Monday, March 06, 2006

Orpha Hatch Morrow Scott

Kaetlyn is doing a project for school where she is supposed to do her family history. So I re-typed this for her from the copy that grandma gave me many years ago. I thought you might enjoy it if you haven't already seen it. I think there is an error where she has her mother marrying her father-in-law...

By Orpha Hatch Morrow Scott (not dated)

My father was a polygamist and due to the pressure put on by the US Marshalls at that time in looking for these polygamists he had to go away and as my mother had a profession as a nurse and was more able to look after her family than his second wife was, he took his second wife and went to Moab Utah. I was seven years old at that time. I can well remember what hardships we went through because of this.

When I was 13 years old I became quite ill with anemia and was not expected to live much longer. When I was 14 years old my sister Olive and her husband, Jack Swain, were going to Burlington, Wyoming where my sister, Etta Dobson, was living. They wanted me to go and my mother decided that if I did go and slept on the ground that it may be the one thing that would save my life so I went with them and sure enough, I began to mend and regained my health.

Wyoming at that time was pretty much a frontier. I became very popular around Burlington as I was a very good dancer and that was about the only amusement there was there (except riding horseback).

I secured a job clerking in a store operated by Jim McKinnie. While there I met Mr. McKinnie’s stepson, David L. Morrow who began dating me and we got married Dec 19, 1901. Our courtship consisted of dancing and horseback riding. David and his brother played for dances all over the country so I used to accompany them to the dance and while he played, I danced. Most people around there were shocked when I married David as he was not a member of the LDS church and I was very religiously a member of that church.

My husband was born Nov 13, 1877 in Talmage Ohio where his mother had gone to visit her mother. He was the fifth child. The two eldest died in infancy. He had a sister Laura May and a brother Joseph Wesley. His father died when my husband was one year old. His mother married James McKinnie who homesteaded near Burlington Wyoming and my husband was raised on the ranges of Wyoming where he became a very good rider and roper. He was working in a small sawmill for L. K. Jonston at the time we got married.

My first baby was born Nov 28, 1902 at the home of my sister, Etta Dobson. I had intended to have my baby in our own home at Otto Wyoming. My sister, Olive, came to take care of me but her two little girls took sick with measles and diphtheria which was sweeping the country at that time. So I had to go to Etta’s. My sister Olive lost both of her girls one dying a few days before my baby was born and the other one two days after. My first baby was a son and we named David Lendrum after his father and grandfather. He grew to maturity and became a member of the LDS church. He married Alta Drollinger in the Cardston Temple and they had 3 sons and twin girls. At the time of this writing he lives in Salt Lake City, Utah and is Sales Manager for the Sugar House Van Lines Inc. and has 10 grandchildren. My second child was a girl, Eltie May born Sept 7, 1904 in Claresholm, Alberta, Canada. She grew to maturity and married but has no children. At the time of writing she lives in Los Angeles where she works for a bank where she has been for many years. She became a good pianist and played on radio in its infancy.

My third baby was a son, Ronald Clive born April 8, 1907 at Roundup, Alberta, Canada. He was born at my mother’s home on Willow Creek. He grew to maturity and joined the LDS church. He married Mable Jones and had two children, a boy and a girl. When the girl Marylin was ten days old, her mother died and 12 days later he buried his son, Ronald Gaylen. He remarried Lucille Severns and moved to California where he is now the Bishop of the South Pasadena Ward. He had a daughter, Gale by his second wife. My fourth, fifth and sixth children were girls. Hilma was born Dec 9, 1910 on our farm, 3 miles south of Granum, Alberta, Canada. My mother was the midwife and it was only through her expert knowledge and care that my life and that of Hilma were spared. Hilma grew to maturity and was baptized a member of the LDS church. She is a graduate nurse graduating from the Holy Cross Hospital in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She married Fred Bullock and has two sons and a daughter. They live in Powell River, BC, Canada. Verna Aleda was born March 2, 1916 in Blackie, Alberta, Canada. She grew to maturity and is a member of the LDS church. She married Clifford Thompson and has two sons and two daughters. They live in North Vancouver, BC, Canada and I make my home with them. Verna is one of the stalwarts in the church and is always doing a good deed. Verna also had a son that died in infancy. So did Hilma.

Laura Madge was born Feb 15, 1919 in Blackie, Alberta Canada. Her father died when she was only 2 years of age. She grew to maturity and is a member of the LDS church. She married Fred Clarke and has at the time of writing seven children, four boys and three girls. They live in Powell River, BC, Canada.

After we were married my husband went back to the sawmill where he was working and I stayed with my sister Olive. About a month later, my husband came back and we rented a small home in Otto, Wyoming where we lived until the next fall except for a few months that we worked for a Mr. Dowse until he sold his farm and went to Canada. The May after my first child was born we left for Alberta Canada. We drove in a covered wagon to the Lewistown, Montana where we stopped to visit my mother who had married Jim McKinnie and stayed there. We remained there for about a month. We left there with our covered wagon and three horses, one of them my saddle horse, Buttons. We crossed the border into Canada the 5th day of July 1903 and proceeded to David’s brother’s place in the foothills west of Granum where they had filed a homestead. Wesley filed on the NW quarter and we filed on the NE quarter of the same section. We built a log cabin and moved into our own home that fall. I knew the greatest joy of my life when we moved into that little log cabin. We sold my saddle horse to buy the lumber for the floor. The cabin was small but oh how much love was crammed into it. I had not had a home since I was a little girl and I was supremely happy there. We traded our home for a wheat farm south of Granum something we always regretted. After several crop failures there we moved to Aldersyde, Alberta where my husband bought grain for the Nation Elevator Co. In 1914 we moved to Blackie Alberta where my husband bought grain for the United Grain Growers. In 1920 we went to Castor Alberta where my husband bought grain for the Alberta Pacific Grain Co. While in this place one of the greatest tragedies of my life occurred. While loading a car of barley, April 29, 1921, my husband was suffocated and taken from me and my family. Thus ended nineteen years of a very happy marriage. We buried my husband in Claresholm, Alberta, Canada. I moved my family to Calgary, Alberta where my eldest son went to work for the company his father had been working for.

In 1925 I married a childless widower, Harry Scott and moved onto his farm west of Gleichen where I worked very hard for several years.

No comments: