HISTORY OF
VERA STUBBS MOULTON
AS TOLD BY VERA STUBBS MOULTON IN MARCH 1980

I was born on October 29, 1891, on South Academy Avenue (now known as University Avenue) Provo, Utah, to John William Stubbs and Clarissa Matilda Turner. I was born at home.
My parent's first child was a girl named Merle. She had had scarlet fever and was recovering quite well. She was sitting on my grandmother Turner's lap playing with two silver dollars. Grandma would throw the silver dollars in the air and Merle would try to catch them. She was laughing and having a good time. All of a sudden, her heart just stopped beating and she died in my Grandmother's arms. She was three years old at the time. My mother was very sad at losing this lovely little girl at such a young age. I was born about eight months later.
I can remember as far back as when I was four years old. My sister Ann was born then. My father took me up to my aunt's home. I loved to go there and stay with her. When he came for me in the afternoon he said I had a little baby sister waiting for me at home.
My brother was born four years after that. He was born on Thanksgiving morning. Mother had the turkey all in the pan and ready to cook in the morning and he was born during the night. We didn't get any Thanksgiving dinner that day until the hired girl got there. My other sister, Melba, was born three years later.
When I was about six years old I went to kindergarten. Every morning I would stop on my way to pick up a little girl that was so bashful she cried everytime someone looked at her. Her mother wouldn't let her go unless I called for her, so I would take the little girl with me to kindergarten.
To get to kindergarten we had to cross three sets of railroad tracks where the trains were going at all times during the day. Sometimes we would be late for school because we would have to wait for a train to pass before we could cross to the other side. I was taught to be cautious and careful and to look both ways before we crossed the tracks. At that time there were no cars so people had to travel by trains.
One day a week during kindergarten, we were to bring a sack lunch from home. This is how our teachers taught us proper table manners and the correct way to set the table.
After finishing kindergarten, my family moved from South Academy Avenue to 227 East 200 South in Provo. This was to be my parent's home for the rest of their lives. I entered beginners grade (a grade between kindergarten and first grade) the very first day the new Maeser School opened. I was 7 years old at the time. Because I had been to kindergarten and knew my alphabet and many other things, they moved me ahead into the fourth grade. My favorite subjects were arithmetic (which I wanted to do constantly), grammar and spelling. To this very day I still like to diagram sentences. Sometimes I will sit and do it in my mind. When they would give me a spelling list at school, I would take it home with me when I would go for lunch and I would have them all memorized by the time I would go back to school in the afternoon.
I graduated from there in the middle of the winter when I was fifteen years old. I started at BYU Academy the following fall. I attended BYU for two years.
In my studies at BYU I didn't take the things I would have like to have taken. My father thought I should take a straight high school course - algebra and things like that - and I would have liked to have taken a business course or art. I loved art and I got in a class or two each year. I loved that and I could do that pretty good.
When I was younger I had to take the cow to the pasture during the summer months. I had to take the cow in the morning and go after her at night. I didn't like that job very well, but that was my job anyway. After I got a little bit older and could ride, my father bought me a bicycle. I guess I was about ten years old. One time the cow got out and it didn't come up the road and turn over to our street like it was suppose to. Instead, it went over and in back of the Roberts Hotel. I was humiliated to death to think, that I had to go back of the Roberts Hotel to get that cow. The Roberts Hotel was where all the fancy, elite people coming to conventions came to stay and I had to drive this cow from in back of the hotel to get it over on our street.
We didn't have electricity so every Saturday Mother would trim the wicks of the lamps and put the coal oil in and shine the globe of the lamp. We had to cut the burnt part off the wick so it would burn longer.
Another job I had on Saturday was taking care of Mother's Geraniums. She had a mass of blossoms all during the winter months and the window sills were just filled with Geraniums. I had to take all of those out of the window sill and wash the saucers they were set in, wash the window sills and then put the flowers back.
I can remember how we had to make soap. Father had a big black kettle. We would hang the kettle from a hook and build a fire underneath the kettle. We used the scraps of meat or bacon, any kind of fat that we had left over and couldn't use. We saved it and used it in soap. We would put it in the big black kettle and boil it until it was all dissolved. Then we would strain the melted fat and put the lye and other ingredients in an boil it again. Mother had a big, long stick she would use to stir the soap with. Then we would pour it into two large tubs until the soap was about four inches deep in the bottom. The soap was then left to set over night. By that time it was set up enough that you could take a big butcher knife and cut it in bars about four inches square. Then it had to be laid out on a big table until it dried in the sun. Then it could be stored for the winter months. This soap was used only for washing of clothes and cleaning.
