PH REX Family History Book. October 2014.

A couple of very nice pictures surfaced following 

the completion of our P. H. Rex Family History Book.

Here is Percy Rex with his horse Margo (I presume)

 in the driveway to the northeast of his home.

Five Rex Brothers at William's 50th Wedding Anniversary in 1949

Alfred, Percy, William, Sam, Arthur

from page 114 William Rex History Book

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 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.

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.