MATTIE WINKLESS KUNKEL

By LaVone Kunkel Moulton

 

Mattie Winkless Kunkel was born September 16, 1890 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the tenth daughter of Sarah Ann Priday and Joseph Winkless.  She was a lovely blue eyed blond child.  She remembers the circus given by the Winless girls in their back yard.  Mattie was the fairy, Doretta, a younger sister was the gypsy, and Adell, the next older was the singer.  All the neighbors and the children turned out to see this performance.  They had many such entertainments and were the talk of the neighborhood.

 

On July 24, 1897 just fifty years after the first settlers came to Salt Lake City, they had a great celebration and parade.  The old Salt Palace had a float made of solid salt, drawn by horses that won one of the top prizes.  Mattie was the fairy, riding on the front of this great float.  Adell, Mabel, and Doretta rode on the other end under a great salt canapé.

 

Before she was old enough to go to school, Mattie was kidnapped.  This was a traumatic experience in her life.  As young as she was she knew the man was up to no good.  This kidnapper came out of Snarr’s driveway in a nice buggy and told Mattie he needed some things from the store.  Mattie purchased the articles and was going to run home, but he made her get back in the buggy.  She thought he was taking her home, instead he headed west across the railroad tracks.  One of the Brimley girls saw her and jumped on her bicycle and followed them.  The man told her what a pretty petticoat she had on.  She tried to jump out of the carriage, but he became stern.  He stopped in some field and saw the Brimley girl.  He hurriedly turned around and took Mattie home.  This young Brimley girl was wise beyond her years and no doubt saved little Mattie a terrible experience.

 

One time she had a terrible abscess under her arm which caused her a great deal of pain and sickness. Her Grandpa Priday and Bishop Seddon administered to her and she was able to rest that evening when the sore broke.

 

When she was eight years old she was baptized, December 10, 1898.  Later she taught the First Intermediate Department in Sunday School and sang in the choir of the old Fifth Ward.

 

Mattie went to Grant School along with the other Winkless children.  She liked to play basketball and was good at it.  One time the Grant School caught on fire.  Grandpa Priday hurried to the corner across the street and waited for his grandchildren:  Mattie, Doretta, and Joe with a basket of little cherry apples for them.  He was blind, but could find his way to the school and church by hitting his cane along the fences.  Mattie graduated from the Grant School when she was fourteen years old and immediately went to work for Keith O’Brien’s Store.  She had the doll department around Christmas vacation.  When she was 16 they gave her the cut glass department.  The bosses at the store liked her and they liked her looks.  She became a model for the store and worked there until 1912.  She went to San Francisco to be with her sister, Rae Pett who was expecting a baby.  She stayed in San Francisco until the birth of Paul Pett.  She was treated royally by Archie and Rae.  They had a lovely little girl, Dorothy whom Mattie adored.

 

When she returned to Salt Lake City, she also returned to Keith O’Brien’s where she continued working.  She had met Arthur Roy Kunkel a few years before.  He worked in the shoe department and was a good fried of Adell Winkless, Mattie’s sister.  At the time mother was engaged to another man whom she kept putting off marriage for nearly five years.  Adell used to bring Art home and he became well acquainted with the Winkless family as well as Mattie.  Mattie’s father, Joseph Winkless, especially liked him.  Arthur had made the remark to a friend when he first saw Mattie that he intended to marry her.  He wasn’t the least bit discouraged because before she left for San Francisco, they had become sweethearts.  He gave her the book “The Trail of The Lonesome Pine” which she read on the train.  She was a romanticist and when she and Art were married, she named their first little girl, June after the heroine of that book.  They were married July 3, 1913 by Bishop Cummings in the Bishop’s Building in Salt Lake City, Utah.

 

In the fall of that year they went to Milford, Utah to live where Art operated a “Golden Rule Store”.  He was very meticulous and did fine weaving and mending as well as pressing.  They returned to Salt Lake City to live with his parents at 450 Redondo Avenue where their first daughter, Arlyne June was born 6 April, 1914.  When June was 5 months old they moved to Idaho where he operated a 450 acre ranch for the Perkin Brothers.  Mattie came to Salt Lake City to stay with her sister Cora W. Chamberlain on South State Street in December 1916.  She gave birth to their second daughter, LaVone February 25, 1917.  She returned to Idaho where Art was in charge of a ranch for Mr. Morrison.  They loved ranch life, even though they both had to work terrible hard.  Because of Mattie’s so called poor health they had to return to Salt Lake where they moved several times before going out on the Bird Farm in Murray, about 1922.  Here Mattie had to take care of Mrs. Bird.

