Grandma Emily Rufi Frazier (1886-1972)

Frank and Emily Frazier posed for this picture on their 

Woodruff, Utah ranch in about 1947

I recently received correspondence from another Stephen Vestal Frazier descendant. Allen Frazier, son of Dillan Frazier, first cousin to my father Glenn Frazier wrote me,

"We probably have met or at least been in the same room at one time or another.  I attended your grandfather's funeral and stayed in their  home several different times.  I do remember his singing as he went about doing his morning chores.  "I'm forever blowing bubbles," is one I remember.

"One time my parents and I  planned to sleep overnight before returning to Springville. My dad had told Emily he wanted to get away early if possible.  Sometime during the night my dad got up to go to the bathroom.  Apparently Emily thinking we were getting up jumped out of bed, fired up the kitchen stove, and began preparing  a wonderful breakfast.  My dad was too embarrassed to tell Emily why he got up and so we ate that wonderful breakfast and returned to Springville . . . at about 3:00 a.m. in the morning." 

Thank you, Allen, for sharing this heart warming account. 

MELL Mellie Groesbeck Morgan ephemera. 1887.

 

Jacob Rufi

Ephemera[1] from Great Grandmother Morgan’s life and times

 In 1887 she was 34-years-old

I've always just driven our DUP company histories over to the museum because it is so convenient, and I enjoy walking through the displays into the history department. Last week as I left I began looking in a case that frequently changes--presently filled with memorabilia of various nationality emigrant gatherings. It occurred to me I might spot some evidence of Swiss gatherings at Saltaire. And I took time to look. Thus far in my years of wondering I've yet to see those gatherings written about. 

Grandma Emily Frazier told me that her father Jacob Rufi used to sing and yodel at Z. C. M. I. employee gatherings at Saltaire. The display case was filled with ephemera from various gatherings, even at Saltaire. They didn't mention any Swiss yodeling competitions.

But my eye was caught by a beautifully printed dance program that attendee's would have received at the door with a tassel and pencil.

Grand Select Ball, Fri ev'g Feb 11 '87

Fourteenth Ward Assembly Hall

[My Morgan grandparents, John and Mellie, lived in the 14th Ward.]

It was a dance program, and some of the numbered dances had a name penciled in beside them. I presume it was a gentleman's dance program, because Dance #21, Pop Goes the Weasel had penciled in MELL, followed by Morgan written in cursive.

I know that great grandmother Helen Melvina "Mellie" Groesbeck Morgan was known as Mell on Fourteenth Ward Relief Society records. I've seen her name written that way there. 

Could Mellie have worn this gown t the ball?

Whose dance card did she write her name on?

How does one dance to Pop Goes the Weasel?

From Helen Melvina, to Mellie, to Mell!

I was so pleased to learn that grandmother enjoyed her life at home in Salt Lake some of the times her husband was at work in Tennessee in the Southern States Mission. That's where he was the night of this ball.

1. Ephemera: (Wikipedia) items of collectible memorability, typically written or printed ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity.

Grandmothers made/created their own washing soaps.

Several Groesbeck cousins are collaborating to transcribe and annotate great great grandmother Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck's journal. In the course of gathering materials, cousin Karen M discovered the following recipes and receipts among her Grandfather Nicholas Groesbeck Morgan's papers:

These licenses and recipes belonged to Elizabeth Groesbeck

 and assured her rights to create and use the compounds.

Securing soap recipes in this manner was not unusual in Elizabeth's time.

(1820-1883)

G. W. Jackson and Company's Universal Washing Compound. The Baltimore company issued these certificates as a way to cut down on the infringement of their formula, which is included on this imprint dating from 1867. 

 Elizabeth's Family Right was dated February 1, 1868.

My Grandma Emily Rufi Frazier (1886-1972) was a famous soap maker. After our family moved from her Woodruff, Utah home in 1951 she continued to make and supply our family with her soap. I remember it as a dirty milk color. She set her boiled and brewed concoction in 9 x 13 dripper pans. After they set up she cut the soap into squares. My parents washed our laundry with those bars of soap. Upon the advent of the automatic washing machine, they shaved the bars and continued to use the soap to wash our clothes.

Emily and her descendants swore by her soap’s effectiveness to clean their clothes. I was trying to recall the smell of the soap. I can only come up with the smell of “clean.” That’s amazing when you think we collected drippings from bacon and mutton tallow in separate cans we kept on the back of the stove. They were not to be mixed for some reason I don’t remember. They were used to make grandma’s soap. Ashes and lye were the other two ingredients I am aware of. Whenever we’d travel to Woodruff, which was rather frequent, we’d take our cans of grease to Grandma. She’d send home bags of her soap whenever she finished a new batch, with whomever was traveling to Salt Lake City.