When we house cleaned in the spring of the year, we took everything out of the room We scrubbed the walls, floors and windows and woodwork. We hung the carpets on the clothes line and beat them with a broom We had no vacuums or sweepers at the time to work with. After the floors had dried good we brought the things back in the room The carpets that had not been made into rugs had to be tacked down close to the mop boards. That was a terrible job to have to tack those carpets and stretch them. That was the way we house cleaned and every room was done that way.
For our summer vacation our parents would take us to the canyon to camp for about two weeks. We went as far as Vivian Park. That would take us about a half-a-day in a buggy. We loved those two weeks every year. After the train (The Heber Creeper) started going to Heber we would get all cleaned up and go to the train crossing there at Vivian Park and watch the tourists get off the train at the camping grounds.
One job we had when we were little was to collect the eggs. We always had chickens. We loved to climb in the hay loft and hunt for the chickens nest. Sometimes we would find 8 to 10 eggs in a nest that the old hen had hidden away. Once we had found the eggs, we would bring them in the house and father would mark the older eggs with a lead pencil. These eggs were the ones we would put back for the old hen to sit on and hatch. She would set on them for 21 days and then the little biddies would peck their way out of the shell. We made little coops for the chickens and the little biddies to live in. The old hens were mean and would fight you if you came around the little biddies.
I remember one morning father went out to feed the animals. He stuck the pitch fork in the hay and nearly hit an old hobo who had gone in the barn to sleep. Father didn't mind and just sent him on his way.
We always had a cow. When they brought the milk in from the barn we had to strain it and pour it into large milk pans that were only about four inches deep. We'd carry these pans of milk into the pantry and let them set on the pantry shelves for about two days until the cream rose to the top of the pan. We had to skim it into a jar and when the jar was full we had to churn it. The churn had to be turned with a crank handle. It took quite a while to churn it and sometimes the butter wouldn't break like it should. Oh I hated to come home from school and churn the butter! Then the butter had to be colored, salted and molded into bars.
Since we had to travel by horse and buggy we had to learn how to put the harness on and hitch the horse to the buggy. I could do it but the hardest part was putting the bridle on. I couldn't reach the horses head so I had to stand on a box to get the bridle on. When I was about 12 years old mother and father would let me take the buggy by myself and I would take the younger kids for a ride around the town. I loved to ride a horse too, but I didn't get to ride very often because we didn't have a riding pony. I guess I took after my mother because she liked to ride too. She rode side saddle. She owned her own side saddle and had her own riding habit. I remember it was a beautiful black outfit.
When my mother was about seven years old she was very ill. She was suffering from what they call now "ruptured appendicts." At that time it was called "inflammation of the bowel". Specialists were sent for from all over and between the doctors and the Elders of the Church administering to her they kept her alive. She was not able to go to the early schools so she was enrolled in private classes at B. Y. U. to catch up her studies. When she finished her educations she was quite well educated. She was a marvelous cook and housekeeper as far as her strength would permit. She married my father when she was twenty years old.
Because my mother had such poor health she was not always able to do our laundry. Father would hire a lady to do the washing. He would take it to her home and then she would wash it and fold it and return it to our home But we always had to do the ironing. All we had to use were the old black irons. We had to put the iron on the stove and wait right by the stove while they got hot. I would help mother iron. I would iron on the table while she would iron on the ironing board.
We always had our work done before noon. My mother wouldn't let us do housework of any kind after 1:00 in the afternoon. She said that anything that was left over could go to the next "forenoon". During the afternoon we were to be cleaned up and dressed. We could sew and do embroidery work or fuss with flowers, but the housework was to be finished in the "forenoon".
My father worked at the Smoot and Spafford Coal Yard. He was responsible for the hauling of all the coal Because the winters were so hard on the horses when they were pulling the coal, he decided to invest in a team of mules. He made a trip to Heber to purchase a team of mules to haul the coal with. They were stronger and the hauling of the coal was much easier to them. One day they got loose in Provo and came all the way back to Heber to their former owners. He had to come back to Heber and pick them up and take them back to Provo.
Mother had some property given to her by Grandma Turner in the center of Orem. (At the top of the hill and to the West.) On this property father raised the most perfect strawberries you could ever imagine. He sold them to Keeleys for syrup.
