Glenn Frazier, Part 1

Glenn Frazier
b. Dec 27 1909, Woodruff, Utah
p. Frank Union Frazier, Emily Rufi Frazier
m. Helen Rex, 20 Nov 1937, Oakland, California
m. sealed in the Salt Lake Temple, 18 Nov 1938
d. 4 Jul 1992, Salt Lake City, Utah
b. 8 Jul1992, Elysian Burial Gardens, Salt Lake City, Utah

Glenn Frazier is Frank Union and Emily Rufi Frazier’s middle child, born December 27, 1909 on the Frazier Ranch in Woodruff, Utah. His siblings are Delora, born1907, and Elmer. born in 1913. Growing up on the Ranch, Glenn worked with his father, grandfather, brother, uncles and cousins. They were his teachers, friends, and task masters.

Union, Utah was at about 7200 South State Street, in the Salt Lake Valley. Their family lived there for a few years while Glenn was a boy. In 1917 they packed all of their belongings into a horse-drawn wagon, and walked back to Woodruff, driving their herd of milk cows with them.

The Fraziers raised sheep in Woodruff. Glenn learned branding, breeding, feeding, herding, lambing, sheering. They planted alfalfa. And he irrigated, then mowed and stacked it. In the winter he loaded horse-pulled hay racks with the hay. He drove the racks across frozen fields and pitch-forked hay out to waiting livestock. When spring came the cycle started again. Glenn was always a hard worker, a son and a father you could count on to get a job done.

The Woodruff School that Glenn attended had the world’s largest slippery-slide in its yard. Once you were brave enough to go down it, you didn’t ever want to stop.

Glenn finished high school in Woodruff, before high school was moved north to Randolph.

Upon graduation he worked for a company paving the gravel road between Woodruff and Evanston, Wyoming. He enjoyed the freedom of driving a pickup truck back and forth with supplies for the workers. And he liked receiving money for his work for the first time in his life.

In 1928 he enrolled at Utah State University in Logan as a freshman. Thinking he’d become a veterinarian, he was surprised when he fainted in class at the sight of spaying a dog. Butchering livestock on the ranch for meat was common place. This was different. A dog is an essential companion to a sheepherder. Glenn always had a dog on the Ranch.

Helen Rex was still in high school when Glenn met her at a town dance. It must have been in Randolph. He asked her if he could take her home after the dance. And she told him, “no,” she’d be going home with the person who brought her to the dance, her father. They courted for a long time. He’d ride the ten miles from Woodruff to Randolph on horseback to see her. When she ran for Rich County fair queen, he bought enough “tickets” to win her the title. Bessie Morgan Rex, Helen’s mother, ultimately agreed to let Helen marry Glenn when he was able to beat her at checkers. These tales, retold so many times, are somewhere between truth and family legend.

Glenn went to Salt Lake City and worked for Dooley/Bamburgers. They owned Antelope Island [in the middle of the Great Salt Lake] and kept sheep out there. He worked for them driving herds of sheep down 21st South out to Saltaire, and across dry land [in the 1930’s] to the island. He lived over there in a sheep camp, herding the sheep for a “long time.” There were canyons and valleys, fresh springs, and fields of alfalfa on the island, and he ran into buffalo. It was a noisy place then. He said there were lights on the island to guide the airplanes into the airport before the use of radar.

He homesteaded on Monte Cristo, now part of the Wasatch-Cache National Forest Mountains. He built a cabin, finishing it in 1936, and herded sheep up there.

In 1936 Glenn went to California where he got work and attended diesel engineering school. He graduated from the Hemphill Diesel Engineering Schools at Los Angeles, California, on February 2, 1937.

He planned on working in the engine room of a large ship. Helen came to visit him in May of 1937. He changed his plans and moved to Oakland, California, where his Uncle Bill [William Rufi] was superintendent of the largest steam laundry in the United States (according to Glenn) and gave Glenn a job driving trucks.

In November of 1937 Helen traveled to Oakland, California where she and Glenn were married by Bishop Shields on November 20, 1937. Their first home was at 4180 Opal Street, Apt. 5., Oakland, California.

(To be continued.)
This history was written in 1993 from interview notes with Glenn Frazier. The 1929 Buzzer, Published by Student Body of Utah Agricultural College, Volume XXI, pg. 53. Pictures from Helen Rex Frazier Collection; Glenn Frazier about two years old. Glenn Frazier and Bernice Clayton Purchase on the slide at the Woodruff School yard in 1936. Glenn's high school graduation friends, left to right, [unknown[, Lynn and Myrtle Huffaker (cousins), Vance Moss, and Glenn Frazier. The cabin Glenn built on his homestead at Monte Cristo, 1936. Glenn Frazier and Helen Rex in Los Angeles, California, Spring, 1937.

John Hamilton Morgan Journal; Trips to the Temple concluded.

