World War I

Addressing the US Congress on April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asked for a declaration of war against Germany. The United States declared war on Germany, April 6, 1917. In May of 1917, Hyrum returned from Idaho with the message that Asa was desperate for men to help on a farm at Ririe, Idaho, about 13 miles northeast of Idaho Falls. Under Hyrum’s persuasion, Clarence, Edwin, and Abner worked for Asa in Idaho that summer.

In June 1917 Chauncey and Samuel enlisted in the 145th Utah Light Artillery unit. They trained at Fort Douglas, Salt Lake City, Utah, and in California. During 1918 the unit was sent to France where they received more training. They were sent to the front lines with orders to go into battle the following day. They did not have to go into battle because that day was November 11, 1918, the day of the Armistice. The war ceased the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.

During the autumn of 1917, Edwin attended BYU and worked three hours a day shoveling coal into the coal furnace in the boiler room on the old lower campus. Since all of the young men at BYU were leaving for US Military Service, Edwin enlisted in the US Army on December 6, 1917 to serve in Mechanical Division of the Air Service. He served as an aircraft mechanic in France during WWI. Edwin took advantage of every opportunity to sight-see, utilized every chance for travel and education. Moreover, he carefully recorded his experiences in his 'World War I Journal'. He was discharged in June 1919. He arrived home in Provo and walked from the railroad station at 500 South and 200 West, a distance of about two miles. Admittance to the house was denied. The family was quarantined for small pox. Ellen talked and signaled to Edwin through the window. Arrangements had been made for him to stay temporarily for a few days with Mr. And Mrs. Guymon, neighbors on the north side.

Abner and Orrin left July 30, 1918 together with other BYU students for six weeks ROTC training at the Presidio, in San Francisco, California. A few days later, Clarence joined them at the Presidio. For six weeks they were given army training in its concentrated form. Orrin appreciated and enjoyed his rifle range training. At the conclusion of the training, Orrin was offered, and declined, a commission as a Second Lieutenant. It was a difficult decision for him. He had received a deferment from military service to support his widowed mother, Ellen. Therefore, he returned to Snowflake, Arizona, and taught school in order to continue the mortgage payments on Ellen’s home.

Abner and some of the other BYU students returned to BYU for additional study and were quartered in the Maeser Memorial Building on Temple Hill (now known as University Hill). The 1918 influenza epidemic raged. In early November, Abner and about twenty of his companions were sent to the Central Officer=s Training School at Camp MacArthur, Waco, Texas. They arrived there on November 11, 1918, the day the Armistice was signed. They were there about a month, then discharged and arrived home just before Christmas. School started up after New Years so he attended BYU the following year.

At the conclusion of his training at the Presidio, Clarence received the rank of Captain because he had completed more than two years of law school. He was then assigned to the Adjutant General’s office in Moscow, Idaho. After the war, he was discharged in time to complete his studies at the University of Utah Law School and graduate in June 1919. Reese was part of a military unit and was in training at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City when the war ended.

Post World War I

Edwin taught school, 1919-1920, at Blanding, Utah. During the school year 1920-1921, he taught at the Church Academy at Thatcher, Arizona. At Thatcher, he was served by the local bank teller, Spencer W. Kimball, who later became president of the LDS Church.

A seven- or eight-year mortgage on the house was probably paid off by 1922 or 1923. If they had an eight year mortgage loan, Edwin would have made the payments during the last year. Home loans at that time were for what we would now call a very short period of time. Mortgage home loans for twenty or more years were unknown until the 1930's and after the beginning of the great depression of the 1930's.

Ellen paid for her food and other expenses by taking in boarders who were BYU students. One boarder was Hazel Twede from Payson, Utah, who married her son Abner. Other boarders were Marion G. Romney and Milton R. Hunter who became general authorities of the LDS Church. She continued to support herself by taking in boarders, providing meals, washing, and rooms for BYU students until the summer of 1925. Ellen was physically worn out from the boarders and a lifetime of hard work, so she lived with Wilford and Gertrude Baird in Salt Lake for a year and attended the Salt Lake Temple. She rented the house for the school year 1925-1926 to her sister, Alice Randall Clark, of Georgetown, Idaho; her nephew, Walter Clark; his wife Violet, and their eight month old son, Wayne. Chestina lived in the family home with the Clarks, and Orrin lived there part of the time.

About 1920, the BYU requested, and Ellen agreed, to sell one-half acre of ground on the east end of her property. The funds for the sale of one-half acre of ground were possibly applied directly to the principal on the mortgage loan in order for the Provo Building & Loan to release its mortgage on the east end of the property enabling the sale to BYU. She then owned one and one-half acres of land. The proceeds from the sale of the east section of the property may have been used for the purchase of the Model T Ford automobile, five passenger sedan, which was used as the family car during the early 1920's.

