Randolph, Utah Chapel 1950 and 1958

This Picture of the Randolph Ward was probably taken in 1936-38

 while Harold Rex was serving his mission in Brazil, South America.

The P.H. [Percy Harold ]Rex Family History Book Project has a lot of descendants looking back. 

Grandmother Bessie Morgan Rex's letter to her son triggered cousin Flora Lee's memories of the Randolph Ward Chapel she grew up attending. The following pictures were taken in the choir-seat section described in this earlier letter.

Grandmother (Aunt) Mary Elizabeth Herbert Rex is on the front row, 6^th from the left. Her sister-in-law Agnes Rex appears to be on the front row also, 3^rd from the left. Agnes’ daughter, Kathleen Rex Thornock appears to be on the top back row, 2^nd from the left. It appears a few of the choir seats described in the 1938 remodel are in use here. 

This is the chapel cousin Flora Lee remembers from her youth. This picture was taken in about 1958 judging from what Flora Elizabeth Rex Lamborn is wearing. Flora is on the top row, third from the left.

Grandmother (Aunt) Mary Elizabeth Herbert Rex is on the second from the top row. If you locate the lady in black beneath the organ pipes, count four to the right. Mary is wearing a white corsage and a jacketed dress.

The only person I would take a guess identifying is Bess Rex. Note the little lady wearing black seated in the center of the first row wearing a corsage. I think Bess is directly behind her on the third row back wearing a hat; Elizabeth (Bess) Smith Rex (1890-1973) born in Manassa, Colorado, cousin of Bessie Morgan Rex.  Bess married Samuel Rex March 6, 1912, and moved to Randolph. Three months later on June 12, 1912, her cousin Bessie Morgan married Samuel’s brother Percy Harold Rex. They too settled in Randolph.

There have to be a hundred lovely Rich County women in this picture.  Anyone happening upon this picture and interested in identifying an ancestor, I’d love to add a name here.

Mary Elizabeth Herbert Rex,

Flora Elizabeth Rex Lamborn

Elizabeth (Bess) Smith Rex

Kathleen Rose Rex Thornock 

Agnes Amelia Hellstrom Rex 

A big Thank you to Grandma Aunt Mary's nieces for their generosity in gifting her papers to us.  Cousin Flora Lee has just finished writing Grandma Aunt Mary’s biography. Yeah! 

Note: History, Descendants, and Ancestry of William Rex & Mary Elizabeth Brough of Randolph, Utah.

In Memory of Dale Brough Rex (1922-1944)

In the process of dismantling Helen Rex Frazier’s disintegrating scrapbook I’ve puzzled over what to do with some of the things that meant so much to her. Like this page. Filled with clippings she collected about her cousin Dale Brough Rex.

Born February 4, 1922 in Salt Lake City, Utah to Samuel Wayne Rex
(1915-1967) and Elizabeth [Aunt Bess] Smith (1890-1973).
He was killed December 18, 1944 in Saarlautern, Germany during World War
II.

Reminders of the loss of her brother, John Morgan Rex, three years earlier. There aren’t dates, or the names of the newspapers these clippings came from.

Yesterday cousin Yara S. sent me this link to a 1944 News Real. Thank you, Yara! News shorts were projected onto movie theater screens before the main feature in those days. The first item on this clip is American General Irwin presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Sergeant Dale Rex.

Earlier posts about Helen’s brother, John Morgan Rex follow here:

John Morgan Rex Remembered

John Morgan Rex, Brother and Soldier

John Morgan Rex, Broome, Australia, One Day War

History, Descendants, and History of William Rex & Mary Elizabeth Brough of Randolph, Utah, compiled and edited by Ronald Dee Rex, 1999, pgs. 206, 208, 213.

Percy Harold and Bessie Morgan Rex, Part 6

Percy Harold Rex’s Hereford bulls 1950’s.

A 1932 letter to the editor in the Utah Farmer caught Bessie Morgan Rex’s eye. The “Lament of a Cowman’s Wife” appears to have moved her to write this poetic response. “Everybody to His Notion,” by Bessie M. Rex was also published in the Utah Farmer.

Last year I took a picture of a “sample page” from Grandmother Bessie’s scrapbook. She clipped and saved thoughts and poems and treasures. I didn’t realize then that she’d pasted “Lament of a Cowman’s Wife” in the bottom left hand corner of this page. Had I known, I would have gotten a better picture.

Bessie wrote and directed plays that were performed in her Randolph ward [A congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint members.] and Relief Society. Sometimes she and the cast traveled to Woodruff or Laketown to perform. About 1928 she wrote The Light Eternal, a Drama in Six Reels.

The structure of this story/play puzzled me. I hadn’t read a play like it before. Eight or nine years ago I pulled it out again and started asking questions. My aunt [Winifred Rex Andrus] said it was one of her mother’s plays that she’d hoped to publish, but she didn’t know why she called it “a drama in six reels.”

