sufficient.
We always milked four or five cows, so we had lots of milk. We made cottage cheese, we made our own butter in a tall wooden churn that we pushed and pulled the dasher up and down. Every time we churned, I would take a gallon bucket of buttermilk down to the pool hall and we were paid cash for it.
Our special foods that we cooked for holidays and the Sabbath were chicken soup with home made noodles and our favorite dessert was spice cake. We picked fruit on shares at several fruit farms in the area and ate a dish of berries, apricots, peaches, currents or applesauce for desserts.
The only items we went to the store to purchase were salt, sugar, soda, baking powder, hand soap, spices, extracts, cloth, lace, thread, shoes, girls socks and hats. These things we purchased from: the J.W. Nixon Store or the George M. Miller stores that were located on Main Street in Huntington. Elsie Olsen had a millinery shop where the women bought their hats. I sometimes did house work for her to pay for my hats. She paid her help at the rate of $.50 cents a day. She would have a long list of duties for you to finish before you could leave. I also went across the street to Emma Knight's home and washed tubs full of dishes, jars and utensils. She had a large family of boys and never washed dishes. She would pile them in tubs and when the tubs were full she would hire a young girl to come in a couple of times a week to wash them. I washed them for her many times while I was her neighbor. I went to another neighbors home and worked for Moriah Jones, Benjamin Jones's wife who was part Indian. There I would wash dishes and clean house. Mother, Nora and I would pick fruit, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and currants on shares and bring them home and can them. After I was out of high school, I went out to Millerton Ranch between Price and Huntington and would help cook and wash dishes during the haying season. There I earned $5.00 per week. Soren and Maggie Anderson were operating the ranch. It belonged to the U.S. Fuel Company.
Our primary means of transportation during this period of time was walking. Dad had a team and buggy that we would travel to Castle Dale to the county seat and to Price to shop occasionally. If we were visiting relatives that were within a mile or two we would often go in the wagon but we mostly walked where we wanted and needed to go. Aunt Nell Brockbank (Orlon's Mother) would take her daughters to Castle Dale, every week with their team and buggy for piano lessons, as we didn't have a piano teacher in Huntington. We had a piano and Nora took lessons for a short period of time. I didn't get to take piano lessons and always wanted too.
The town sponsored plays, many dances, and always had a daylong celebration on the 4th and 24th of July. We would have a parade and program in the morning and baseball games, horse races, foot races, in the afternoon and a dance to round out the day. I always participated in the foot races and many times won first prize. The Relief Society Organization had a daylong celebration on the 25th of February and on the 17th of March. I went to all the dances and plays that were held at the Relief Society Hall on West Center Street. I went with Sam Mathie, Oren Ottesen, LaVar Pierce, Erin Leonard, Iver Truman, Sidney Young and Lincoln Palmer. We didn't go in couples, but were always in a gang together. We would go via horse and buggy to the dances at Davis Hall in Cleveland, and to the dances out to Wilbergs. We would always walk to the dances in Huntington and down to Green's Grove. I loved to dance.
As young girls, Nora and I would always go to Primary, Sunday School, Mutual and Sacrament Meeting. I would meet my good friend Vesta Wakefield at the meeting and we would enjoy them together. The first Bishop that I can remember was Peter Johnson, then Charles Pulsifer, J. W. Nixon, Antone Nielson, Frank Grange, Heber Leonard, Ray Johnson and Perry Wakefield. The deacons would pass the sacrament by carrying a glass and a pitcher of water. The glass was passed to each individual along the bench and everyone took a sip of water and passed it on to the next member, when the glass was empty they would refill it from the pitcher and start the process over again.
Many times I came home after a dance and would have to mix bread before I could go to bed. The homemade yeast was much slower acting than the yeast cakes and granulated dry yeast that is available to day and it was necessary to keep a start of yeast from one batch of bread to the next. If your yeast went sour or spoiled, you had to go to a neighbor to get a new start. The bread was mixed at night and placed near one of the coal stoves to keep warm, it would rise all night, was kneaded down the first thing in the morning, let raise again and then molded into loaves, let raise again and then baked. Six loaves would last for two days, so we mixed bread every other day.
Uncle Frank Sherman, mother's bachelor brother lived with us for four years. In 1912, my grandparents, William Morley and Anna Maria Hansen Black were expelled from Old Mexico, where they had lived for twenty-five years. They had gone to Old Mexico to escape persecution from the Federal Government for practicing polygamy. Old Mexico was now in the throes of a devastating civil war and both factions of the warring parties was robbing the Mormon Settlers, and they were forced to leave every thing that they had accumulated for twenty five years and come back into the United States. They left Mexico in wagons and got to El Paso and from El Paso, Texas they came by train from El Paso to Price, Utah where my Dad picked them up. They lived with us for 2months. Grandmother, Maria, taught us how to count in Spanish, and to speak a few words in that language. I had an older cousin, Alice Cox, who had a severe illness as an infant and was left deaf and dumb. She was trained to communicate through sign language by spelling the alphabet with her fingers and hands. I was one of her cousins who she taught to communicate by that method. She would read us stories out of the Bible by spelling the words out with her fingers and hands. I have taught a few of my granddaughters to communicate in this way.
MARRIED LIFE
I married Iver Oscar Truman, 16 August 1916, in Castle Dale, Utah. We lived with my folks for a short time after we were married, and made many moves in the next few years. Woodrow was born at my folk's home, 04 November 1916. Shortly after he was born we moved into the Walter Rowley home that had just been built. They had moved out south of Huntington, to live in their farm home. We lived in that home for five or six months, and moved into the Johnny Jensen home. We lived there for a short period of time and moved on Center Street to a house by Leander Lemmon's home. Iver got work in the mines in West Hiawatha so we moved into a house up there. It was in a steep canyon and you had to climb steps to go to the outhouse. On 30 December 1918, Bud was born. I went to Huntington to my parent's home for my confinement. It was during the World War I and many of the young men were in the service as well as all the doctors. Aunt Maggie (Margaret Rowley) and mother attended me during his birth.