[Note: Sometime between May 24th and June 27th 1890 Mary Ann Linton Morgan moved from Nephi, Utah to (Preston), Idaho.]

1890
June 27
About town attending to business. In the evening left on the 5 p.m. train for Idaho where I arrived at 11 p.m. and found all well.

June 28
Remained quiet all day. Brother Sol. [Solomon H.] Hale and George [C.] Parkinson called to see us. Cool.


June 29
Left on the 6 a.m. train for home. Arrived at 11:00 and attended Tabernacle Service. Addressed by brother R. McCallister and myself. Attended Ward Meeting and spoke in the evening.

June 30
Left for Manti on the 7:10 a.m. train in company with Mellie. Had dinner at Auntie [perhaps Ida Hunt] Udalls at Nephi, she going with us to Manti. At Chester, a team met us in which we rode to Manti, arriving at 6 p.m.; stopped at the Temple Hotel. Called and had a visit with Brother and sister A. C. Smith [unknown].

July 1
Went to the Temple and spent the most of the day there, witnessing, searching genealogies, etc. Had lunch at brother Smiths.

July 2
Mellie was baptized for her health and took an endowment for a friend of sister Williams’. We spent a most enjoyable day and had a pleasant visit with brother and sister Smith. President Wells was in the Temple and extended every courtesy and treated us very kindly.

July 3
Engaged most of the day in copying names in Mellie’s genealogy in the Temple. Spent the evening in the Temple.

July 4
Left for home at 6 a.m. and took train at 9 a.m. at Chester. Had dinner at Aunties [Udall] and met sister Lester [unknown]. Arrived home at 7 p.m. three hours late and very hot. The Gentile celebration was a flat failure as were their fire works tonight.


(Journal entry concluded.)


This is what The Life and Ministry of John Morgan by Arthur Richardson, Copyright 1965 by Nicholas G. Morgan, Sr., pg, 488, says about these journal entries.

“We find him in the Manti Temple with his daughter Mellie on July 2nd at which time she was baptized for her health and he later ‘took an endowment.’ The following day he spent in ‘copying names in Mellie’s genealogy in the Temple.’”

That really confused me. However, I don’t have access to letters and additional writings that Nicholas G. Morgan and Arthur Richardson would have used in writing their book.

I had seen no indications in the journal that Mellie, John Morgan’s daughter, is accompanying him on this occasion. He last mentioned her in his April 20, 1890 journal entry: … My daughter, Mellie gave birth to a boy [Wallace J. Burt] last night at midnight, our first grandchild. Rained during the night and a part of today.

A kind distant cousin sent me a copy of (daughter) Helen Melvina (Mellie) Morgan Burt Austin’s obituary. I learned from it that for a time she acted as her father’s secretary. Sometimes she accompanied him when he traveled. I’ve since recognized incidents where that is the case. And perhaps that is the case here, however, I didn’t have a clue until I looked into the Richardson book. And now I can see a number of possible scenarios.

Nevertheless, it appears to me that John Morgan is taking care of that promise he made to his dying mother-in-law in 1883.

Possible R. McCallister:
McAllister, Richard Wesley (son of William James Frizen and Eliza Elizabeth Bell of Philadelphia, Pa.). Born Oct 15, 1825, Pottsville, Del. Came to Utah Sept. 13, 1861, Joseph Horne company.
Married Elizabeth Elenor Bell in Philadelphia (daughter of James Bell of Delaware). Their children: William James Frizen; Joseph W.; Susanna Bell; Mary; Lillie; John; James; Rich.
Married Emma Wallen.
High Priest. Deputy marshal in territorial days for a number of years. Died in 1905.
Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah, by Frank Esshom, Utah Pioneers Book Publishing Company, 1913, p.1054.

Picture of another summer bloom on the Church Plaza, Salt Lake City, Utah.

John Hamilton Morgan Journal; Trips to the Temple.

In John Hamilton Morgan’s paper, “The Passing of Nicholas and Elizabeth Groesbeck” posted here John writes about his promise to Elizabeth on her dying bed. Speaking of Elizabeth, he wrote in his journal on 27 Dec 1883 … She gave all of her children good advice and seemed perfectly resigned to die. Made me promise to remind Harmon and Mellie of their promise to do a work in the Temple for her father and mother and relatives …

I’ve looked for evidence of the fulfillment of that promise as I read and study John Morgan’s journal.

1884
17 May, the Logan Temple was dedicated by President John Taylor, John and Mellie Morgan attended.

1888
17 May, the Manti Temple was dedicated by President Wilford Woodruff. John Morgan was in attendance. [From John Morgan's journal (not posted on this blog). The following is from John Hamilton Morgan’s journal, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.]