After I was married father had a peach orchard and my sisters had to go to the farm to wrap the peaches so they could be shipped back East. Each peach had to be measured by putting it through a little round piece of wire. They were to be exactly the same size. They all had to be wrapped in paper for protection and placed in a cart or a bushel basket to ship them in. He did this for years and that's where he made his extra money for our home.
We only had one dress a season. We had a winter dress and a Sunday dress that lasted all winter. Then in the summer time we would have a summer dress. When school started we usually had a new outfit for school. The shoes were so funny and we had to wear black stockings. In the winter months mother thought she had to dress us so warm because of her own poor health, so we had to wear long-sleeved underwear clear to our ankles. She felt that we had to wear it until about May when it got warm. I used to sneak in the bedroom and take mine off and put on my little summer panties and shirt. Ann used to cry and she would say 'Well Vera can do everything like that. She can take her underwear off and I can't.' I told her she could if she wanted to, to just go and do it. She'd say 'Well, mother would be mad at me; you can get by with it.'
My mother's parents were John Wesley Turner and Sarah Louisa Fausette. Grandpa Turner was born in New York and Grandma Turner was born in Missouri. He came to Utah the first year the pioneers came in 1847. He was 14 years old at the time. He and Grandma were the parents of seven or eight children. Grandpa homesteaded some farm ground at the top of the hill in Orem. They lived on the farm for a few years and then grandpa was elected to the position of sheriff. He later became known as the "Inspired Sheriff" because he was able to solve so many serious crimes. He was called to go all over the country to help solve crimes. Many times he seemed to know where to look to find the guilty person.
On one occasion in his life he had to arrest a young man in Provo. This young man had a revolver in his hand and was shooting at anything he could. Grandpa arrested him and put him in jail. The next morning the young man was sober so he took him home and grandma fixed him his meals and took care of him for quite a little while. My uncle wanted to go to Wyoming where there was some work. My uncle had a beautiful team of black horses. On the way to Wyoming this young man wanted to drive the team. Uncle Johnny told him no that he wanted to drive his own team. The young man said, 'Oh well, I'll drive it before I get home," and laughed. They drove as far as Echo Canyon and spent the night. In the night this young man hit uncle Johnny in the head with an axe and killed him. He buried him under some leaves and shrubbery, took his team and lovely watch, and went on to Evanston. They suspected him of doing something wrong in Evanston because he was flashing the watch around and had this team of horses. I don't know exactly how they discovered the body or got word to my grandfather but he went to Evanston to get the man. Everyone was so afraid that grandfather would shoot the man because he was so bitter and angry that this young man had killed his son when the family had been so good to him.
He arrested the young man but instead of shooting him he dropped his gun to the floor and said "Let justice take its course." He was taken back to Provo and put in prison. The trial went on for years and years. Before it was finally completed they had to dig up my uncles skull and put it on display in the courtroom as evidence. This was a terrible experience for my grandmother and grandfather. Later the man was executed at the Utah State Prison.
Another sad thing in my grandmother and grandfather's life happened on Christmas Eve. Their son, Will, played in the band and he had been caroling. They stopped in front of grandma and grandpa's house and Will ran upstairs to get something out of his trunk. He kept his revolver in his trunk. It went off and shot him and killed him. From then on Christmas was a sad time for my grandparents.
Grandpa died quite young but he left grandma quite well to do. She lived by my mother and rented out a small apartment in her home to France and I. Grandma lived alone and took care of herself until she died at the age of eighty. She was a very smart woman and loved to read. She had a fortune in books in her home. She loved flowers of all kinds and had a beautiful rose garden around her home which she took care of until she died. She was an up- to-date old lady.
My other grandfather, Peter Stubbs, was born in England and emigrated to the United States. When he first came he operated a trading post near Lehi. He had a little store and he was a baker by trade. He had learned this trade in England. He sold bakery goods and traded with all the travelers that went through the area. He operated that business for a few years and then later he opened up a dry goods store that was known as Taylor Brothers in Provo. The original name was Stubbs and Dunn. After he retired from his store he did farm work.
We loved to go to our Grandpa Stubbs' home because he had such a big family. The stove in the kitchen was actually two stoves that had been joined together. The kitchen table was a big long table. They baked bread every day.
Grandpa had two wives. He and his first wife had four children and then he married his second wife, my father's mother. Her name was Ann Wride. Altogether there were twenty children.
My grandmother died at quite a young age. She was riding in the buggy with her sister- in-law and was holding her baby. Something scared the horse and it pulled to the side of the road. They were driving along a cliff. It scared her and she collapsed and died instantly. I suppose now they would diagnose it as a heart attack. There were still young children at home so grandfather's first wife, Elizabeth Dunn, raised the rest of the children.
