by Dorothy Gorton
Soda Springs, Idaho - February 4, l959
The
house as I remember had a front room and two bedrooms and a large kitchen. The
other rooms I can’t recall. I do remember the organ though on which my older
sisters played.
I
was christened by my Grandfather, William Wilson Sterrett, on May l, l900, and
given the name of Sarah Dorleska Sterrett. Sarah was for my paternal
grandmother, Sarah Ann Oakey Sterrett, and Dorleska was for the midwife who
assisted at my birth, Mrs. Dorleska (Dora) Larkin, our nearest neighbor to the
south.
My
father was Simeon Ralph Sterrett born at Paris, Idaho on March l, l870. (Died
May 22, l956.) He was the son of William Wilson Sterrett (November l8,
l825/December 20, l9l2.) He was the son of Alexander Sterrett (July 27, l8
/January 24, l867) who was the son of Alexander Sterrett (l769/).
My
mother was Emma Arminta Harris born at Richmond, Utah in l872, daughter of
Alexander Harris (March 25, l834/February 20, l889) and Harriett Ann Craner
(April 26, l834/September l5, l874.) Grandfather’s parents were McGee Harris
and Mary Givens. Grandmother’s parents were George Benjamin Craner and
Elizabeth West.
When
I was about two years old and a couple of weeks after the birth of my sister,
Neta, my father was called on a mission to the Central States. My mother was
left for 27 months with we five little girls and Grandpa Sterrett. Mama sold
the cows her father had given her to help keep us while Dad was away and
Grandpa carried the mail and we operated the post office also.
I
don’t remember my father or events until he returned when I was a little
over four years old. Then the thing I remember most clearly are the chocolates
Mother made in preparation for his homecoming. They were made of fondant and
dipped in chocolate.
I
also remember of sitting on Grandfather’s knee by the window in the evenings
and he’d sing to me “The Last Rose of Summer” and “Come, Come, Ye
Saints.” Grandfather had a long white beard and was a bit hard of hearing.
After my brother was born on March 24, l905, he being the first boy,
Grandfather wanted him named for him. Mama wanted him named for Father.
Grandpa would send me in to ask Mama what they were going to name the boy and
I’d come back and shout “Cinnamon” (I couldn’t say “Simeon.”)
Grandpa would say in a disgusted way “Humph!” He humphed so many times
Mama finally conceded and named my first brother William Alton.
I
received my patriarchal blessing from my grandfather January 6, l906. We were
now six children for I had three older sisters and one younger. First, Mary
Ruth, born 29 December l892; then Harriett Leah, born 20 August l894; then
Mable Josephine, born l0 January l898. Neta, my younger sister, was born l4
February l902. My second brother, Simeon Stanford was born in Pocatello on my
mother’s 37th birthday, September 2, l909, and my youngest brother, Clifton
Alex, was born in Soda Springs on June l, l9l2.
In
l906 we moved to Ivans, then called Ten Mile or Sterrett, which was part of
the Hatch Ward. We lived on my Uncle Tom Sterrett’s ranch in a big two-story
white house. There was a large yard, big trees, a garden, a reservoir, and
back of that a canal hugging the foot of the hill. We would play in the canal
in the summer, making a slippery slide down the hillside of clay, and slide
into the water of the canal. In winter wed take the dishpan and coast down the
hill.
I
started school at Ivans. My first teacher was Bert Winchell and he gave me a
hand painted plate for being neither absent nor tardy that year. We had to
walk a mile to school and I remember of going across country walking on the
crusted snow. Miss Spear was my second teacher. I remember the neighbors, Sam
and Thigh Gillette, Dave and Jo Banks, Sam James, John and Nettie Chirette,
the Halversons, Anna Lees Harverson Holbrook now lives in Chesterfield. My
sister Josephine and I had great times together. She was the daredevil and I
the fraidy cat. How I envied and admired her boldness.
Before
leaving for his mission my parents were rebaptized. They took us four girls to
the Logan Temple on the l6th of April, l90l, when I was one year old, and took
out their endowments and had us sealed to them. At that time they had only one
session a day in the temple and they were much longer than now. My sister Jo
says she can remember seeing the company come down the stairs as we sat
waiting in our white dresses with Aunt Harriett Hogan to take us to the
sealing room. I was too young to remember any of it.