That's Emily's automatic washing machine in the front left corner of her kitchen. 

Her sons Elmer and Glenn Frazier, seated to the left, appear to be watching

 their wives and mother work at the kitchen sink

 and drainboard in the mid 1960's.

My parents, Glenn and Helen Rex Frazier (1913-1982), and I, 

used a twin tub wringer washing machine to do the family wash in the 1950's.

This 1961 photo is of Helen hanging up her clothes

 on the backyard umbrella clothes lines.

White whites was extremely important to Helen. 

Last week's visit to Randolph, Utah. July 9-11, 2013.

Last week I was invited to Randolph, Utah to visit and quilt with cousins. 

The outing was as wonderful as it sounds.

I thought you might enjoy walking some streets with me. 

I passed P. H. and Bessie and Mary Rex's home on Canyon Street several times.

 It looks very very nice. 

An evening walk through the cemetery revealed the  Church Steeple

 amid the pines and the Crawford Mountains in the distance.

Walking back down Canyon Street from Cemetery Hill

 you pass a new school complex on the right. 

The lights were on in the Chapel on Main Street that evening. 

It is built of bricks made by my great-great Grandfather Samuel Brough.

I visited the Old Town Jail where it is housed on a lot east of town next to the DUP Museum. Both buildings were moved there and are filled with Randolph and family memorabilia. Such a treat.

 This wall phone hung inside the jailhouse door and looked to me exactly like the one that hung inside of Grandpa P. H. Rex's front door. I remember watching the grown ups crank it up to use it. Grandmother Bessie Rex wrote to her mother in Salt Lake about her phone, saying she'd have called her with the news, except she can't hear on their new telephone.

This cream separator is similar to the stainless steel separator

 my Grandmother Emily Frazier used in Woodruff, Utah.

 She kept it on her back porch. 

This is the front door to the DUP Museum that formerly

 stood behind the church house.

 This bench  is familiar, and very like the one that once sat
 on Grandpa P. H. Rex's front porch.

 It is an early bench from the Randolph Church.

 This pressed glass pedestal cake plate and the green vase below it

 were donated by Grandmother Aunt Mary Herbert Rex.

Whoever the items originally belonged to isn't known. 

  

This chrome trimmed stove displayed a Brough cast iron cooking kettle

 on the left rear of the cook-top. 

This Honor Roll hung in an early Randolph Court House. 

It names John Morgan Rex and others

 who made the supreme sacrifice in service to our country.

The view to the East across the meadows is beautiful.

 The Crawford Mountains border the valley on the East.

The Randolph Recreation Hall was built by the community in 1936. 

P. H. Rex was the bishopric counselor over the work project. 

It now houses the Senior Citizens Center and Library. 

1930 SRHS Junior Prom - When Helen met Glenn.

Dance Program from Helen Rex's Scrapbook

Glenn Frazier met Helen Rex while she was still in high school. They each told their descendants the same story. They met at a South Rich High School dance--in those days everyone went. 

After sharing a few dances Glenn asked Helen if he could take her home. She said, “no,” and explained that she’d return home with the person who brought her to the dance—her father. The Rex home was nearby in Randolph, it was just down the street from South Rich High School, the Church, the old Opera House, and almost everything else in town.

Glenn Frazier’s family lived ten miles south of Randolph in Woodruff, Utah.

The Rex and Frazier families were some of the early 1870 Rich County settlers and each family helped settle their respective town; Randolph and Woodruff.

Both families are represented in this 1929 Rich County Fair Report.

Complete List of Winners at the Second Annual Rich County Fair--September 29, 1929

The Second Annual Rich County Fair and rodeo held at Randolph, Utah, Sept. 24 and 25, under the direction of the County Farm Bureau, was a huge success.

The exhibits of fruits, farm products, livestock and home economics were first class. The display would be a credit to a much larger county than Rich.

Interesting programs were held each morning in the ward chapel. Speakers from the Utah Agricultural College, State Farm Bureau and the State Board of Agriculture gave instructive talks.

The Rodeo held in the afternoon was as fine as any held in the west.

The whole affair showed what real cooperation can do.

Following is a list of the premiums and of those in charge: 

[I list only winners I know belong to my families.]

Saddle Horses--3d., Sam Rex—ribbon.

Mare and Colt--1^st A. G. Rex, 1-2--$1.25.