It was the custom at that time to keep women in bed for at least ten days after having a baby and when you got out of bed you were so weak, that you couldn't walk or begin to take care of yourself or the infant. It was necessary to have help during your confinement for a couple of weeks after the baby was born. Mother usually came and helped me for several weeks after my children were born. She lived close enough that she could be with me part time and also take care of her own family. Sometime after Bud was born we moved to Blackhawk (near Hiawatha) where Iver worked in the mines. In about 1920 we moved back to Huntington and lived in a rock home at the mouth of Huntington Canyon that belonged to Uncle John and Aunt Nell Brockbank.
Living in Wattis (three miles north of Hiawatha) and Hiawatha where Iver worked in the coalmines and also lived in a rock home in Huntington Canyon. In 1920 we bought the home on second west and second north, which Iver's father had built.
In 1920 the two-room log home that Grandpa Truman had built on 2nd North and 2nd West was for sale and we bought that home and lot from Chris Johnson and moved into it. Karl, Sherald and Cloe were all born in this home. I have lived at this location for almost 70 years. We were happy to have a home of our own even though the space was very limited and the conveniences were few. In the kitchen we had a washing machine, a milk cupboard, a kitchen table and a big old black Majestic coal cooking stove, these items were all on the south wall of the kitchen, on the west wall there was a small table a 50 # flour can, and on the north wall there was a kitchen cabinet, the door to the living room, the wash bench and behind the door the work clothes and out door coats were hung. We carried water in a bucket, from a hydrant about twenty feet from the kitchen door for all our all our culinary use, washing and cleaning. Our Saturday night baths were taken in a No.3 tin tub set next to the kitchen stove, to be close to the hot water and to keep warm.
The living room had two double beds, the trunk, the sewing machine, the chiffonnier, the ornate old pot bellied stove, the sideboard, a small table in the middle of the room and four or five straight back chairs were the furnishings for our home.
Iver and Meleta had five children, four sons and one daughter. They were all active in the church programs and were very active in the school. Iver and Meleta were very supportive all their children's athletic activities and scholastic achievements. She was a good homemaker, sewing many of the children's clothes, and made many beautiful quilts that were pieced and quilted. She picked fruit on shares at a number of fruit farms and did lots of canning.
All of the boys were very active in school sports; North Emery High School didn't have a football program, but played baseball in the fall. All the boys played basketball with the high school team. Woody and Sherald were always starters; Bud and Karl were usually reserves but got quite a lot of playing time. They were all active in the track meets. Woody ran the half mile and pole-vaulted, Bud was a hurdler and relay race runner, Karl set a record in the district in the mile race and also ran relays and Sherald was a hurdler and pole vaulted and represented Utah State Agricultural College (USU). We attended all the sporting events at our school as well as many in the other schools in the county.
The children all married and moved away from Huntington. She helped Iver with the chores and helped with the farm operation. They liked to take trips into Idaho, Northern Utah, and Southern Utah to visit their children. She often went to help when there was a new grandchild born. On 01 January 1963 she had helped Iver put cattle in a corral so they could be hauled to Salina to the auction the next morning, during the night Iver suffered a severe heart attack and died a few hours after. It was a very difficult time for her. They had been married 46 years. She sold the cattle and rented the farm. She sold the car and the pickup because she didn't drive and never learned. She remained in Huntington during the spring, summer and fall and went to live with her daughter Cloe, in Tremonton during the winter months. When in Huntington, she and some of the other widows in the neighborhood and ward would have Sunday dinner together, and would hold Family Home Evening at each other's homes. They would get together often to alleviate their loneliness.
SECOND MARRIAGE
In February of 1965, Meleta's favorite cousin Ivy Brockbank died. She was living in Tremonton with her daughter at the time, and she and her daughter went to Ogden to the funeral. Ivy was married to Orlon Brockbank, who was Meleta's husband's cousin. The four of them had always been very good friends, and had a lot of association with each other.
In March Orlon started coming to Tremonton to see Meleta, and in April he told her, he thought they just as well pool their resources and get married rather than both of them being alone. Meleta visited with each one of her children and all of them told her that it would be fine with them if she married Orlon but the decision was hers.
On 04 June 1965 Meleta and Orlon were married in Huntington. They lived in Ogden for nine months until Orlon retired from his employment with the forest service. They moved to Huntington and lived in her home.
They became very involved in the Senior Citizens activities and attended that groups parties throughout the county. They became part of a 30 member Senior Citizens Band, and went to nursing homes in Carbon and Emery Counties entertaining groups. Meleta played the cymbals and Orlon played the rhythm bones. The band took a trip to Grand Junction, Colorado to entertain at nursing homes. They took two trips to Hawaii with the Senior Citizens.
They both enjoyed good health, they went fishing several times a week in Huntington Canyon, they went to the Thursday night dances at the senior center, and took in all the horse races in their area, and went to Payson and Richfield as well. She said all of the men wanted to dance with her because she was the best dancer. They would go and visit their children in their various homes a couple of times a year.
Meleta was still canning fruit and making their bread when she was ninety years old. In the summer of 1990, when she was ninety-three, she spoke of being tired and lacking the energy to do her work and the things she wanted to do. She went to the doctor and he suspected a tumor. She found out in October of that year that she had colon cancer. She got along well with no pain, until the end of November, when she had to be hospitalized for a week. She was discharged from the hospital and went into the Park Way Care Center in Price and in less than four weeks, on Dec. 31, 1990 she died and was buried in Huntington Cemetery beside Iver. She lived to be 94 years old.
MELETA CLOE BLACK
By Cloe Truman Anderson, daughter
As told to her by her Mother
Meleta was born to Miller Snow and Julia Sherman Black, on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, 26th of November 1896, in a two-room log cabin on West Center Street, in Huntington, Emery County, Utah. She was the fourth child born to this couple, but was the third living child as Nora's twin Cora died at birth. Nora and Cora were born 07 November, 1893, Perry was born 27 May 1895. A total of four sons and four daughters were born to this family and they raised two daughters and four sons. Millers brother, Charles Black, ask Julia when she was going to have a fair, Danish baby. When Meleta was born, Julia told Charles "I have that fair Danish baby." He looked at her and exclaimed, "Julia she would shame the coals," meaning that she was just as black haired and black eyed as the other two babies had been. She never lost her baby hair and the new hair grew in very blond and had black ends. As she grew up she was 4'11" tall, had brown eyes and hair.