My
father had been appointed deputy sheriff in l908 and not long before Christmas
we moved to Pocatello. We stayed with Mrs. Chirrett the day before we left.
Our older sister, Ruth, helped fuss us up pretty for the trip and gave us
instructions on how to act on the train and all. It was so exciting! We
arrived after dark, Dad met us at the depot and we all walked to our house on
4th Street. The electric lights were on and we thought we were in a fairyland.
In
the spring of l9l0 we moved to Soda Springs. We lived first above the kitchen
of the Idanha Hotel because of a shortage of houses. Later we moved to a house
that stood where the Caribou Lodge now stands. Our friends and good neighbors,
the Dell Root family, lived across the street. Helen Root was my age and we
were the best of friends all through grade school. Dewey Root who was two
years older played with us and spent most of the time teasing us. One day my
sister Josephine and I got even with him though. We were home alone and for
fun we put some soap in a bowl with a little water and beat it up until it
looked just like frosting for a cake. Dewey came over and asked, “What is
that?” Jo replied, “Frosting.” “Give me a taste,” said he. “Oh,
no! It’s for the cake,” Jo replied. He kept teasing for a taste and Jo
kept beating it and tantalizing him with it. Then finally she said, “All
right, if you won’t tell Mama, I’ll give you a taste.” She gave him a
large tablespoonful. I’ll never forget the expression on his face or how
quickly he ran home. Or how hard we laughed.
I
used to sleep with Helen Root a great deal or she with me. Helen married a
Jimmy Morrow and lived in Florida. She died of cancer when her baby was only a
year and a half old. They took her body to Oregon for burial. When the train
passed through Soda Springs, Debbie Davis, Mable Davis, Milton Horsley and I
boarded the train here and rode as far as Bancroft with the family. Heber Lau
drove a car to Bancroft and brought us home.
Our
family next resided in a house on South Main Street between D. A. Woodall’s
and E. D. Whitman’s. Whitmans lived in the house that my grandfather moved
in from his farm at 90% and in which he lived for many years. Later still we
moved to a house further south on the same street, the Swensen Home, and still
later to the old Shurke home on 2nd East and 1st North Street.
Dad
filed on a homestead in the l0-Mile Pass area where the family lived until it
was proved on. While we lived there one time Mother and Dad went on a trip for
a couple of days. Neta and I and the little brothers were left home. I was
supposed to milk the cow who was a kicker. Well, I tried and she kicked. We
didn’t have any kickers to put on her so I got a rope and tied her two hind
feet together around the ankles. I milked her, and then I couldn’t untie the
rope as she had tightened the knot by moving. I got the butcher knife and
tried to saw it in two but couldn’t so gave up and turned her out on the
range. When Dad returned he went looking for her and found her hobbling about
with the rope still on two terribly swollen legs. I got a scotch blessing for
that one. He moved the house to town and we lived in it until he built a
3-bedroom bungalow just south of the high school. Bon and Bee Wallace now own
the home. In this home I was married.
We
had only a buckboard and team of horses when on the dry farm and it was quite
a way to town so we didn’t get in to church often. I remember one Saturday I
felt that I just had to go to Sunday School. I was positively hungry
for it. Next day we hitched up old Nubbins and Kusler and drove over the
mountain and down 90% Canyon to church. I was so glad to be there that while
everyone else sang I cried. I guess the first church position I held was
secretary to the MIA in l9l8 when my mother was first counselor to Iona
Meyers. Leslie Stewart was second counselor. I was released as secretary on
January l6, l92l. A few years later when my family was small and Brother
Kenneth Balls was bishop I worked in the Primary. Again from September l7,
l940, until May l94l I worked in Primary and from October l948 until May l949
also. During the years l938, l939 and l940 I was Manual Counselor in MIA to
Fern Tipton with Myrtle Lowe as 2nd counselor. On May 26, l940, Fern was
released and I was sustained as president with Myrtle Lowe and Betty
Largilliere as my counselors. I was released on September l3, l942.
