Percy Harold Rex. Letter to his son August 2, 1937.

Visiting Rex family members - the hay-field, Randolph, Utah

about the time this letter was written

Percy Harold Rex 1940s

Randolph, Utah

Aug. 2-37.

My Dear Son,

(I added some punctuation to make the letter easier to read.)

I will try and write you a few lines to let you know we are still alive up here in the land Northward. All the rest of the family are in bed except Helen she went to Evanston this afternoon with Uncle Will. He is talking of getting another new car. Don’t you wish it would have been you. Do you still hear from the young lady up there.

Winnie will be home Sat for 2 weeks if will be nice to have her here for a while again. In another year we will be counting [on] both of you coming home for a while. Afton and Ben are going to be married on Sept. 2 and I think Dallas J. and a Lady Missionary are to be married this month some time. Helen and Glen have it rather Bad and I think it will happen with them before so very much longer.

We celebrated the 24 of July or rather your birthday we had some time. There was a parade in the morning and also a program in the afternoon, foot races, soft Ball game between the girls and men. Rodeo and horse races.

Your little brother won a dollar with old Louie, she isn’t what she used to be as one hind leg has gone bad and she can’t start [on] cue [to] go as well. Even then she beat a sorrel horse Earl Wilson used to have. J. Thornic has him now and it sure got a. w. and Kays goat to have the old mare beat them because they are so important. We are going to have a fair and rodeo Sept 14 & 15. You will just be getting this letter about the time we will be celebrating, your spring will be coming and our autum.

We are just going to start on our hay tomorrow. We helped Monroe Smith with his alfalfa, it took us the best part of two weeks up there and it seems like it takes a long time to get started. It wont take so long as the boys are bigger and better men, and we have two mowers now so we can cut a piece down and then put it up.

There is quite a lot of work around here this year, they are building the road between here and Woodruff ready for oiling another year, and the mutual creamery is going to build a new cheese factory out south of town on the little hill just North of the Big Creek

Where the pioneers camped it is to cost between 6 & $10,000.00 so it will be quite a nice Building and a credit to our town.

Mary and Eldon have been here. They are on their vacation and are they fat. Eldon can put his brother to shame for fat and Mary was always quite plump. They are the same Jolly good sports so different from Freddie, but he will be different when he gets older. Leland and his Family live in the front two rooms of Mis Kennedy house so we have them for neighbors, but you don’t see a lot of them.

Bishop Johnson and his wife had a car reck [sic. wreck] two weeks ago and almost died. Mrs. Johnson was broke her collar bone again and has all three ribs and Bruised him up quite badly. She is still in Bed part of the time, But he has been going all the time outside of a day or two. He has been to Chicago to see if he could buy the Shield ranch and put some colonies down there, he want [s] to get a part of the Range land and the church is more or less behind the movement.

I have about run out of talk and it is after 10 p.m. and we have to get up quite early to get anything done in the hayfields. By the time we go out and milk and eat our breakfast and get to the field it is late. We have just received one letter from you in the last three weeks and I think it was just two pages.  If you could, send us a few pictures of the country. Have you ever run on two any of the old Nephi Ruins in your travel, and by the way I think you Promised Sister Clawson a letter when you got in the mission field. I was talking to her not so long ago, she hinted you owe her a letter so write one to her. She would like to go down to Peru and see the natives of South American. 

Aunt Gail and Uncle Jack [Picture of Jack and Gail Morgan Clayton here at the bottom.] are going to bring Winnie home Sat. and visit over Sunday. I am out of paper so I had better close now praying the Lord Bless you in your labors in accordance with your needs is the prayer we so ask for you.

With lots of love your Daddy

Please excuse the pencil. 

Grandfather Percy Harold Rex at work about the time this letter was written.

Percy Harold and Bessie Morgan Rex, Part 8

According to daughter Winifred Rex, “Bessie had been bothered with bleeding stomach ulcers for a number of years and in 1937 her health started to decline. In November 1938, she was operated on for appendicitis and developed peritonitis which caused her death on 12 November 1938.” Missionary son Harold returned from Brazil November 9, and visited with his mother in the hospital prior to her passing.

Family, friends and all of Rich County mourned, and gathered around P.H. Rex’s family. Winifred wrote further of her mother, “Perhaps one of the best ways to come to know this fine and lovely person is to read some of the remarks made by the speakers at her funeral.”

The following paragraphs are from a twelve page typed copy of the funeral proceedings. Please contact me if you would like to see the entire document.

Elder Willard Peart: [Willard George Peart, 1887-1966, bishop of Randolph for seventeen years.] In the last twenty-six years she has been in our midst, she has been active at all times. She served in the Ward Choir, and also Secretary of the Ward Choir. She has worked with her husband, P. H. Rex, a member of the Bishopric of the Randolph Ward for fifteen years under two different Bishops. She has been a teacher in nearly every organization in the Church. She has worked seventeen years as Board Member in the Stake Mutual. She worked as teacher in the Sunday School, in the Religion Class, as a teacher under the late Bishop John C. Gray. We do not have anyone in our Ward who would not look up to Sister Rex and admire her. She had an art of making friends, it did not matter who, and she never tired in the service of the work of the Lord, and the service in the work of her fellow men.