Yearlings--2d., Winnie Rex--$1.00

Boy Pony--2d., Maeser Rex--$1.50.

Dairy Cattle—Holstein

Grade Milking Shorthorns

Cow-1^st. prize, P. H. Rex.

Sheep Department

Harry Smith, Judge, Wm. Rees, Supervisor.

Registered Ramboulilet--Ram—1^st. Frank Frazier

Lincoln--Ram—1^st. and 2d., Frank Frazier

Columbia--Ram—1^st. Frank Frazier.

Grade Beef Cattle--Group 3 steers--2d. P. H. Rex

Bread

Cake—Mrs. Frank [Emily] Frazier, Woodruff, 50 cents.

Nut Bread—Mrs. Sam [Bess] Rex, Randolph, Utah, 50 cents.

Junior Prom February 28, 1930.

Helen's dance program and note at the bottom, A Wonderful time.

Helen was part of the Junior Class that year.

My guess is this is the dance when Helen first met Glenn!

Frank Frazier's journal account. The week of July 24, 1947. Woodruff, Utah.

Grandpa Frank Union Frazier's 1947 Diary/Journal is explained in this earlier post and his biography begins here.

I turned back to the journal yesterday to see how Grandpa Frazier, and the Frazier's in Woodruff, Utah, celebrated Pioneer Day in 1947. This post included Grandma Frazier's birthday that year.

Tuesday, July 22, 1947 

Emily Birthday – 61 years old – we all went up to Delora for supper – Gordon – Aunt Maud came their after supper – Elmer – boys went to show – rain today Arthor I put a bridge across the little creek.

Wednesday, July 23, 1947

204^th day – 161 days follow

May – Gordon – Maudis came down and stayed all night it was good to see them we finished with the hay on the 4^th Island we finished Mowing up in the West field.

Thursday, July 24, 1947

The folks went home this morning. I think they are going to Salt Lake today. Charley V. work in the hay field today – Bruce, Delora, Frankie, Sherley, Mark, went to Ogden to the Rodeo –

Friday, July 25, 1947

Had quite a lot of breake down push rake teeth and the derrick, but we put up quite a lot of hay – Elmer started to mow the big flat below the house – Mary – Harvey brought the boy in last night, he is going to be a fine boy – red hair –

Saturday, July 26, 1947

Fixed up both push rakes and fixed derrick – but finished the field up about the barn

Jim McClure and a Mr. Jensen came to see us –

Sunday, July 27, 1947

The old gan[g] went up to Montie Cristo for the day – had dinner.

Their was Marsh, Lyla, Jake [Rufi], Lottie [Rufi], Albert, Effie, Joshua [Ashton], Sophia [Ashton], Frank, Emily, Aunt Annie [Frazier], Shelby, Lavier, Neville   

As for my group of descendants, we're headed to the parade here in Salt Lake City, with fond memories of earlier gatherings.      

Trip to Lake Point, Utah concluded.

The Benson Gristmill was built in 1854 under the direction of Ezra Taft Benson, an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. The mill served the surrounding communities and wheat growers as a commercial flour mill until 1939.

Continued from here.

The next day we again drove west from Salt Lake to the Benson Mill. We discovered on our first trip there that you need a good map to guide you around the area. The pamphlet we picked up at the mill was perfect, but I had to spend an evening studying it to finally discover the course we needed to take.

E. T. City Historical Buildings and Homes in Lake Point, Utah explained that there are two sides to Lake Point today. The busy Interstate 80 and State Road 36 interchange, and the other that begins immediately south of the interchange. There the landscape quickly switches from asphalt and lights, to green fields and small, quiet lanes. Without the tour map you may entirely miss it. We had the preceding day.

There are remnants of John and Mellie Morgan's times in Lake Point and at the Benson Mill. Called "Lake Point" today, E. T. City was originally settled by Mormon Pioneers in 1854. The settlement was named after LDS Church Apostle Ezra Taft Benson. The name "Lake Point" was later taken from the resort that was built on the nearby southern shore of the Great Salt Lake in the 1870's posted here.   

The area surrounding the mill is filled with cabins and buildings that have been moved or built there, reminiscent of earlier times.

Restored wagons were a close up reminder of rugged uncomfortable travel.

I couldn't resist the kitchens and implements that filled them. These separators brought back my own childhood memories. A stainless steel version of the one to the left stood on my Grandmother Frazier's back porch while we lived with her in 1949-50. She washed it after each use, and left the parts to drain on her kitchen counter.