In
l9l7 I took a position in the Post Office when Homer Woodall was Postmaster
and worked there until October l9l8. The Bank of Soda Springs had just started
up in business and Mr. J. T. Torgensen was Cashier. He asked me to come work
there and I was seriously considering it when Alice Bole who was the 1st
Deputy County Clerk under Kenneth Gorton when the county was established in
l9l9, told me if I’d go to Salt Lake and take a business course I could have
her job. She was anxious to return to Idaho Falls where she had previously
worked in the County Clerk’s office but said she would stay until I came
back from school in Salt Lake. After returning I took the oath as Deputy
County Clerk and Recorder and held that position until October l5, l92l, the
day before I was married. Incidentally, I issued my own marriage license
before I quit working.
The
summer I was a high school freshman a group of us girls and boys took Mrs. C.
T. Woodall, or Granny Woodall as we all lovingly called her, who was a
wonderful fisherwoman, as our chaperone and went out on Blackfoot River for a
few days on a camping trip. Granny and a few of the girls rode in a white top
buggy. Heber Lau and George Small drove the commissary wagon with our bedding,
food and camp things in it. The rest of us rode horseback. Oh, what fun it
was! As I remember, besides those already mentioned there were Debbie and
Mable Davis, Esther Wallace, Helen Root, Winnie Rompel and others. The boys
were Orrin Barnard and Milton Horsley, Newell Horsley, Frank Davis. In high
school I used to go with Milton Horsley and Esther Lau Wallace went with Orrin
Barnard. If ever we had a falling out, we’d change beaus. It so happened
that at the time of this fishing trip we were at outs. My family at the time
was living near Alexander on the Idaho Ranch. Orrin called me by phone and
asked me to go on the camping party. I rode train #l7 from Alexander to Soda.
Orrin met me. He had a saddle pony ready and I changed into riding clothes at
his home and we all took off for Blackfoot River. We decided to stop at a
place a little above the Indian Hole. A balky team was pulling the commissary
and we decided to ford the river and camp on the other side. In the middle of
the stream the team decided they didn’t want to go farther and in spite of
the whipping and urging and gid-up-ing, they stood firm in their tracks. Heber
had to walk out on the wagon tongue, mount one of the horses and ride him to
shore.
The
girls had one large tent to sleep in and the boys had another. Each morning
the boys would awaken early and slip over and loosen the ropes on our tent and
let it fall down on us. What a time we’d have trying to dress under that
canvas!
Another
year we camped at the foot of the Narrows. Mable Davis and my sister Neta
didn’t want to sleep on the ground so they brought a camp cot. In the night
four of the boys sneaked over, picked up the cot and carried it, with the
girls in it, some distance up on the hillside, then put it down and ran back.
The girls were frightened and had to walk back barefoot with a quilt wrapped
about them. On this trip also, George Small threw a lasso rope around me and
ran into the river, pulling me after him. I stood teetering on the riverbank
screaming, for I couldn’t swim, when Bud Doull came running and saved me.
Good old Bud!
The
second day we were out, all the boys went fishing. We girls goofed around,
picking wild strawberries, etc. Esther and I decided to cross the river and go
for a walk. On the other side we met my cousin Theo Medford and some other
boys from Grace. We visited a while with them and it made Orrin and Milton mad
at us. They wouldn’t talk to us or saddle our ponies or anything. We all
went home the next day and Orrin and I rode to town side by side and never
spoke a word to each other. How childish can children get! It was lots of fun
though.
They
took another such trip after I went to Salt Lake to Business College. On this
trip Kenneth Gorton wrote me that one of the horses laid down and died and
they had to pay for it. They gave several dances that winter to raise the
money and called them “The Dead Horse Dances.”
When
I was a teenager and until I married I went out with Frank Hildreth, Dewey
Root, Milton Horsley, Harold Baker, Lewis Stocking, Kenneth Gorton and Rees
Gorton. I went with Lew and Rees at the same time, and almost lost Rees over
it.