Mother's earliest recollection goes back to the turn of the century, 1902, when three families: Miller and Julia Black, Samuel and Margaret Rowley, and Lorenzo and Sarah Young, and their young families, set forth in three covered wagons and journeyed to Fruitland, New Mexico to visit Patriarch William Morley Black the father of Miller, Margaret and Sarah. William Morley Black who was temporarily settled in that area.
The trip was under taken in the summer and took approximately two months to reach their destination. There were just trails to follow and it was a long and arduous journey for the families. The women and little girls wore long petticoats and dresses, long stocking and they walked much of the way. It was a rough, rocky and sort of desert terrain and they got lots of sand burrs in their clothing that irritated their feet and legs. Meleta remembers walking through a wash and picking up a beautiful shinny rock which she kept for many years. When they arrived in Fruitland, at her grandfathers' farm, some Indians came to the farm and wanted some hay. They were given some bundles of loose hay, which they wrapped in blankets and rode off on their horses calling back, "Wino hay, Bill." meaning "Good hay, Bill." She recalls that fresh peaches were ripe before they left Fruitland to come home and how delicious they were. All the food they took from home for this journey was flour, salt, lard, salt pork and beans. They killed rabbits, game birds and deer to round out their food supply.
During the winter of 1901 a terrible epidemic of diphtheria swept through Castle Valley. Meleta was about four years old and was the only child of Miller and Julia's who contracted the very contagious disease and nearly died. The disease lasted about six weeks and the whole family had to be quarantined for that period of time. The children who were well, had to be kept away from the sick child and it presented lots of problems when you were living in a two-room log cabin. A doctor came by horse and buggy from Price, twenty-one miles away, and would swab her throat and administer medication. She got so thin that she could pull the skin on her neck and put it in her mouth. Sister Eliza Brasher came to see her and brought her a small jar of English Current Jelly and a doll hat made out of pink and white crepe paper. The jelly tasted so good that it has been her favorite jelly since that time. Meleta had Diphtheria in about 1900 or 1901. Grandma stayed in one room with her. Grandpa took care of the rest of the family. Meleta had to be kept quarantined.
SCHOOL YEARS
The Black family lived at Center Street three and one half blocks west of the school. The children would run to school every morning come back for lunch and return to school for the remainder of the class work. A class called, "Beginners" preceded the first grade, and the children began school at six years of age. The school was an old four-room brick building and Violet Grange was Meleta's first grade teacher. There were approximately 30 children in each room. They were taught to read, write, spell, and to color and paint. They had a slate at home, but used pencil and paper at school. When the weather was bad her father would saddle up "'Ol Dunk" and all four children would ride to him to school. They would put the reins up over his head and he would go back home. Her second grade teacher was Myra McKee, and third grade teacher was Martha Ashby. In the fourth grade they held spelling bees every week. Adelia Lemmon, was her teacher, and as each student missed a word they would have to sit down. Her cousin Brian Cox and Meleta were always the last ones standing in the spelling contest. Her fifth grade teacher was Maude Wakefield. Marble playing was the favorite past time for the boys and they would shoot the marbles across the hall from one room to another. The teachers seemed to have little control over the marble players.
In about 1909 a new two-story schoolhouse was built, and the first four grades were on the first floor and the fifth to ninth grades were on the second floor. Brother Woodward, the principal, would have all the students stand on the stairs and in the hall, the whole school would begin the school day by singing patriotic songs or songs related to a current holiday. Her sixth grade teacher was Irene Branch, a teacher that she enjoyed very much. She was very pretty and had a keen sense of humor. M. J. Blackburn was her 7th grade teacher. Algebra was introduced and most of the students found it very difficult. During this year she was given the award for being the best reader of the girls and Bill Majors got the award for the boys. During grade school her best friend was May Smith, in high school Vesta Wakefield and Ella Mangum were her best friends. Her teacher, Mr. Blackburn would invite the students to his home for candy bees and on one occasion he took them out into his orchard and taught them how to bud trees. Don C. Woodard was her eighth and ninth grade teacher. Bob Fenton was her first year high school teacher and Mr. Hadapp was her second year high school teacher. He spoke German very well and attempted to teach his students the German Language, but they were poor learners and didn't gain much from his efforts. When she was eighteen years old she completed the eleven years of school that was offered in the community. The school sponsored many dances, plays, cantatas; the students always planted trees on Arbor Day. In her last two years of school the girls had a basketball team. They would go to practice at seven o'clock in every morning. They enjoyed the sport very much.
Meleta loved to learn and thoroughly enjoyed her school years. She was an excellent student, and enjoyed the time spent in the classroom as well as participating in basketball, drama, and loved to attend all of the dances. She loved to dance. She attended a class called beginners, then eight years of elementary and graduated from Huntington High School in 1915.
HOME LIFE
My home life while attending school was very busy. My mother, Julia, sewed all the clothes for the family and knitted most of the socks. The cooking, cleaning, washing the clothes, and making bread was done by Nora and Meleta. I started making bread for the family when Lyman was a baby and was very ill with the whooping cough. I was ten years old at the time and the job stayed with me until I was married. In about 1910 Miller and Julia built a new home on the same location as the old log home. It was a frame home that had two big bedrooms upstairs and a big living room and bedroom on the main floor as well as a kitchen. The children slept upstairs and their father, Miller, always called up the stairs to wake the children, and had warm water ready for everyone to wash their faces as soon as they came down the stairs. He also encouraged everyone to drink a glass of warm water every morning to wash out their systems to start the day something that he did every morning.
The boys, Perry and LaVar would go out to do chores and Nora would start frying the meat and I would start making the biscuits for breakfast. We didn't often have time to wash the dishes before we left for school, but they would always be waiting for us when we got home from school. We scrubbed all the clothes on washboard in tubs of hot water. We carried all the water that we used from the little canal that was across the street. The water was quite riley, so we put the water in barrels and added alum to it to clear and settle the water. We used this water for drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning and for every purpose. We had some floors that were bare wood floors that had to be scrubbed with hot soapy water, the linoleum floors we mopped and then we dipped a cloth in skim milk and wiped the linoleum so it would shine.
