Melissa B. Morgan

KAYSVILLE — Mrs. Melissa Mariun Bassett Morgan, 73, of Kaysville, wife of Joseph C. Morgan, died yesterday in the Salt Lake LDS Hospital.

Mrs. Morgan was a member of the LDS Kaysville Fifth Ward and formerly worked in the Primary. She was born June 25, 1883, in Clarkston, Utah, a daughter of Edwin and Emily Ann Atkinson Bassett. On Sept. 4, 1904, she was married to Mr. Morgan In the LDS Logan Temple. They had lived in Kaysville for 16 years. Prior to that time they lived in Star Valley, Wyo., and Poplar, Idaho.

Surviving are her husband, three sons and three daughters, Alma L. Morgan, Pasco, Wash.; Cecil P. Morgan, San Francisco; Raymond E. Morgan, Kaysville; Mrs. John L. (Mamie) Voss, Layton; Mrs. Howard (Florence) Pitman, Mrs. Homer (Lila) Anderson, Dietrich, Idaho; 27 grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, three brothers and one sister, Chancey, Parley M. and Allan J. Bassett, Boise, Idaho; Mrs. Amelia Buck, California; several half brothers and half sisters.

Funeral services will be conducted Friday at 1 p.m. in the LDS Kaysville Second Ward by Bishop Clinton Zollinger. Friends may call at the home of Mrs. John Voss, 641 E. Gentile St., Layton, tomorrow from 6 to 9 p.m. and Friday until services. Burial in Kaysville-Layton Memorial Park, directed by Lindquist and Sons Mortuary.

-Ogden Standard Examiner, May 8, 1957, transcribed by Rhonda Holton
----------------
Melissa Marian Bassett is the daughter of Emily Ann Dickinson and David Edwin Bassett.

She married Joseph Charles Morgan. Joseph first met Melissa (called Liz by her friends) at a dance and had a brief courtship. When they decided to marry September 7, 1904 in Logan, Utah, they took the train to Cache Valley, Utah, where Melissa had grown up. They stayed there in Clarkston for a time with Melissa's Aunt Tillie and Uncle Alfred Atkinson (Emily's brother) and were married in the Logan LDS Temple September 7, 1904.

As a married couple, Joseph and Melissa Morgan first settled on a homestead in the rural tract of Poplar, in Bonneville County Idaho, about 16 miles east of Idaho Falls. Like his father Thomas Morgan, Joseph was a farmer and was active in the LDS Church. While living in Poplar he served for some time as the Bishop of the local ward, and also worked on community projects such as the construction of a dam across Anderson Canal. His formal education amounted to about two years of grammar school. Joseph farmed for many years in Poplar, and in the hills south of Poplar where he worked with his older brother Tom (John Thomas) Morgan, and his brother-in-law John Nebel, raising mainly wheat by the dry-farm method (without irrigation).

While in Poplar between 1904 and 1922 Joseph and Melissa had nine children, three of whom died in infancy. In about 1922 the family fell on hard economic times and had to give up the farm. They then moved to Idaho Falls where Joseph got a part time job in the Lincoln Sugar Mill which produced sugar from the many sugar beets grown in the area. During this time they had their tenth child, Cecil. After a year or so at Idaho Falls, the Joseph Morgan Family moved to the nearby community of Moreland in Bingham County, where they were able to rent a farm. While living there they had their eleventh child, Raymond in 1924.

In about 1924 the family gave up their efforts to farm in eastern Idaho. But they had apparently done well enough to buy a Model T Ford which they used to drive to Emmett in Gem County, western Idaho, a move which took them three days of troublesome driving. While at Emmett, Joseph Morgan worked for the Boise Payette sawmill. But even though he was paid over $4.00 per day, possibly more than he had ever been paid, he still preferred to try farming again. So after a year at the sawmill, he rented a farm in Montour, about 20 miles northeast of Emmett, in Gem County. But even after the family moved to Montour, Joseph still had to work at times at the saw mill. Their sons, Edwin and Alma, did much of the farm work. Lila remembered one of her chores while in Montour was taking care of turkeys. She also remembered that the family canned one year up to 700 quarts of fruit and vegetables, most of which was grown in their own gardens. Daughter Florence mentioned that of all the places they lived, Montour was her favorite.

While the family lived in western Idaho, their oldest daughter Emily married George Howard Pitman, whose family had once lived in Milo/Ucon just a few miles from the Morgans in eastern Idaho prior to their migration to Emmett.

In 1927, the Morgan family left Montour, and went to Glenns Ferry, a rather isolated community on the Snake River in Elmore County, Idaho. While there, their daughter Mamie married Owen Crocket. After about a year there, the family moved to Eden in Jerome County, south central Idaho. At Eden they farmed for two years, raising dry beans and potatoes on newly opened land, some of which Joseph and the older sons cleared themselves. In 1931, after rather unsuccessful efforts at Eden they moved to Dietrich in Lincoln County, south central Idaho. There they obtained a small farm and persuaded their daughter Emily and her husband George H. Pitman to move to a farm next to them. They stayed in Dietrich for the next ten years, eking out a living during the Depression years. The younger Morgan children attended school in Dietrich. Four members of the family married while living in Dietrich: Florence married Lee Wessel in 1934, Edwin married Thelma Morgan in 1934, Alma married Lucille Cooper in 1935 and Lila married Homer Anderson in 1935.

In September 1941, Joseph and Melissa finally gave up farming, moved the remainder of their family (Cecil and Raymond) to Roy, Weber County, Utah, where they operated an auto service station. By this time most of the older children had married and started families of their own. In 1945, Joseph and Melissa retired to Fruit Heights Davis County, Utah, where they tended a small orchard of fruit trees behind their small home at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains.

Melissa's children, when recalling aspects of their mother's life, most prominently mention that their mother often suffered from head-aches and ill health. During the last several years of her life she had a progressive loss of hearing, and she was often bedridden. The older girls did most of the domestic chores when their mother was down. In 1957 at the age of 74 she died in Salt Lake City, 7 May 1957, preceding her husband in death by 12 years. She is remembered as having had a reserved and quiet disposition. Her daughter Lila remembered fondly that Melissa played the guitar and sang. She was short in stature and had dark brown to black hair and a slim to medium frame.

Joseph Charles Morgan Life Sketch by Leon Pitman