William and Mary Elizabeth Brough Rex. Part 2. Concluded.

Continued from here.
Mary served as counselor to Sister South in the Y.L.M.I.A. (Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association). She and her mother and sisters became members of the Relief Society when it was organized in Randolph by Sister Eliza R. Snow. Mary was called as the first secretary.

William and Mary Elizabeth Brough Rex,

50th Wedding Anniversary (1874-1924)

Always active in the community, William held numerous civic positions; justice of the peace, county clerk, treasurer, and superintendent of public schools. He also served as superintendent of the Sunday School, secretary of the 102nd Seventies Quorum, a High Councilman, and was president of the High Priest quorum in the Woodruff Stake at the time of his death. “He was always very young looking and walked straight rapidly.”

Late in William’s life, while attending “a family reunion at Bear Lake, he dived off the pier. A tourist shouted, ‘Help! Get that old man out of the water before he drowns!’ William came to the surface and swam off, taking long, steady strokes through the water. He was also a perfect marksman and a good boxer.”

[Note: From his youth he was nearly blown off of the deck of the James Pennell on the voyage from England; in St. Louis he swam with his brothers in the Mississippi River to retrieve wood for fuel for their mother; he was a soldier during the Civil War; he helped settle, and thereafter lived in Randolph, Utah. Of course he would swim in Bear Lake in his senior years!]

William and Mary “always kept busy and had everything in perfect order. They grew beautiful flowers, lawns and vegetables. There were pansy beds around the lilac trees, columbines and Iceland poppies—asparagus, rhubarb patches, and parsnips, which were dug in the spring after the frost left, then cooked and browned in homemade butter. Wild roses were planted by the corral gate to hide the outdoor toilet. The boards around the old pump were always scrubbed white—as were her doorsteps! William always folded his newspaper neatly and placed his old-fashioned spectacles on top. He had a certain way of turning his spoon when putting it in his mouth so he wouldn’t get food on his mustache.

“Mary made hotcross buns for the family on every Good Friday—a family tradition. Humble, sincere family prayers were always a part of their lives.”

Iceland Poppies

William preceded Mary in death on the 7th of April, 1927. Mary passed away at her home twelve years later on May 30, 1939. The [Randolph] Reaper headed her obituary, “Aged Pioneer Sister Called By Death.” They are buried in the Randolph Cemetery.

Concluded.
Pictures from Helen Rex Frazier collection and Wikipedia.