We always had a big garden and raised all the vegetables that we ate and canned. We had raised our own beef, pork, milk cows, farm flock of sheep and always had two or three-dozen laying hens to provide for our eggs and for fried chicken and chicken soup. They also had turkeys and used the eggs for baking. My Dad took wheat to the gristmill and would draw flour and cracked wheat and germade cereal (like cream of wheat), as we needed it. The family was very self-sufficient.
We always milked four or five cows, so we had lots of milk. We made cottage cheese, we made our own butter in a tall wooden churn that we pushed and pulled the dasher up and down. Every time we churned, I would take a gallon bucket of buttermilk down to the pool hall and we were paid cash for it.
Our special foods that we cooked for holidays and the Sabbath were chicken soup with home made noodles and our favorite dessert was spice cake. We picked fruit on shares at several fruit farms in the area and ate a dish of berries, apricots, peaches, currents or applesauce for desserts.
The only items we went to the store to purchase were salt, sugar, soda, baking powder, hand soap, spices, extracts, cloth, lace, thread, shoes, girls socks and hats. These things we purchased from: the J.W. Nixon Store or the George M. Miller stores that were located on Main Street in Huntington. Elsie Olsen had a millinery shop where the women bought their hats. I sometimes did house work for her to pay for my hats. She paid her help at the rate of $.50 cents a day. She would have a long list of duties for you to finish before you could leave. I also went across the street to Emma Knight's home and washed tubs full of dishes, jars and utensils. She had a large family of boys and never washed dishes. She would pile them in tubs and when the tubs were full she would hire a young girl to come in a couple of times a week to wash them. I washed them for her many times while I was her neighbor. I went to another neighbors home and worked for Moriah Jones, Benjamin Jones's wife who was part Indian. There I would wash dishes and clean house. Mother, Nora and I would pick fruit, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and currants on shares and bring them home and can them. After I was out of high school, I went out to Millerton Ranch between Price and Huntington and would help cook and wash dishes during the haying season. There I earned $5.00 per week. Soren and Maggie Anderson were operating the ranch. It belonged to the U.S. Fuel Company.
Our primary means of transportation during this period of time was walking. Dad had a team and buggy that we would travel to Castle Dale to the county seat and to Price to shop occasionally. If we were visiting relatives that were within a mile or two we would often go in the wagon but we mostly walked where we wanted and needed to go. Aunt Nell Brockbank (Orlon's Mother) would take her daughters to Castle Dale, every week with their team and buggy for piano lessons, as we didn't have a piano teacher in Huntington. We had a piano and Nora took lessons for a short period of time. I didn't get to take piano lessons and always wanted too.
The town sponsored plays, many dances, and always had a daylong celebration on the 4th and 24th of July. We would have a parade and program in the morning and baseball games, horse races, foot races, in the afternoon and a dance to round out the day. I always participated in the foot races and many times won first prize. The Relief Society Organization had a daylong celebration on the 25th of February and on the 17th of March. I went to all the dances and plays that were held at the Relief Society Hall on West Center Street. I went with Sam Mathie, Oren Ottesen, LaVar Pierce, Erin Leonard, Iver Truman, Sidney Young and Lincoln Palmer. We didn't go in couples, but were always in a gang together. We would go via horse and buggy to the dances at Davis Hall in Cleveland, and to the dances out to Wilbergs. We would always walk to the dances in Huntington and down to Green's Grove. I loved to dance.
As young girls, Nora and I would always go to Primary, Sunday School, Mutual and Sacrament Meeting. I would meet my good friend Vesta Wakefield at the meeting and we would enjoy them together. The first Bishop that I can remember was Peter Johnson, then Charles Pulsifer, J. W. Nixon, Antone Nielson, Frank Grange, Heber Leonard, Ray Johnson and Perry Wakefield. The deacons would pass the sacrament by carrying a glass and a pitcher of water. The glass was passed to each individual along the bench and everyone took a sip of water and passed it on to the next member, when the glass was empty they would refill it from the pitcher and start the process over again.
Many times I came home after a dance and would have to mix bread before I could go to bed. The homemade yeast was much slower acting than the yeast cakes and granulated dry yeast that is available to day and it was necessary to keep a start of yeast from one batch of bread to the next. If your yeast went sour or spoiled, you had to go to a neighbor to get a new start. The bread was mixed at night and placed near one of the coal stoves to keep warm, it would rise all night, was kneaded down the first thing in the morning, let raise again and then molded into loaves, let raise again and then baked. Six loaves would last for two days, so we mixed bread every other day.
Uncle Frank Sherman, mother's bachelor brother lived with us for four years. In 1912, my grandparents, William Morley and Anna Maria Hansen Black were expelled from Old Mexico, where they had lived for twenty-five years. They had gone to Old Mexico to escape persecution from the Federal Government for practicing polygamy. Old Mexico was now in the throes of a devastating civil war and both factions of the warring parties was robbing the Mormon Settlers, and they were forced to leave every thing that they had accumulated for twenty five years and come back into the United States. They left Mexico in wagons and got to El Paso and from El Paso, Texas they came by train from El Paso to Price, Utah where my Dad picked them up. They lived with us for 2months. Grandmother, Maria, taught us how to count in Spanish, and to speak a few words in that language. I had an older cousin, Alice Cox, who had a severe illness as an infant and was left deaf and dumb. She was trained to communicate through sign language by spelling the alphabet with her fingers and hands. I was one of her cousins who she taught to communicate by that method. She would read us stories out of the Bible by spelling the words out with her fingers and hands. I have taught a few of my granddaughters to communicate in this way.
MARRIED LIFE
I married Iver Oscar Truman, 16 August 1916, in Castle Dale, Utah. We lived with my folks for a short time after we were married, and made many moves in the next few years. Woodrow was born at my folk's home, 04 November 1916. Shortly after he was born we moved into the Walter Rowley home that had just been built. They had moved out south of Huntington, to live in their farm home. We lived in that home for five or six months, and moved into the Johnny Jensen home. We lived there for a short period of time and moved on Center Street to a house by Leander Lemmon's home. Iver got work in the mines in West Hiawatha so we moved into a house up there. It was in a steep canyon and you had to climb steps to go to the outhouse. On 30 December 1918, Bud was born. I went to Huntington to my parent's home for my confinement. It was during the World War I and many of the young men were in the service as well as all the doctors. Aunt Maggie (Margaret Rowley) and mother attended me during his birth.
