Percy Harold and Bessie Morgan Rex Part 3

Percy Harold and Bessie Morgan Rex had six children. This is the only picture of Bessie I have with one of her babies, she and Helen, 1913.

She wrote each of her children’s names and birthdates on her application for membership in the DUP (Daughters of Utah Pioneers) in 1935. I hope you enjoy reading their names and birthdates written in her handwriting below.

It appears that Bessie wrote this card to her mother, Helen Melvina Groesbeck Morgan in Salt Lake City, thanking her for the beautiful clothes she’d made and sent for Helen and Harold. It appears those are the clothes they are wearing in the picture that follows.

Bessie liked to write plays, stories, and poetry. She enjoyed studying and learning. And she always had a book to read when she sat down to feed her babies. She enjoyed teaching. For many years she was the Ward Relief Society Literary Leader in the Randolph Ward. Well versed in current affairs and politics, she enjoyed discussing the same, and entertained visiting political aspirants.

She motivated her children to read and learn also. She enjoyed poetry and memorized poems with a son to help him in a school assignment. She recited the books of the bible while washing dishes with her daughter to help her memorize them. And a Christmas book, Stories of the Bible, was promised to the child who could finish reading it first.

The Rex brothers, left to right, are Arthur Henry, John Oseland, Alfred George, William Thomas, Percy Harold, and Samuel.

Percy Harold was always a rancher, with his father, his brothers, independently, and for others. He was steadfast and dependable. He served his Church and community and provided well for his family. In 1914 he purchased the house on East Canyon Street and he and Bessie moved into town with their baby. He also purchased a four cylinder Buick, his first automobile. Six years later he sold the house and the car to purchase the home on West Church Street. Identified as a Sears and Roebuck pre-cut, crated house, it arrived on the railroad at Sage, Wyoming, and was hauled to Randolph and assembled on site.

See a picture of their Church Street house in Helen Rex Frazier’s 1979 autobiography here.

(To be continued.)

Pictures and document from Helen Rex Frazier collection. History, Descendants, and Ancestry of William Rex & Mary Elizabeth Brough of Randolph, Utah, compiled by Ronald Dee. Rex, 1999, pgs. 267, 269.