One
4th of July Lew invited me to a celebration the farmers out on Blackfoot River
and Diamond Creek were having. Audrey Kendell from Salt Lake lived out there
that summer and was going with Bill Taft the young forest ranger. Lew came for
me in his Model T Ford when I got off work at the Post Office. We four went
out and had supper with Mr. and Mrs. _____. Then over to Palfreyman’s to the
dance. We danced all night and the sun was just coming up over the hill as we
drove into the ranch. Mrs. Stocking had me go to bed but at noon I arose and
Lew saddled a couple of ponies and we rode down the canyon to invite the kids
from Soda who were on another camping trip to come to the ranch that night for
a dance. We never did see the kids but had a lovely ride. When we returned Mr.
Stocking said the boys had been fishing in his field all afternoon and were
camped on Whiskey Creek. Well we rode back and invited them. Mrs. Stocking and
her neighbor had made a lot of lemon pies so that night we danced and ate
lemon pie. I went back to camp with the group and stayed that night and Lew
took me home the next day. Lots of fun!
I
had accepted a diamond from Rees and we had set our wedding date as Sunday,
October l6, 1921. A few days before our marriage my sisters gave me a wedding
shower and I received many pretty and useful gifts. The night before our
wedding Chris and Mary Woodall entertained for us at their home. We played
games and danced. Bishop D. K. McLean performed the ceremony in my home at 2l0
East 3rd South on October l6, l92l, before my parents, my sister Neta and her
fiancé John Horsley, Rita and Ralph Gorton, Rees’ mother, Leah Gorton and
Mary McLean the Bishop’s wife. Mother served a wedding dinner after.
We
were going to take train #l7 to Salt Lake for our honeymoon. Mr. Tom Horsley
came to the house and told us all the young folk in town were at the depot
planning to kidnap us and not let us leave so we all got in a couple of cars
and drove, quick like, to Alexander to get the train there and give them the
slip. Mr. Horsley went back to the depot and told them what we had done so
most of them got on #l7 and when we got on at Alexander, there they all were,
throwing rice and having a good time. They presented us with a pair of twins,
two little wax dolls tied together with baby ribbon. The group rode as far as
Bancroft.
We
spent a week in Salt Lake at the Newhouse Hotel. Shopped and saw shows and
took in the places of interest. When we returned to our room on our second
day, there was a large bouquet of talisman roses from Henry Gorton, also a
telegram of congratulations. A newsman from the Salt Lake Tribune came to our
hotel and took my picture, which appeared in the paper with an article of our
wedding.
We
returned to Soda and took up residence in Mrs. Gorton’s home. She was living
there alone and there we lived with her until her death November 20, l932.
This
was both good and bad for us. Mother Gorton was a lovely, refined and sedate
person. Rees was the last son to be married and he hated to leave her there
alone so we decided to live with her.
The
Gorton home was a lovely eleven-room, three-story house with an underground
cellar that we later turned into a furnace room and coal bin. The yard was
large—on the west four large willow trees, two in front (one on each side of
the walk) and another beyond the garage in the barnyard to the east. They grew
to enormous sizes. Lovely old friends. Our children climbed and played in and
under them. The branches of those in front almost reached the house and
stretched out toward the road and made a shady place to park the car under its
huge branches on the opposite side. Later the ones on the west were removed.
Clay, when a boy, planted three evergreens on the west nearer the house behind
which we planted a garden.
The
house was built in l895 when Rees was four years old. It then had the
cellar/back porch that was a large room closed on three sides and part way up
on the north side with screen the rest of the way and a screen door. We kept
the washer and the refrigerator out there. The refrigerator was huge. It held
a large cake of ice and sometimes a half besides. We kept a pan under it to
catch the water from the ice. I have seen the times when we had 9 or l0 pans
of milk in it. We skimmed the milk and made butter from the cream and always
had plenty of cream for the table and ice cream, etc. We had a good cow we
called Peppy. She gave a great quantity of milk. She used to, on washdays,
occasionally get under the clotheslines. I looked out one day and Peppy was
wandering around with Mother Gorton’s petticoat draped over her horns.