It was the custom at that time to keep women in bed for at least ten days after having a baby and when you got out of bed you were so weak, that you couldn't walk or begin to take care of yourself or the infant. It was necessary to have help during your confinement for a couple of weeks after the baby was born. Mother usually came and helped me for several weeks after my children were born. She lived close enough that she could be with me part time and also take care of her own family. Sometime after Bud was born we moved to Blackhawk (near Hiawatha) where Iver worked in the mines. In about 1920 we moved back to Huntington and lived in a rock home at the mouth of Huntington Canyon that belonged to Uncle John and Aunt Nell Brockbank.
Living in Wattis (three miles north of Hiawatha) and Hiawatha where Iver worked in the coalmines and also lived in a rock home in Huntington Canyon. In 1920 we bought the home on second west and second north, which Iver's father had built.
In 1920 the two-room log home that Grandpa Truman had built on 2nd North and 2nd West was for sale and we bought that home and lot from Chris Johnson and moved into it. Karl, Sherald and Cloe were all born in this home. I have lived at this location for almost 70 years. We were happy to have a home of our own even though the space was very limited and the conveniences were few. In the kitchen we had a washing machine, a milk cupboard, a kitchen table and a big old black Majestic coal cooking stove, these items were all on the south wall of the kitchen, on the west wall there was a small table a 50 # flour can, and on the north wall there was a kitchen cabinet, the door to the living room, the wash bench and behind the door the work clothes and out door coats were hung. We carried water in a bucket, from a hydrant about twenty feet from the kitchen door for all our all our culinary use, washing and cleaning. Our Saturday night baths were taken in a No.3 tin tub set next to the kitchen stove, to be close to the hot water and to keep warm.
The living room had two double beds, the trunk, the sewing machine, the chiffonnier, the ornate old pot bellied stove, the sideboard, a small table in the middle of the room and four or five straight back chairs were the furnishings for our home.
Iver and Meleta had five children, four sons and one daughter. They were all active in the church programs and were very active in the school. Iver and Meleta were very supportive all their children's athletic activities and scholastic achievements. She was a good homemaker, sewing many of the children's clothes, and made many beautiful quilts that were pieced and quilted. She picked fruit on shares at a number of fruit farms and did lots of canning.
All of the boys were very active in school sports; North Emery High School didn't have a football program, but played baseball in the fall. All the boys played basketball with the high school team. Woody and Sherald were always starters; Bud and Karl were usually reserves but got quite a lot of playing time. They were all active in the track meets. Woody ran the half mile and pole-vaulted, Bud was a hurdler and relay race runner, Karl set a record in the district in the mile race and also ran relays and Sherald was a hurdler and pole vaulted and represented Utah State Agricultural College (USU). We attended all the sporting events at our school as well as many in the other schools in the county.
The children all married and moved away from Huntington. She helped Iver with the chores and helped with the farm operation. They liked to take trips into Idaho, Northern Utah, and Southern Utah to visit their children. She often went to help when there was a new grandchild born. On 01 January 1963 she had helped Iver put cattle in a corral so they could be hauled to Salina to the auction the next morning, during the night Iver suffered a severe heart attack and died a few hours after. It was a very difficult time for her. They had been married 46 years. She sold the cattle and rented the farm. She sold the car and the pickup because she didn't drive and never learned. She remained in Huntington during the spring, summer and fall and went to live with her daughter Cloe, in Tremonton during the winter months. When in Huntington, she and some of the other widows in the neighborhood and ward would have Sunday dinner together, and would hold Family Home Evening at each other's homes. They would get together often to alleviate their loneliness.
SECOND MARRIAGE
In February of 1965, Meleta's favorite cousin Ivy Brockbank died. She was living in Tremonton with her daughter at the time, and she and her daughter went to Ogden to the funeral. Ivy was married to Orlon Brockbank, who was Meleta's husband's cousin. The four of them had always been very good friends, and had a lot of association with each other.
In March Orlon started coming to Tremonton to see Meleta, and in April he told her, he thought they just as well pool their resources and get married rather than both of them being alone. Meleta visited with each one of her children and all of them told her that it would be fine with them if she married Orlon but the decision was hers.
On 04 June 1965 Meleta and Orlon were married in Huntington. They lived in Ogden for nine months until Orlon retired from his employment with the forest service. They moved to Huntington and lived in her home.
They became very involved in the Senior Citizens activities and attended that groups parties throughout the county. They became part of a 30 member Senior Citizens Band, and went to nursing homes in Carbon and Emery Counties entertaining groups. Meleta played the cymbals and Orlon played the rhythm bones. The band took a trip to Grand Junction, Colorado to entertain at nursing homes. They took two trips to Hawaii with the Senior Citizens.
They both enjoyed good health, they went fishing several times a week in Huntington Canyon, they went to the Thursday night dances at the senior center, and took in all the horse races in their area, and went to Payson and Richfield as well. She said all of the men wanted to dance with her because she was the best dancer. They would go and visit their children in their various homes a couple of times a year.
Meleta was still canning fruit and making their bread when she was ninety years old. In the summer of 1990, when she was ninety-three, she spoke of being tired and lacking the energy to do her work and the things she wanted to do. She went to the doctor and he suspected a tumor. She found out in October of that year that she had colon cancer. She got along well with no pain, until the end of November, when she had to be hospitalized for a week. She was discharged from the hospital and went into the Park Way Care Center in Price and in less than four weeks, on Dec. 31, 1990 she died and was buried in Huntington Cemetery beside Iver. She lived to be 94 years old.