1889
July 12
[In Salt Lake City] At work about the place. Attended Sunday School Union Meeting and at 4 p.m. in company with Mellie and baby [probably daughter Gail Morgan born April 3, 1888], started for Manti by U. C. train. Arrived at Nephi at 8:30 p.m.

July 13
Went out and got shaved and at 12:30 p.m. took train for Chester, our party consisting of President J. Gates, myself, Mellie, baby and Mary [this would be John Morgan's 3rd wife Mary Ann Linton Morgan (married 1888)]. A team met us at Chester and took us to Manti. Drove to the Temple and after an hours visit with brother D. H. [Daniel Hammer] Wells, went through all the rooms and out on top. After this we drove to brother Daniel Henries, Mellie, Mary, and I, brother Gates going to brother Benches.

July 14
Met in Seventies Conference at 10 a.m. Called on the Senior president of 7 Quorums and reported the condition of their various quorumns [sic]. President Gates and I both spoke a while. Had dinner at Brother S. C. Smythes. Conference met at 2 p.m. Brothers Gates, Morgan, and Maiben were the speakers. After meeting we drove to Ephraim and put up with Bishop Donius.

July 16
Started early for Chester. A rain last night laid the dust and made the trip delightful. Took train at 9 a.m. Dinner at Nephi and home at 6:40 p.m. …

Daniel Henrie


Seventies in the Eighties, post and this one at The Ancestor Files, further explains John Morgan's responsibilities.

(To be continued.)
Picture by author, flowers by construction barrier in front of the Joseph Smith Building, Salt Lake City, Utah, this summer.

Percy Harold and Bessie Morgan Rex, Part 7

June 5, 1936, Randolph, Utah, letter to Harold Morgan Rex (serving a mission in Brazil) from home, written by Helen Rex and Bessie Morgan Rex. Bessie mentions every member of her family in this letter. On a Sunday afternoon 73 years later may it warm your heart as it did mine.

Randolph, Utah

June 5, 1936

Dear Harold:

Win just said she had written to you and that some of the rest of us should, so I guess I should proceed. We are having one grand time having sis home, surely wish you could be here too, but am very glad you’re down there, because you are doing and seeing things few of us have a chance.

For the past week we have had grand storms. The country surely looks good and all of the farmers are smiling. Our dear friends the mosquitoes are here in abundance too. The pests. Well I am still laboring for all I am worth. The first of July we are to be reappointed. We have received a lot more money, so I guess we will be.

So sorry you aren’t getting our letters, because our hearts are in the right places. We write every week, and I even sent you one air mail. We don’t get yours very often either. It has been two weeks since we heard from you.

They are wrecking the Opera house and meeting house. Things will more than likely be pretty dead here this summer, but it will be grand to have a new dance hall a nice church.

Glenn has been up to his homestead this past week getting it ready for final proof in July, then he will be footloose. I do hope he can get something, so he can be just a little bit independent.

Here comes daddy, so we must be getting some supper on. Win and Flora have gone visiting. Mother is going to write in the letter too.

LeMare was married yesterday. So were Elgie and Clayton. They are on their honeymoon up in the North West.

Will have to finish later. We have had supper and have been sitting talking. Sis is going to give Mother and I a back rub. She surely is strong and can give such good ones. [Bessie] Well she got her back rub & it must have put her off entirely. She cant wake up this morning, so I shall use the rest of the sheet of paper, as this letter must go off. We are delighted to have Winnie with us for a short two weeks. Have had a lovely storm & now it is clearing up. Things should grow. [Helen wrote note in margin—Oh nuts. She got in too big of a hurry.]

No letter this week. I am so disappointed. I wonder if it would do any good for you to 

put on the envelope “via Evanston, Wyo.” Winnie gets her letters. There is much doing here right now. The church is planting gardens, building an amusement hall & fixing the church. It will be so nice. Last week was commencement. Dr. Sidney Sperry came to speak to the graduates. I wasn’t there, but first thing he said was he always wanted to come to Randolph because  Bessie Morgan married & came here. He came to see me after the exercises. He is certainly a grand man.

Wayne is leaving for the Southern States or at least for the mission home on the 12^th. Nine missionaries from Randolph. We should prosper shouldn’t we. I read the piece in the Era bout Brazil. I hope you find many things that are broadening & uplifting. I hope all is not a hundred years behind times. Floyd was sitting by me, & he surely envies you. He thinks that would be the most interesting mission in the world.

I am trying to write while Maeser is singing, Flora talking, Daddy washing, Helen writing to Glenn. Too much to distract me. So this is jumbled.

Did we tell you a bus comes right thro’ Randolph, to Jackson Hole. It makes it very handy. It might be handy for Evanston as it comes thro’ early in the morning. I mean for some.

We have no picture show or dance hall for a while. The town will be dead but it is a good thing as far as dances are concerned. The last one was terrible. The devil can cause quite a bit of hadin with a glass of liquor.