This enamel front coal range was probably a Cadillac in its day. I wonder how many homes in this area actually enjoyed one of these.

Across the highways and closer to the mountains was the Lake Point Cemetery. The town was founded in 1854, undoubtedly the cemetery was also. Horses grazed in the field across the lane from it.

Information from the pamphlet mentioned above.

Cousin Mark Frodsham and the Mormon Yankees. 1956.

The Mormon Yankee article on today's Mormon Times front cover, pictured cousin Mark Frodsham, as seen in these clippings. Each time I hear reference to the Mormon Yankees I plan on pulling out my scrapbook. Today I did.

He was pretty famous in Rich County, and my vintage clippings add to today's article.

There is an interview with Mark in the following article.

         Note: Mark Frodsham is Frank Union and Emily Rufi Frazier's grandson.

Happy Mother's Day!

A history of my grandmother, Emily Rufi Frazier, begins here on this blog.

A day late,
Happy Mother’s Day
to all of our wonderful mothers!





Here is a link to a virtual tour of the streets and lanes of Woodruff, Utah. Grandma Emily Frazier is buried there. A grateful thanks to Lisa for sending me this picture of her gravestone.

The card is from my Grandma Bessie Rex's scrapbook.

Glenn and Helen Rex Frazier, Part 5

Anchors Aweigh, my boys, Anchors Aweigh!

We lived in Grandpa [Frank Union] and Grandma [Emily Rufi] Frazier’s house the winter of 1949. My brother [Rex] and I were the only children on the Ranch. In the Spring Grandpa Frazier brought runt lambs wrapped in burlap sacks into Grandma’s kitchen. I remember him tucking one into a box and pushing it behind the coal stove. It was wet and limp. After a day or so it perked right up. I helped Grandma feed them from the back porch steps. After milking time, and the cans were pushed up to the house from the barn, the lambs got some warm milk, in pop bottles with black rubber nipples on top. The next Spring Rex and I were given two runt lambs as pets, Buttons and Bows. I don’t remember who suggested those names, but I’m certain they came from a Dinah Shore song that my parents liked.

Only sweet memories remain from those times. I’d walk up the hill with Grandma Frazier to the sheep pens. We’d pull tufts of lamb’s wool from barbed wire fences and fill Grandma’s apron with them. She wasted not a thing. And we gathered up wood chips near the woodpile to fill her apron. She needed them to start the fire in her Monarch kitchen range.

In Grandma Frazier’s kitchen, Grandpa would sit on the reclining caned ship-deck chair Glenn brought him from California. Pulling on his tall leather boots, and lacing them up, couldn’t be accomplished without sitting down. He always had some licorice for us. Dark black hard stuff he liked to suck on. He’d keep a little leather coin purse in the front pocket of his bibbed overalls, filled with licorice chips and pieces,.

Rex and I attended school in Woodruff, as did Glenn and his father, Frank Union. Someone from the Ranch would drive us down each morning. We were able to take our roller skates to school on special days, and after lunch, we would skate around on the wood floor in the 2nd floor auditorium. Sometimes we were permitted to skate in our class room. There were two classrooms; the younger grades in one, the older grades in the other.

The teacher would watch us safely cross the highway to the Church across the street on Primary day. There was a pot-bellied stove in our classroom in the church. Sometimes the ditch running around the school block had skeeters skating across the water. We’d lay along the ditch and try to catch them.

The Frazier's raised sheep, and every other kind of farm animal. And there were plenty of kittens to play with. Glenn Frazier was an apt sheepherder. His son is amazed recalling his Dad’s ability to whistle for his sheep. “The sheep would all be out on the back fence. Dad would whistle and the sheep would come to him.”

Once, some of his sheep became lost. His son remembers “looking out of the house and seeing Dad prepared to go hunt for them. He was sitting on his horse dressed like a mountain man in his sheepskin coat, hat, and saddle bags. He had three or four horses packed up to take with him, and go look for the lost sheep.”

That winter saw 47 degree-below-zero weather. Glenn’s ears got frostbite. There don’t appear to be any surviving pictures of the snow at the Ranch in Woodruff during the winters of 1949 and 1950. I do recall them. After the second winter Glenn declared, “I’ll never spend another winter here!” And there were other reasons for leaving Woodruff.

Helen arranged for tap dance lessons for me. We traveled the ten miles to Randolph, or the twenty-nine miles to Evanston, for lessons and the recital. In the picture above I’m the shortest girl on the far right. We tap danced to Anchors Aweigh my boys, Anchors Aweigh! I thought that was a World War II song. Not originally, according to Wikipedia. The only girl I remember in the picture is my cousin, Kathy Rufi [daughter of Jake and Mary Rex Rufi]. She’s the blonde, two to the left of me. I think the boy in the middle’s last name was Stuart. Our mother’s made our costumes; white satin with red bows and royal blue sequins. There was some misunderstanding about how many inches from the hem the blue sequins were to be sewn. I would like to know who the other dancers are. Can anyone help me with that?

(To be continued.)

The picture of the Woodruff School is on this post.

The picture of the Woodruff Church is on this post.

Author's personal account. Picture from Glenn and Helen Rex collection.

Glenn and Helen Rex Frazier, Part 4

Helen, Glenn, Frank, and Emily Frazier

visit San Francisco about 1940.

When Glenn and Helen lived in Oakland, the Oakland Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew from 3,700 members in 1935, when it was organized, to 9,000 members in 1946, making it the second largest stake in the Church. The shipyards in Richmond attracted thousands of people to the Bay Area and the various naval bases brought many more. Helen was in the Oakland Ward MIA Presidency. Glenn was called as a stake missionary in 1946, and again in 1949.

Helen worked for Montgomery Wards, and one summer got her younger sister, Flora, work there. Her brother Maeser stayed with them for a time. Sister Winifred was with Helen when her first baby, Bessie, was born in 1942. And a year latter, soon after their son Rex was born, Helen’s father Percy Harold Rex was able to visit.

Helen with her new baby, Bessie, Christmas 1942.

Glenn drove laundry trucks for his Uncle Bill [William] Rufi. He also worked for a furniture company. Rubber was scarce and he drove truck for a company that contracted to pick up all of the tires in Oakland and San Francisco during the war. They stored them in large warehouses in San Francisco. People were permitted to keep only four tires on their cars and one spare during the war years.

Glenn was up for the draft, however he was rejected because he was bothered so with eczema, especially on his hands. He dispatched trucks for an Alameda, California company that sent specialists (carpenters, pipe-fitters, machinists, etc.) to Mare Island Naval Shipyards in the San Francisco Bay to repair boats during the war. He also worked for a company that had the contract to rebuild or fix large passenger ships for war duty.

Glenn and Bessie upon his return from work 1943.

After the war Glenn worked for a refinery that picked up 50 gallon drums of used oil from service stations. The drums were agitated with air. Sludge was dropped to the bottom, further processing produced oil that was better than new. They then sold it to service stations, and for use on large ships.

“These jobs aren’t in order as I worked them,” Glenn explained, as he listed all of the jobs he could remember when he was eighty-one years old, for his son-in-law.

Rex and Bessie

Glenn and Helen had their dreams in California. They purchased an orchard in Walnut Creek [west of Oakland]. The farmer in them pruned, cultivated, and sprayed their budding trees. They harvested almonds. We were still pealing the outer coverings off of their last crop of almonds while were we were living on the Woodruff Ranch.

The work in Oakland, which was plentiful during the war, decreased. The opportunity to return to Woodruff and ranching presented itself. Glenn’s brother and his family were leaving the Frazier Ranch. Glenn and Helen and children would be welcomed. They could move into a home there. It had no indoor plumbing, except the kitchen sink. Saturday night baths were in a galvanized tub in the kitchen near the coal stove. There was a wash stand with a pitcher and basin against one wall. There must have been real compelling reasons, never fully understood by children, that altered their earlier dreams. The chance to live nearer loved ones. Steady work. Building there own place. Helping their folks out!

Glenn and Helen packed all of their earthly belongings in Frank Union’s farm truck. Tucked their two children between them on the seat, tied a suitcase with trip necessities on the cab top, and moved from Oakland to the Frazier Ranch in Woodruff, Utah. They traded a sea breeze, fog horns, and bay weather, and no steady work, for Northern Utah’s sub-zero freezing winters. They loved being nearer their families. There was always work!

The sun streams through the kitchen window

onto Rex and Bessie in their

4130 Terrace Street, Oakland, California apartment.

That's Glenn spraying the trees in their

Walnut Creek, California, orchard.

Bessie and Rex Frazier with Uncle Bill [William] Rufi

in front of his, and Aunt Mabel Rufi's,

Oakland, California apartment.

(To be continued.)

An Ensign To The Nations; History of the Oakland Stake, Evelyn Candland, published by: Oakland California Stake, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Chapter 4. Pictures from Glenn and Helen Rex Frazier collection. Emily Frazier's penny post card shares the family news, and shows us how to get the most out of one penny.