By Cloe Truman Anderson, daughter
As told to her by her Mother
Meleta was born to Miller Snow and Julia Sherman Black, on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, 26th of November 1896, in a two-room log cabin on West Center Street, in Huntington, Emery County, Utah. She was the fourth child born to this couple, but was the third living child as Nora's twin Cora died at birth. Nora and Cora were born 07 November, 1893, Perry was born 27 May 1895. A total of four sons and four daughters were born to this family and they raised two daughters and four sons. Millers brother, Charles Black, ask Julia when she was going to have a fair, Danish baby. When Meleta was born, Julia told Charles "I have that fair Danish baby." He looked at her and exclaimed, "Julia she would shame the coals," meaning that she was just as black haired and black eyed as the other two babies had been. She never lost her baby hair and the new hair grew in very blond and had black ends. As she grew up she was 4'11" tall, had brown eyes and hair.
Mother's earliest recollection goes back to the turn of the century, 1902, when three families: Miller and Julia Black, Samuel and Margaret Rowley, and Lorenzo and Sarah Young, and their young families, set forth in three covered wagons and journeyed to Fruitland, New Mexico to visit Patriarch William Morley Black the father of Miller, Margaret and Sarah. William Morley Black who was temporarily settled in that area.
The trip was under taken in the summer and took approximately two months to reach their destination. There were just trails to follow and it was a long and arduous journey for the families. The women and little girls wore long petticoats and dresses, long stocking and they walked much of the way. It was a rough, rocky and sort of desert terrain and they got lots of sand burrs in their clothing that irritated their feet and legs. Meleta remembers walking through a wash and picking up a beautiful shinny rock which she kept for many years. When they arrived in Fruitland, at her grandfathers' farm, some Indians came to the farm and wanted some hay. They were given some bundles of loose hay, which they wrapped in blankets and rode off on their horses calling back, "Wino hay, Bill." meaning "Good hay, Bill." She recalls that fresh peaches were ripe before they left Fruitland to come home and how delicious they were. All the food they took from home for this journey was flour, salt, lard, salt pork and beans. They killed rabbits, game birds and deer to round out their food supply.
During the winter of 1901 a terrible epidemic of diphtheria swept through Castle Valley. Meleta was about four years old and was the only child of Miller and Julia's who contracted the very contagious disease and nearly died. The disease lasted about six weeks and the whole family had to be quarantined for that period of time. The children who were well, had to be kept away from the sick child and it presented lots of problems when you were living in a two-room log cabin. A doctor came by horse and buggy from Price, twenty-one miles away, and would swab her throat and administer medication. She got so thin that she could pull the skin on her neck and put it in her mouth. Sister Eliza Brasher came to see her and brought her a small jar of English Current Jelly and a doll hat made out of pink and white crepe paper. The jelly tasted so good that it has been her favorite jelly since that time. Meleta had Diphtheria in about 1900 or 1901. Grandma stayed in one room with her. Grandpa took care of the rest of the family. Meleta had to be kept quarantined.
SCHOOL YEARS
The Black family lived at Center Street three and one half blocks west of the school. The children would run to school every morning come back for lunch and return to school for the remainder of the class work. A class called, "Beginners" preceded the first grade, and the children began school at six years of age. The school was an old four-room brick building and Violet Grange was Meleta's first grade teacher. There were approximately 30 children in each room. They were taught to read, write, spell, and to color and paint. They had a slate at home, but used pencil and paper at school. When the weather was bad her father would saddle up "'Ol Dunk" and all four children would ride to him to school. They would put the reins up over his head and he would go back home. Her second grade teacher was Myra McKee, and third grade teacher was Martha Ashby. In the fourth grade they held spelling bees every week. Adelia Lemmon, was her teacher, and as each student missed a word they would have to sit down. Her cousin Brian Cox and Meleta were always the last ones standing in the spelling contest. Her fifth grade teacher was Maude Wakefield. Marble playing was the favorite past time for the boys and they would shoot the marbles across the hall from one room to another. The teachers seemed to have little control over the marble players.
In about 1909 a new two-story schoolhouse was built, and the first four grades were on the first floor and the fifth to ninth grades were on the second floor. Brother Woodward, the principal, would have all the students stand on the stairs and in the hall, the whole school would begin the school day by singing patriotic songs or songs related to a current holiday. Her sixth grade teacher was Irene Branch, a teacher that she enjoyed very much. She was very pretty and had a keen sense of humor. M. J. Blackburn was her 7th grade teacher. Algebra was introduced and most of the students found it very difficult. During this year she was given the award for being the best reader of the girls and Bill Majors got the award for the boys. During grade school her best friend was May Smith, in high school Vesta Wakefield and Ella Mangum were her best friends. Her teacher, Mr. Blackburn would invite the students to his home for candy bees and on one occasion he took them out into his orchard and taught them how to bud trees. Don C. Woodard was her eighth and ninth grade teacher. Bob Fenton was her first year high school teacher and Mr. Hadapp was her second year high school teacher. He spoke German very well and attempted to teach his students the German Language, but they were poor learners and didn't gain much from his efforts. When she was eighteen years old she completed the eleven years of school that was offered in the community. The school sponsored many dances, plays, cantatas; the students always planted trees on Arbor Day. In her last two years of school the girls had a basketball team. They would go to practice at seven o'clock in every morning. They enjoyed the sport very much.
Meleta loved to learn and thoroughly enjoyed her school years. She was an excellent student, and enjoyed the time spent in the classroom as well as participating in basketball, drama, and loved to attend all of the dances. She loved to dance. She attended a class called beginners, then eight years of elementary and graduated from Huntington High School in 1915.
HOME LIFE
My home life while attending school was very busy. My mother, Julia, sewed all the clothes for the family and knitted most of the socks. The cooking, cleaning, washing the clothes, and making bread was done by Nora and Meleta. I started making bread for the family when Lyman was a baby and was very ill with the whooping cough. I was ten years old at the time and the job stayed with me until I was married. In about 1910 Miller and Julia built a new home on the same location as the old log home. It was a frame home that had two big bedrooms upstairs and a big living room and bedroom on the main floor as well as a kitchen. The children slept upstairs and their father, Miller, always called up the stairs to wake the children, and had warm water ready for everyone to wash their faces as soon as they came down the stairs. He also encouraged everyone to drink a glass of warm water every morning to wash out their systems to start the day something that he did every morning.