 

Sometime in the summer of 1923 Arthur’s mother, Isabelle, became quite ill.  Her husband had died in 1916 and she was quite alone.  The Art Kunkel’s moved again to 450 Redondo Avenue.  Mattie was an immaculate housekeeper and kept the home beautifully clean.  She also obtained a job at the Paris Company in downtown Salt Lake where she worked in the lingerie department.  Both girls went to Whittier School by then.  The summer of 1927 she took a vacation to be with her husband camping up Little Cottonwood Canyon, and quit the Paris Company job.  In the fall she went to work for the Boston Store where she was saleslady, model and buyer.  She loved to get dressed up and go to work, even though she came home with tired feet and legs.  She taught her children to work in the house and the yard and gave them so much to do that they never had time to get into trouble.  Their Grandma Kunkel became their confidant and second mother.  In 1929 after a big Thanksgiving dinner with the Kunkel brothers and sisters, it was decided by them that Art and his family should move so that someone could come in and take care of Isabelle as she was blind and was alone during the day until the girls returned from school.  It was a sad move.  They hadn’t been gone a year when the family that was supposed to be taking care of her let her fall off the porch.  It killed her; that dreadful, dreadful day in September 1930.

The family then moved to a nice little house, 935 Bryan Avenue for awhile, then on to 417 West 6th South to live with Mattie’s mother and father as they were old and her family decided that she should go and take care of them.  Joseph Winkless died just a little over two months after moving there.  Mattie’s mother died in September 1945 and her husband Art in October, 1951.

 

The depression had started in 1929.  People were jumping out of windows and killing themselves because the fall of the stock market.  It hit the west a little later.  The banks had failed and many men were out of jobs, Arthur included.  Mattie was the sole support of the family for awhile.  Arthur’s health became steadily worse.

 

June graduated from East High School in 1931 and could find no employment.  Many men were working at the jobs that young girls used to have.  Mattie committed the worst mistake of her life when she quit her job in 1933.  The family was in dire circumstances.  Art took any job that would give him enough money to put food on the table.  It was a terrible time.  LaVone graduated from South High School in June, 1934 and she couldn’t get work either.  She left for Minneapolis that summer and stayed for two years.

 

Mattie never returned to the commercial world.  In the 1940’s after both girls were married, she used to volunteer her time at Welfare Square for the Church.  After the death of her husband she became a full time employee taking charge of a big department where she did the buying, assisting the Stake Relief Society Presidents and taking full responsibilities until she was 75 years old.  She had many beautiful experiences here.  She knew many of the General Authorities of the Church and was loved by all her many co-workers.  Mattie had a way with the people on welfare.  She never looked down on them and could always think of something to say that would lift them up.  She always looked beautiful and insisted that those that worked under her had nice, clean cloths and a smile on their faces when helping those less fortunate.  She was a great success in that position.  When she quit work at 80, she well deserved the rest that followed.  She had major surgery and several smaller operations the average woman would have retired after any one of them.

 

She sold the house on 6th South Street and moved in with her daughter June to a nice little home on Arapahoe Avenue.  Later she moved to a nice small apartment where she continues to live at 90.  Her daughter, June cooks most of her meals and straightens her house for her, but she refuses to live with anyone.

 

All her life Mattie Kunkel has been devoted to any job that befell her.  It seemed her lot in life to care for old people; first the Perkin Brothers, then Mr. Morrison, Mrs. Bird, Art’s mother, her own mother and father.  Her mother lived fourteen years after her father had died.

 

Mattie Winkless was born 16 Sept. 1890 in Salt Lake City, Utah

Baptized 10th December 1898

Marred to Arthur Roy Kunkel 3 July, 1913

Sealed to Arthur Roy Kunkel 13 January 1953

 

They were parents of two daughters, June and LaVone

 

They have eight grandchildren

At the time of this copying, they have 26 Great Grandchildren, 25 living and 1 deceased.

 

Dear little Mary Elizabeth Johnson, daughter of Jay Russell, died in Oregon in November, 1977