A little research led me to learn that Grandmother Rex wrote “The Light Eternal” in about 1928 for the silent screen, hoping to have it produced.

In the beginning of film everything shot was a “short,” and one minute long, because that was all the cameras of the time could accommodate. When this technical difficulty was overcome a short became the length of one reel, running ten minutes. The running time of most silent films was seldom given in hours and minutes. An hour film would be six reels long. All silent films were projected by hand. They could run a bit shorter or longer, depending on the pace of the projectionist as he turned his machine.

Her drama is historical fiction, typical of Church magazine articles of that time, e.g. Young Woman’s Journal, Organ of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association, July, 1927: “Dramatic Episodes From The Book of Mormon,” Episode II, and “Famine,” a Book of Mormon Story, suggested by Helaman, Chapter Eleven.

The Light Eternal is a drama of intrigue, romance, and faithful devotion. Based on biblical history, her twenty-three page handwritten manuscript evidences her talent, knowledge, and devotion to her faith

If you are interested in seeing more of this, please contact me. [March 2, 2020 editor note:  The complete 8 page transcribed drama is posted below.]

Some of the short stories Bessie wrote are Sammy and Sue in the Land of Delight, A Lesson for the King, Plain Jane, The Story of the Magic Drop, The City of Dreams, The Green Frog, and The Enchanted Rose. Among the things she left were several untitled handwritten scripts.

Bessie had a beautiful alto voice, she enriched the choirs she participated in. She sang in many quartets with Aunt Bess [Elizabeth Smith] Rex, Earnest McKinnon, and Adelbert Fackrel.

(To be continued.)

Pictures and documents from author and Helen Rex Frazier collection. History, Descendants, and Ancestry of William Rex & Mary Elizabeth Brough of Randolph, Utah, compiled and edited by Ronald Dee Rex, 1999, p. 270.

Bessie Morgan Rex Part 2

Today the Assembly Hall on Temple Square is nestled beneath the rising City Creek skyscraper south of it in Salt Lake City, Utah. Bessie Morgan’s graduation exercises were held here when she graduated from the eighth grade [about 1906]. J. Spencer Cornwall played the organ for their march. He was just a fourteen-year-old boy playing the pipe organ and she was always so impressed.

In 1906, when Bessie was 15-years old, the Y.L. M. I. A officers and teachers remembered her at Christmas time. And Bryan Avenue was still York Street.

The R. K. Polk Directories for Salt Lake City list Bessie as follows.

1907 bds 359 York, student U of U
1908 bds 359 Bryan Ave, student U of U
1909 b 359 Bryan Ave, Stenog Warm Springs Foundary
1910 b 359 Bryan Ave, Steno State Dairy and Food Commr
1911 b 359 Bryan Ave, Stenog W V Tel Co
1912 b 359 Bryan Ave, Steno MST & T Co

Bessie became a stenographer. She told her children she worked in Governor William Spry’s office [republican governor 1909-1916].

During the summer of 1910 Bessie’s brother, John [Jack] Hamilton Morgan and cousin Glenn Smith [John Henry and Josephine Groesbeck Smith’s son] worked for the Rex Brothers in their Randolph, Utah hay fields. In 1911 brothers, Percy Harold and John Oseland Rex, visited their friend Jack Morgan in Salt Lake City while attending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Say Saints’ June Conference at the Tabernacle. During their visit Bessie met Percy. She always called him Perce. On their first date they went to Saltaire where they had supper, bowled, and danced.

After Percy returned to Randolph he and Bessie corresponded. That fall he invited her to Randolph for a visit. She traveled by train to Evanston, Wyoming and Percy met her at the station with his horse and buggy. They spent the night in separate hotel rooms in Evanston. And the next day he returned to Randolph with Bessie, in his horse drawn buggy. They must have enjoyed her 8-10 day stay. He and his brother Oseland came to Salt Lake City to attend the LDS High School that fall and boarded for a time with Bessie’s mother, Sister Morgan.

Bessie and Percy were married in the Salt Lake Temple on June 12, 1912. The newlyweds lived first on the Ranch [Uncle Sam Rex’s] twelve miles north of Randolph. As remote as Randolph might appear, Bessie’s cousin Elizabeth [Bess] Smith [John Henry and Josephine Groesbeck Smith’s daughter] was already living in Randolph. She had married Percy’s older brother Samuel earlier that same year

I took the picture of the Assembly Hall this week. Bessie Morgan postcards from Helen Rex Frazier collection. R. K. Polk Directories, Utah State Historical Society. History, Descendants, and Ancestry of William Rex & Mary Elizabeth Brough of Randolph, Utah, compiled by Ronald D. Rex, 1999, pgs. 221, 266, 267, picture of horse & buggy p. 113.