When the Governor of the State came to our Community, Sister Rex was chosen to entertain him. This was the Democratic Candidate, and when the Republican Candidate came seeking office she was also chosen to entertain him. We who know her love her and know that she was 100% all of the time. …

Bishop Clayton: [John (Jack) Clayton, 1882-1974, married to Gail Morgan, Bessie’s sister.]
My Brothers and Sisters this is an arduous task but inasmuch as Perce requested me to speak I will endeavor to do so... There was never a time when we came here [to Randolph, Utah] or she came to our house [Salt Lake City, Utah] that we did not discuss the problems of the universe. It was a by-word of our children of both families that when Dad and Aunt Bessie got together they might as well go to bed because we would talk all night. I know what were her ambitions and her desires. I know what she wished for her family. I know what things came first with Bessie. In the first place, she had two ambitions and these she has accomplished. The first was her self-improvement. It is a law of nature that you have to help others in order to help yourself. That she did help others you have been told by Brother Peart who spoke before me. She was always endeavoring to accept responsibility that she might help others. Her second ambition was her family. No Mother had greater desires for her family than she. She loved them and she was ambitious that they live the gospel of Jesus Christ. When Bessie and I talked together I was apt to be critical. I remember the last time I visited her in the Hospital; she was not so bad then and could talk to me. She said, “I know that the Gospel is upon the earth and I get a thrill out of it.” That was her testimony and her ambition was that her children know and live it. That was the thing she had in mind. …

Of course I am close to the family. I knew the ambitions of her mother [Helen Melvina Groesbeck Morgan] and Bessie was just like her mother. She had the same ambitions for her family that Bessie [sic] [Helen Melvina] did and she has inherited those qualities. She was endowed with an intellect from her father [John Hamilton Morgan]. A quality that could reason and understand and so I think that Bessie has accomplished a great deal in life. …


More information on Bessie’s passing can be seen here on this blog.




(To be continued.)

History, Descendants, and Ancestry of William Rex and Mary Elizabeth Brough of Randolph, Utah, compiled and edited by Ronald Dee Rex, 1999, pg. 270. Thank you to cousin Karen A. for picture of Randolph Cemetery, Bessie Morgan Rex grave marker. Documents from Helen Rex Frazier collection. FamilySearch.org. Randolpoh, A Look Back, by Steven L. Thomson. Jane D. Digerness, Mar Jean S. Thomson, 1981, pgs. 413-414.

Helen Rex Frazier, "A Trip to the Lake"

Following are some facts and a few guesses about Helen Rex Frazier’s grammar assignment of October 6, 1926. It is the only paper she kept from that time of her life (or perhaps her mother kept it for her). The Lake in this account is Bear Lake, north of Randolph, Utah. Helen was thirteen years old. It was a new school year and my guess is she was assigned to write about something she’d done during the summer.

Bessie Morgan Rex (her mother) and Gail Morgan Clayton (her aunt) are John Hamilton and Helen Melvina Groesbeck Morgan’s two youngest daughters. As young women the sisters both worked for the Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company in Salt Lake City prior to their marriages, just a little over a year apart.

Gail Morgan and her husband John (known as Jack) Clayton lived in the city, Salt Lake City, Utah. Bessie Morgan and her husband Percy Harold (known as P. H.) Rex lived in the country, Randolph, Utah. According to Winifred Rex Andrus the families were close and looked forward to spending time together. During the summer months the Clayton’s oldest son John Morgan (known as Jack) Clayton worked on the Rex Ranch in the hayfields.

This essay is about the Jack Clayton family coming to Randolph to pick up their son Jack, after he’d spent the summer working with his Uncle P. H. Rex and cousins in Randolph. At the time each family had five children of similar ages.

Bessie Morgan married Percy Harold (P. H.) Rex 12 June 1912. Their children are: 1913 Helen, 1915 Harold Morgan, 1918 Winifred, 1920 John Morgan, 1924 Maeser Morgan, 1930 Flora Elizabeth.

Gail Morgan married John (Jack) Clayton, 08 Feb 1911. Their children are: 1912 Bernice, 1914 John Morgan (Jack), 1919 Gail, 1921 Darwin Spencer, 1925 Richard (Dick) William.

Amy is probably Amy Rex Gerber (1914-1998). Parents, John Oseland and Edna Josephine Brown Rex.

As for Mr. Smith. Neither Aunt Winnie [Winifred Rex Andrus] nor I can guess at who he might be.

I was finally able to identify this lovely portrait of Jack and Gail Morgan Clayton and their first child, Bernice Clayton Purchase. For years it’s been one of the few unknown/unmarked pictures among Helen Rex Frazier’s collection. The head used on the John Hamilton Morgan family portrait sheet for Gail’s husband, Jack, is from this portrait.

The scalloping on the skirt, and the tied sashes on the sides of the dress, toddler Bernice is wearing, are similar in style to the white dress Helen Melvina Groesbeck Morgan made for granddaughter Helen Rex Frazier in about 1921. I can’t tell if it is embroidered in the flowered, leaf, vine patterns she used.

From the Helen Rex Frazier collection. History, Descendants, and Ancestry of William Rex and Mary Elizabeth Brough of Randolph, Utah, compiled by Ronald Dee Rex, 1999, p. 245.