The boys, Perry and LaVar would go out to do chores and Nora would start frying the meat and I would start making the biscuits for breakfast. We didn't often have time to wash the dishes before we left for school, but they would always be waiting for us when we got home from school. We scrubbed all the clothes on washboard in tubs of hot water. We carried all the water that we used from the little canal that was across the street. The water was quite riley, so we put the water in barrels and added alum to it to clear and settle the water. We used this water for drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning and for every purpose. We had some floors that were bare wood floors that had to be scrubbed with hot soapy water, the linoleum floors we mopped and then we dipped a cloth in skim milk and wiped the linoleum so it would shine.
We always had a big garden and raised all the vegetables that we ate and canned. We had raised our own beef, pork, milk cows, farm flock of sheep and always had two or three-dozen laying hens to provide for our eggs and for fried chicken and chicken soup. They also had turkeys and used the eggs for baking. My Dad took wheat to the gristmill and would draw flour and cracked wheat and germade cereal (like cream of wheat), as we needed it. The family was very self-sufficient.
We always milked four or five cows, so we had lots of milk. We made cottage cheese, we made our own butter in a tall wooden churn that we pushed and pulled the dasher up and down. Every time we churned, I would take a gallon bucket of buttermilk down to the pool hall and we were paid cash for it.
Our special foods that we cooked for holidays and the Sabbath were chicken soup with home made noodles and our favorite dessert was spice cake. We picked fruit on shares at several fruit farms in the area and ate a dish of berries, apricots, peaches, currents or applesauce for desserts.
The only items we went to the store to purchase were salt, sugar, soda, baking powder, hand soap, spices, extracts, cloth, lace, thread, shoes, girls socks and hats. These things we purchased from: the J.W. Nixon Store or the George M. Miller stores that were located on Main Street in Huntington. Elsie Olsen had a millinery shop where the women bought their hats. I sometimes did house work for her to pay for my hats. She paid her help at the rate of $.50 cents a day. She would have a long list of duties for you to finish before you could leave. I also went across the street to Emma Knight's home and washed tubs full of dishes, jars and utensils. She had a large family of boys and never washed dishes. She would pile them in tubs and when the tubs were full she would hire a young girl to come in a couple of times a week to wash them. I washed them for her many times while I was her neighbor. I went to another neighbors home and worked for Moriah Jones, Benjamin Jones's wife who was part Indian. There I would wash dishes and clean house. Mother, Nora and I would pick fruit, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and currants on shares and bring them home and can them. After I was out of high school, I went out to Millerton Ranch between Price and Huntington and would help cook and wash dishes during the haying season. There I earned $5.00 per week. Soren and Maggie Anderson were operating the ranch. It belonged to the U.S. Fuel Company.
Our primary means of transportation during this period of time was walking. Dad had a team and buggy that we would travel to Castle Dale to the county seat and to Price to shop occasionally. If we were visiting relatives that were within a mile or two we would often go in the wagon but we mostly walked where we wanted and needed to go. Aunt Nell Brockbank (Orlon's Mother) would take her daughters to Castle Dale, every week with their team and buggy for piano lessons, as we didn't have a piano teacher in Huntington. We had a piano and Nora took lessons for a short period of time. I didn't get to take piano lessons and always wanted too.
The town sponsored plays, many dances, and always had a daylong celebration on the 4th and 24th of July. We would have a parade and program in the morning and baseball games, horse races, foot races, in the afternoon and a dance to round out the day. I always participated in the foot races and many times won first prize. The Relief Society Organization had a daylong celebration on the 25th of February and on the 17th of March. I went to all the dances and plays that were held at the Relief Society Hall on West Center Street. I went with Sam Mathie, Oren Ottesen, LaVar Pierce, Erin Leonard, Iver Truman, Sidney Young and Lincoln Palmer. We didn't go in couples, but were always in a gang together. We would go via horse and buggy to the dances at Davis Hall in Cleveland, and to the dances out to Wilbergs. We would always walk to the dances in Huntington and down to Green's Grove. I loved to dance.
As young girls, Nora and I would always go to Primary, Sunday School, Mutual and Sacrament Meeting. I would meet my good friend Vesta Wakefield at the meeting and we would enjoy them together. The first Bishop that I can remember was Peter Johnson, then Charles Pulsifer, J. W. Nixon, Antone Nielson, Frank Grange, Heber Leonard, Ray Johnson and Perry Wakefield. The deacons would pass the sacrament by carrying a glass and a pitcher of water. The glass was passed to each individual along the bench and everyone took a sip of water and passed it on to the next member, when the glass was empty they would refill it from the pitcher and start the process over again.
Many times I came home after a dance and would have to mix bread before I could go to bed. The homemade yeast was much slower acting than the yeast cakes and granulated dry yeast that is available to day and it was necessary to keep a start of yeast from one batch of bread to the next. If your yeast went sour or spoiled, you had to go to a neighbor to get a new start. The bread was mixed at night and placed near one of the coal stoves to keep warm, it would rise all night, was kneaded down the first thing in the morning, let raise again and then molded into loaves, let raise again and then baked. Six loaves would last for two days, so we mixed bread every other day.
Uncle Frank Sherman, mother's bachelor brother lived with us for four years. In 1912, my grandparents, William Morley and Anna Maria Hansen Black were expelled from Old Mexico, where they had lived for twenty-five years. They had gone to Old Mexico to escape persecution from the Federal Government for practicing polygamy. Old Mexico was now in the throes of a devastating civil war and both factions of the warring parties was robbing the Mormon Settlers, and they were forced to leave every thing that they had accumulated for twenty five years and come back into the United States. They left Mexico in wagons and got to El Paso and from El Paso, Texas they came by train from El Paso to Price, Utah where my Dad picked them up. They lived with us for 2months. Grandmother, Maria, taught us how to count in Spanish, and to speak a few words in that language. I had an older cousin, Alice Cox, who had a severe illness as an infant and was left deaf and dumb. She was trained to communicate through sign language by spelling the alphabet with her fingers and hands. I was one of her cousins who she taught to communicate by that method. She would read us stories out of the Bible by spelling the words out with her fingers and hands. I have taught a few of my granddaughters to communicate in this way.
MARRIED LIFE
I married Iver Oscar Truman, 16 August 1916, in Castle Dale, Utah. We lived with my folks for a short time after we were married, and made many moves in the next few years. Woodrow was born at my folk's home, 04 November 1916. Shortly after he was born we moved into the Walter Rowley home that had just been built. They had moved out south of Huntington, to live in their farm home. We lived in that home for five or six months, and moved into the Johnny Jensen home. We lived there for a short period of time and moved on Center Street to a house by Leander Lemmon's home. Iver got work in the mines in West Hiawatha so we moved into a house up there. It was in a steep canyon and you had to climb steps to go to the outhouse. On 30 December 1918, Bud was born. I went to Huntington to my parent's home for my confinement. It was during the World War I and many of the young men were in the service as well as all the doctors. Aunt Maggie (Margaret Rowley) and mother attended me during his birth.
It was the custom at that time to keep women in bed for at least ten days after having a baby and when you got out of bed you were so weak, that you couldn't walk or begin to take care of yourself or the infant. It was necessary to have help during your confinement for a couple of weeks after the baby was born. Mother usually came and helped me for several weeks after my children were born. She lived close enough that she could be with me part time and also take care of her own family. Sometime after Bud was born we moved to Blackhawk (near Hiawatha) where Iver worked in the mines. In about 1920 we moved back to Huntington and lived in a rock home at the mouth of Huntington Canyon that belonged to Uncle John and Aunt Nell Brockbank.
Living in Wattis (three miles north of Hiawatha) and Hiawatha where Iver worked in the coalmines and also lived in a rock home in Huntington Canyon. In 1920 we bought the home on second west and second north, which Iver's father had built.
In 1920 the two-room log home that Grandpa Truman had built on 2nd North and 2nd West was for sale and we bought that home and lot from Chris Johnson and moved into it. Karl, Sherald and Cloe were all born in this home. I have lived at this location for almost 70 years. We were happy to have a home of our own even though the space was very limited and the conveniences were few. In the kitchen we had a washing machine, a milk cupboard, a kitchen table and a big old black Majestic coal cooking stove, these items were all on the south wall of the kitchen, on the west wall there was a small table a 50 # flour can, and on the north wall there was a kitchen cabinet, the door to the living room, the wash bench and behind the door the work clothes and out door coats were hung. We carried water in a bucket, from a hydrant about twenty feet from the kitchen door for all our all our culinary use, washing and cleaning. Our Saturday night baths were taken in a No.3 tin tub set next to the kitchen stove, to be close to the hot water and to keep warm.
The living room had two double beds, the trunk, the sewing machine, the chiffonnier, the ornate old pot bellied stove, the sideboard, a small table in the middle of the room and four or five straight back chairs were the furnishings for our home.
Iver and Meleta had five children, four sons and one daughter. They were all active in the church programs and were very active in the school. Iver and Meleta were very supportive all their children's athletic activities and scholastic achievements. She was a good homemaker, sewing many of the children's clothes, and made many beautiful quilts that were pieced and quilted. She picked fruit on shares at a number of fruit farms and did lots of canning.
All of the boys were very active in school sports; North Emery High School didn't have a football program, but played baseball in the fall. All the boys played basketball with the high school team. Woody and Sherald were always starters; Bud and Karl were usually reserves but got quite a lot of playing time. They were all active in the track meets. Woody ran the half mile and pole-vaulted, Bud was a hurdler and relay race runner, Karl set a record in the district in the mile race and also ran relays and Sherald was a hurdler and pole vaulted and represented Utah State Agricultural College (USU). We attended all the sporting events at our school as well as many in the other schools in the county.
The children all married and moved away from Huntington. She helped Iver with the chores and helped with the farm operation. They liked to take trips into Idaho, Northern Utah, and Southern Utah to visit their children. She often went to help when there was a new grandchild born. On 01 January 1963 she had helped Iver put cattle in a corral so they could be hauled to Salina to the auction the next morning, during the night Iver suffered a severe heart attack and died a few hours after. It was a very difficult time for her. They had been married 46 years. She sold the cattle and rented the farm. She sold the car and the pickup because she didn't drive and never learned. She remained in Huntington during the spring, summer and fall and went to live with her daughter Cloe, in Tremonton during the winter months. When in Huntington, she and some of the other widows in the neighborhood and ward would have Sunday dinner together, and would hold Family Home Evening at each other's homes. They would get together often to alleviate their loneliness.
SECOND MARRIAGE
In February of 1965, Meleta's favorite cousin Ivy Brockbank died. She was living in Tremonton with her daughter at the time, and she and her daughter went to Ogden to the funeral. Ivy was married to Orlon Brockbank, who was Meleta's husband's cousin. The four of them had always been very good friends, and had a lot of association with each other.
In March Orlon started coming to Tremonton to see Meleta, and in April he told her, he thought they just as well pool their resources and get married rather than both of them being alone. Meleta visited with each one of her children and all of them told her that it would be fine with them if she married Orlon but the decision was hers.
On 04 June 1965 Meleta and Orlon were married in Huntington. They lived in Ogden for nine months until Orlon retired from his employment with the forest service. They moved to Huntington and lived in her home.
They became very involved in the Senior Citizens activities and attended that groups parties throughout the county. They became part of a 30 member Senior Citizens Band, and went to nursing homes in Carbon and Emery Counties entertaining groups. Meleta played the cymbals and Orlon played the rhythm bones. The band took a trip to Grand Junction, Colorado to entertain at nursing homes. They took two trips to Hawaii with the Senior Citizens.
They both enjoyed good health, they went fishing several times a week in Huntington Canyon, they went to the Thursday night dances at the senior center, and took in all the horse races in their area, and went to Payson and Richfield as well. She said all of the men wanted to dance with her because she was the best dancer. They would go and visit their children in their various homes a couple of times a year.
Meleta was still canning fruit and making their bread when she was ninety years old. In the summer of 1990, when she was ninety-three, she spoke of being tired and lacking the energy to do her work and the things she wanted to do. She went to the doctor and he suspected a tumor. She found out in October of that year that she had colon cancer. She got along well with no pain, until the end of November, when she had to be hospitalized for a week. She was discharged from the hospital and went into the Park Way Care Center in Price and in less than four weeks, on Dec. 31, 1990 she died and was buried in Huntington Cemetery beside Iver. She lived to be 94 years old.
Family Members
Siblings
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Advertisement