When
I first moved into the home there was the square kitchen with a sink and small
drain board on the north wall, a door on the west leading onto the back porch,
another into the dining room. One on the northeast wall into the bathroom and
another on the southeast was to the breakfast room. On the south wall was the
old-fashioned kitchen cabinet and worktable. Between the bath and breakfast
room doors was the old wood range.
Then
a little door back of the cabinet that opened into a space under the stairs
where we put things that we didn’t use. When we remodeled they sealed that
little door and inside among other things is our little milk separator that
would be an antique by now.
The
dining room was between the living room and bedroom. All three rooms were
large. The living room was l6 x l6 ft., the dining room a bit smaller and the
bedroom a foot or two smaller. Off of the bedroom was a clothes closet and a
walkway into a small bedroom on the north of the house. Why am I writing all
this description of the home? I guess because it is so dear to me and it is
where we raised our family and lived together. The stairs went up from the
east side of the dining room between the kitchen and living room doors 20
steps. There were transoms above the stair door, the living room door and the
two front outside doors. Upstairs were two bedrooms on the north and on the
south was one room the size of the living room. Then off from that was the
attic, which was under the roof of the dining room and bedroom downstairs.
Above the bedrooms was another floor large enough for two more large rooms but
was not finished off. Only rafters. There was an opening in the ceiling where
one could climb up and in. There was a small “curtained” window in front.
Of course we remodeled the house years later.
Rees
was working in Gorton’s Supply Store when we married. They also operated the
Pool Hall and the movie theatre—all in the block south of the railroad. They
also, before we were married, had road shows above the warehouse next to the
store. Also dances and picture shows, silent films then. I remember when they
were showing “The Birth of a Nation” and the scene came on where a black
man was chasing a fair young white girl through the woods, Maggie Bolton,
recently from England, got excited, stood up and shook her fist at the screen
and shouted, “You Devil, you!” The audience all broke up into laughter. I
remember going home and crying a long time the show was so sad.
INCIDENTS THAT COME TO MIND TO BE PUT IN THE HISTORY IN PROPER PLACE
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| Dorothy with her three children, Clay, Gayla & Pat |
Pat
loved cats when she was a child, still does I think. She was always finding
some or being given some. Most of them would have sore eyes or fits and we
would have to get rid of them. She felt so badly about the one cat we promised
to take it to a farm where it would find mice in the grainery. We drove out to
Freedom, Wyoming, one day soon and as we passed a farm we opened the car door
and let the cat out and drove on. When I looked around at Pat a few moments
later she was sitting quietly with tears just streaming from her eyes.
Clay
loved dogs. He had a few given to him but we were unable to keep them. He had
one dog he really loved but it was a female and caused a bit of a problem. A
man from Conda wanted the dog and promised Clay one of her pups. After much,
much persuasion, he let the dog go but I can still see him sitting on the
floor with Queenie in his arms and crying. Such heartaches children have!
Later he came home with a wee puppy, he carried it home in the sleeve of his
jacket it was so small. It was part spitz and part fox terrier and grew to be
a beautiful dog. He had pointed ears, long fluffy tail that curled up over his
back, big blue eyes and his hair was white. The dog was a gift to Gayla and
she made him a bed in her doll buggy and she and Pat really loved him. He grew
to normal size but the novelty wore off for the girls. At Christmas Gayla put
a red bow of ribbon around his neck and a card that said “To Clay from Gayla.”
Clay loved him and he loved Clay. Clay would put him on the foot of his bed in
the winter until his feet got warm, and then let him sleep on the pillow
beside him. This after I told him not to let the dog sleep on the bed! Skippy
by now was a full-fledged member of the family. He wasn’t allowed to sit in
the chairs but if we left him home alone, when we returned we could see him
through the glass door, and as he saw us coming up the walk he would jump from
the chair and go and lie innocently by the stove, thinking he had put one over
on us. Of course I disliked the dog hair and sometimes he threw up on the
carpet and I got cross with him, but we all loved him. I think we had him for
about seven years. He followed Rees and me to the depot one night when I went
to Salt Lake. He was never seen again and is still a mystery. Rees wrote to
Clay and told him Skippy had gone A.W.O.L.
