When did William and Mary Elizabeth Brough Rex’s home burn down? May 1937.

William and Mary Rex home, Randolph, Utah (Built prior to 1900, burned down May 1937)

My Aunt Flora Rex Lamborn (born 1930) told me once she remembered the day her Grandfather Rex’s home burned down. She didn’t know the exact date, only that she was being “watched” by one of her aunts on the day. They were walking hand in hand along a street and saw the smoke rising from the northeast part of Randolph. They seemed to know it was the Rex home, but Flora wasn’t permitted to go look.

According to Aunt Winnie Rex Andrus (born 1918), the house burned while she was in Salt Lake City completing her nurses training in about 1937-38. My mother’s cousin, Kathleen Rex Thornock, recently answered my question. She helped write History, Descendants, and Ancestry of William Rex and Mary Elizabeth Brough of Randolph, Utah.

William and Mary Elizabeth Brough Rex, West Canyon Street home, Randolph, Utah, and Elizabeth Bott Brough

Mary Elizabeth Brough Rex’s father, Samuel Brough, was a brick maker, and he made the brick for some of his children to build their homes. William and Mary got a lovely two-story brick home on their lot northeast of Randolph by the canal. They probably moved in it near the turn of the century. The only home Kathleen remembers them living in was their home up West Canyon Street, pictured above.

The large two-story brick home, known as the William and Mary Rex home, was then occupied by their son John Oseland Rex, his wife Edna, and their family. The brick house burned down in May 1937. Ada Rex was going to graduate that spring, and she lived with Kathleen’s family [William and Edna Rex family] until then.

Pictures from Helen Rex Frazier collection.