When we were young Grandpa Stubbs would let us sit on his knee and he would bounce us up and down and sing a song. It was called BINGO. He would bounce us on his knee and sing "B with an I; I with an N; N with a G; G with an O; B I N G O and they called him little Bingo."
When I was nineteen years old I was dating a returned missionary from Farmington, Utah. He would come down on the train for Sunday dinner and then catch the train and go back in the evening. That was what our dates were like. Sometimes I would go to Farmington to spend some time with some friends of mine and we would date while I was there. We would pack a lunch and go to Lagoon at night to the dance. In July of that year I met Francis Moulton. France and his brother boarded at my Aunt's who lived right next door to us. France's brother introduced us. I went with him to the dance on Saturday night and then we dated again during the week. I invited him to dinner the following Sunday and Sunday afternoon the fellow I was dating from Farmington came unexpectedly. I had to go next door and tell France that he couldn't come to dinner because another fellow had come. After dinner my date from Farmington caught the train to go home and France and I went out on a date. That night he asked me to go steady so I wrote to the fellow in Farmington and told him that I didn't want to date him any more. We dated about every night that France was in town from then on.
In August he brought me to Heber to meet his family. We stayed at Francis' sister's, Josie Todd, home. He was working as a plumber at the time and he had to travel back and forth from Provo to Heber on jobs they had contracted. Sometimes he would be gone a week at a time. We went steady until October 29, 1911, and then we became engaged. That was the most exciting birthday present I think I have every received.
France wanted to get married right away but I told him we had to wait a little while. I just didn't have enough time to get ready. We didn't have much money and mother had to make my wedding dress. I had to get my trousseau prepared. My grandmother helped us and we made three beautiful quilts for my trousseau, sheets and pillowcases. We set the wedding date for December 13, 1911.
France had to be ordained an Elder so we made a special trip to Heber. Francis' uncle, Heber Moulton, ordained him an Elder and they gave him a Temple Recommend the same day so we could go to the Temple.
Mother helped us get ready for the Temple. She had to prepare the Temple clothes for both of us. France's mother lived in Salt Lake so she wasn't able to help with the preparations, so mother prepared both our Temple clothes.
I had to get my recommend from Bishop Berg of the Provo 1st Ward.
My mother told me that they wouldn't let you wear anything false or artificial into the Temple. During those days we wore what we called a "rat" in our hair. We pulled our hair through it and then tucked the hair under it to make a bun. We wore a braid across the top. I had to leave that home and I looked like a "skinned rat". I didn't wear any makeup either. The hats we wore then were so big and they just fit on the top of our full hairdo. Without the rat in my hair my hat was too big for me. I can still remember it teetering back and forth on my head while I rode the train to the Temple. It was a beautiful yellow colored beaver hat with a birds wing on the side of it.
When the time came to go to the Temple, we packed our clothes and boarded the train. We had to leave the day before because it was such a long journey. From the depot in Salt Lake we had to take the streetcar to go to France's mother's home. We spent the night with her and were to the Temple by 7:00 the next morning. We started through the Temple session at 7:00 and didn't get through until 3:00 in the afternoon. At that time they didn't have any food in the Temple and I don't think they had water fountains. We were exhausted by the time we got out of the Temple. We traveled back to France's mother's home and stayed there that night. We left the next day to go back to Provo on the train.
Our reception was held at my parent's home in Provo. For our reception we had a big cooked dinner of chicken and salads that mother had prepared for us.
We lived with mother and father until work picked up in the spring of the year. We rented a little apartment across the street in Grandma Turner's home. It was just two little rooms and a small kitchen on the end of it. The kitchen was just large enough for a stove and a chair or two. We just had the two rooms, the dining room and a bedroom.
It was kind of hard to get along on the small wages we had but everyone was getting about the same. Working people didn't get paid very well. Our rent was $6 a month. It seemed quite a bit because France only made $50 a month at that time.
While we were living there we went to Heber because France and his brother Chase had a job putting the plumbing in the North School and the old Central School. We came up to Heber and we rented two rooms from France's sister Josie. One room downstairs and one room upstairs. We had a coal stove and it was fixed up quite comfortably. We lived there until November. I left on Thanksgiving day that year to go back to Provo because I was expecting a baby in a couple of months. I went home a couple of weeks before the job was finished and then France came later.