I think of so much to tell you & then it all leaves me when I sit down. I do hope we hear from you today or Monday. It seems so long between times.

Today is Sat. & we must clean up as Helen is getting dinner tomorrow for Uncle Will & Aunt Agness. They were so nice while we were in quarantine. Morg has gone air crazy, & is building airplanes all the time. Well I must close so we can get this off. I know the Lord is with you, my dear, or I should worry much more about you. Be a good boy, study hard & enjoy your labors. I do hope your experiences will mean much to you all your life, & that ambition & industry will help you to attain a bright place in the sun. Love & kisses from all.

Lovingly Mother

(To be continued.)
Picture of Lion House flowers, Salt Lake City, by author. Letter from author's collection.

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.

Percy Harold and Bessie Morgan Rex, Part 5

Percy Harold and Bessie Morgan Rex family members in Randolph, Utah in 1937, left to right; are John Morgan, Bessie, Percy, Helen, in front, Flora Elizabeth and Maeser Morgan.

Harold Morgan Rex is on the left. It appears he is with a companion while serving his mission in Brazil, 1936-1938.

In 1938, after three years training, daughter Winifred graduated from the Salt Lake General Hospital in nursing. That is her on the right.

Percy and Bessie wrote to Harold nearly every week while he was in the mission field. Their newsy letters were encouraging and kept him abreast of the family. Harold kept all of the letters he received from home. His wife, Diana, and then his children preserved them further. Thanks to their family, I have copies I will share here from time to time. This letter from Percy to his son Harold was written in November 1936.

[The following is part of a letter Bessie typed to Harold.]

At home, Sunday evening.
May 30, 1937.

My very dear boy,

… Your sister is some tap dancer. You’ll see when you come home.

Floyd Kennedy is leaving this year. He didn’t get a contract to come back. I am sorry. I wanted her to take music from him. Oh, between Helen getting her English lesson, and Flora trying to write you a letter I am all mixed up. Daddy and the boys have gone to the field to milk. I do hope they wont [sic] get too wet. They were soaked this morning. Morgan had a new pair of gray trousers and white shoes to wear today. I think he will surprise you when you get back. He has grown so.

I think Winnie is coming home for the 12th of June, our wedding day. I shall be so glad. She hasn’t been up for some time, and I surely get homesick to see the pair of you, but that is all the good it does for you. Well, the time is flying by, when you look back, but an awful long time to look forward. I can’t get any inspiration from the weather today. It gives one the blues to look out at gray dripping skies. I always do think of this little verse of Longfellow’s.

“Be still sad heart, and cease repining.
Behind the clouds the sun is shining.
Thy fate is the common fate of all;
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.” …

(To be continued.)

Pictures are from Helen Rex Frazier collection. Copies of letters to Harold Morgan Rex are from his descendants.

Percy Harold and Bessie Morgan Rex Part 4

The Randolph Recreation Hall on the corner of W Church Street and Main Street in Randolph, Utah was completed in 1937. I believe this may be the picture Bessie Morgan Rex talks about sending her son, Harold, in the quotes from her letters below.
While Percy Harold Rex was a counselor in one of a number of bishoprics he served in, he was assigned to oversee the building of a new town cultural hall. From July 1936, when they first tore down the old opera house, until January 1938, when the new town hall was completed and paid for, Percy oversaw the building work-crews. He “was in charge of labor.”

Those were difficult, economically pressed times. “Must we do it during this Depression,” community members asked. “Perhaps this project might help rather than hinder our circumstances!”

“At one time during construction it was so cold the mortar had to be kept warm with a fire in a tub while the men laid brick around the entrance hall.”

[Nov 1936 letter written by Bessie to her son, Harold, in the mission field.] It is so cold out today. Daddy is working on the amusement hall. Oh it is a beautiful building. If we can get a picture of it we will send it to you. The whole corner is occupied. I am on the finance committee. You would be surprised to see the way they raise money these hard times.
[Undated letter written by Bessie.] We are sending you a picture of the new Recreation Hall. Isn’t it nice? But, oh boy raising the money. We are having some time, but we’ll have it. It just comes some how. I do hope it is taken care of after it is finished. It is going to be a beautiful hall. Daddy says it is 101 ft long—50 ft wide. People find fault and grumble, but wait.

In 1975 Percy Harold Rex’s children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren are enjoying the recreation hall at a family reunion.
As of 1981 the term “Recreation Hall” was dropped and the building is now properly referred to as the “Cultural Hall.”

Would someone out there reading this blog be willing to snap a current picture of the hall and e-mail it to me?

(To be continued.)

Picture of the Recreation Hall from Helen Rex Frazier collection. Reunion pictures by the author. Randolph, A Look Back, Written and compiled by Steven L. Thomson, Jane D. Digerness, Mar Jean S. Thomson, 1981, pgs. 151-154.