Jack was born the following January. We had to have a hired girl and a nurse both to come and take care of us. The hired girl was just a lovely person. She taught me a better way to make bread than I had been doing. She said you should let your bread raise good and high, then put it in a hot oven right quick for about fifteen minutes. Then you cool your oven down or lower your temperature and let it cook for the rest of the time. You let it get light first and then the hot oven stops the rising of the dough.
During those days they believed it was not good for you to sleep between cotton sheets when you had a baby because they were too cold. You had to sleep between flannel sheets or blankets. I nearly roasted to death! They also kept you down for ten days. I could have gotten up the third day but they kept me down and I just got weaker and weaker.
We stayed in Provo and France worked at the coal yard until about June of the following year. Then we moved out to the farm which was at the top of the hill in Orem. Will Moulton and France went in together to operate the farm. There was a big home and a small two room home on the farm. Will and his wife lived in the bigger home and France and I lived in the small home.
We had just gotten settled and the early crops in when Chase called France to come to work in Heber. So he left me on the farm and he went to Heber to work during the summer months.
When Jack was about 1 1/2 years old, he went out to play in the yard of the farm. We had a turkey that we were raising and it jumped on Jack and knocked him down and just pecked at his head. I ran out and the other men on the farm ran and we got the turkey off of him. It left quite a few marks where it had pecked him but they all healed and didn't leave any scars. We didn't make any money on the farm. We had a good living because we had our own meat, eggs, milk and vegetables. We had to make our own butter and then I would take it to the grocery store in Provo to sell it and get some groceries for the week.
I used to hate to go to Provo. It nearly embarrassed me to death because Will Moulton had bought an old wagon that said Utah Brewery on the side and I had always gone in a nice surrey with father and mother. Will always came in on fifth west and drove up Center Street until we got to 2nd east. Oh, I used to just hang my head! I wouldn't pay any attention to it now but that was one that upset me terrible.
In the fall of that year all I got out of working on the farm was a lovely blue suit and a blue mohair hat. France had made wages but he had to pay for his board and room and then give me money to live on. Our light bill was $1 a month while we live on the farm. That was quite an experience.
We moved back in to Provo in the fall and stayed until the spring of the next year. We moved to Heber on Easter about 1916. France had gone ahead of me to work for Chase and found out that it was going to be steady work so we decided I couldn't live in Provo and him in Heber so we would have to move to Heber. Mother thought it was just terrible that we would move so far away and to such a desolate place. She said, "You will just have to stay in your house and take care of Jack while France is away at work." I wanted to come because it was too lonesome for me to be away from France for sometimes two weeks at a time.
We rented a little home on about 425 South and 100 East in Heber. We lived there for two years. I was so happy there and I met so many friends. Helen was born in 1917. We lived there for about two years and then we moved to Center Street between 2nd and 3rd west. We lived there until two weeks before Afton was born. We had to move from that house to a house on 100 East Center Street. I loved that location because it was close to town. I could put the kids in a buggy and go to town. Afton was born in that home. This place was happiness for me because we hadn't had a bath in the other houses -- just a "two holer". This home even had a bath tub and oh how I enjoyed getting in that tub every afternoon. Was just Heaven to me! We lived there for about three years and then we moved to 300 South and 200 West. we lived there until 1941. We bought this home and remodeled it and fixed it up. We paid $900 for this home. We didn't have a bathroom in this home but we had a "two holer" out in back.
One Sunday afternoon, after we had a bathroom in the house, conference was letting out and everyone was going home. The fire bell rang and everyone came down our street in their best Sunday clothes to see where the fire was. It was in our back yard and it was our "two holer" that was burning.
France and Chase operated a garage in Heber. The first few years it did very well. They had the Ford agency and sold many cars for thirteen years. In 1929 the depression came and they had so much money out on cars they had sold, they lost their business. They turned the business over to the bank for what he owed on it. Chase and his family moved to Salt Lake where he had work. France opened up a small garage across the street and sold gas. Sometimes he would make a dollar a day, sometimes a little bit more, sometimes a little bit less. We had to live on that while the depression was on.
We had a little money saved in a building and loan bank in Salt Lake City. We thought we could draw out a little of that each month and live on it. I would take out about a hundred dollars a month to live on and with the things that we could raise we did alright. One month I hadn't used all of the money I had drawn out the previous month so I went to Salt Lake and drew out only fifty dollars instead of the hundred. The next day we read in the paper that the bank we had our savings in had closed and we lost all of our money. If I had known what was going to happen, I could have drawn out all of our money the day before.