No one ever talked about how Ellen was able to make trips to the old Provo Fifth Ward building which then stood on 300 North between 200 and 300 East streets. The building has been torn down. She always attended Church each Sunday. Ellen attended morning Sunday School, evening Sacrament Meeting, and when possible, a week day Relief Society meeting. The walk was a distance of about one mile each way or a total of six miles per week. For many years her main foods were bread and gravy; and potatoes and gravy. Consequently, she was very heavy. Moreover, after the years of hard work, she suffered considerable foot pain. Walking six miles per week to attend church meetings would have been very difficult for her.

The old Provo Fifth Ward was divided in 1920, and the new Manavu Ward was created. Members of the new Manavu Ward used the BYU College Hall and other BYU facilities, on the old BYU lower campus, until their new building was completed in about 1926 on the corner of 600 North and 400 East in Provo. Ellen’s son, Abner was called to be the first scoutmaster in the new ward. Her daughter Christy believed that her wedding was the first wedding reception held in the new building. The family’s financial assessment for the new church building was paid off by labor performed by Orrin during the majority of one summer. He laid most of the sub-floor in the cultural hall and most of the first boards on the roof over the chapel. The funerals for Ellen, 1 November 1931, and Orrin, 6 July 1953, were both held in that building.

In about 1922, some of Ellen’s children (Orrin, Edwin, Christy and Ruby) purchased a two door, five passenger, Model T Ford, two-speed, 20 horsepower automobile, with glass windows. At that time many Model T Fords were open cars without any wind protection except the front windshield. We assume that they paid cash for the car because there was virtually no automobile financing available in the 1920's. Sometime later, General Motors Corporation formed General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC), to finance the purchase of automobiles, because banks and other financial institutions were not providing adequate financing for automobile purchases. Surely, she really appreciated the new car that Christy, Ruby and others drove for her. The Model T Ford auto was used by Orrin until March1936.

Ellen’s son Wilford married Gertrude Luck in 1909. Her daughter Maggie married George Evans in 1910. Abner married Hazel Twede in 1921. Orrin married Almira Eldredge in 1925. Chestina married Gordon Larsen in 1926. Edwin married Olive Condie in 1926. And Ruby married Reuben Andersen in 1927.

In 1917, Abner became interested in bees, purchased a few colonies and moved them home on a bicycle. Orrin and Edwin started their bee business partnership in about 1920 when they bought some bees from Abner. During 1921 they bought a small Ford Model T pickup truck that had a front windshield but did not have any side windows or doors. It was used until March 1936. The partnership continued until it was dissolved in 1951. Fortunately, the arrangements for the business dissolution were completed before Orrin’s death in 1953.

During August 1919, Ellen and Abner traveled via stage coach from Provo to Duchesne and on to Upalco to visit Maggie and her family. They possibly traveled from Provo to Heber on the train, where they connected to the stage. They waited for one day and a night before George H. Evans received word that Ellen and Abner were waiting a few miles away in Duchesne. Ellen also traveled to Upalco in 1921 via an automobile owned by Frederick and Rebecca Twede, parents of Abner’s wife, Hazel Twede. Ellen then returned to Provo with her eldest grandson, Arden Evans, and cared for him while he had a tonsillectomy. We do not know how Arden returned home.

She made a few trips to Upalco with Orrin and Edwin to check their bees in their small green Model T Ford pickup truck without doors or windows. Mary Evans remembered watching the three persons riding in the 1921 Ford pickup. Edwin and Orrin had bees in Upalco for possibly three years. Then they decided the distance was too far from Provo to Upalco for a profitable bee operation.

In July 1926, Edwin and Ellen traveled in the family Model T Ford to Upalco to visit the Evans Family. They returned by way of the scenic Wolf Creek Pass that Ellen thoroughly enjoyed. In August 1929, Christy and Ellen drove to Upalco in Christie’s new tan two-door Model A Ford. Then again in 1930, Christy took Ellen to Upalco. They stayed two weeks while Christy calcimined the Evan’s new house. Ellen visited all of her family at their homes during the summer of 1931. During that August, Reuben and Ruby took Ellen in their green four-door Model A Ford to Upalco for a three day visit.

In the spring of 1926, Orrin started construction of a two room apartment on the north east side of the Provo home. He built a one room addition with a basement room. The kitchen was on the south side of the room with a five foot high wooden panel wall to separate the small kitchen and the main room. The eating area was in the main room. A door was opened to connect the addition with a bedroom of the main house so there was then a two room apartment. A separate bathroom for the apartment was constructed after Ellen’s death. Orrin R. and Almira named their first son Orrin Eldredge. He was born 23 December 1926. Their second son, Frederick Eldredge, was born 3 July 1928.

It was probably in about 1928 when Ellen approached Orrin and Almira after they had lived in the two room apartment for possibly two years. She advised them that at her age and in her physical condition, she would be more comfortable and happy in the smaller two room unit with its new kitchen and light, cheerful main room with three outside windows, and that Orrin and Almira would be more comfortable in the main part of the house with their growing family. So a switch was made and Ellen moved into the two room apartment at the rear of the house. Her daughter Chestina and her husband, Gordon, moved into the two room apartment with Ellen. They occupied the larger bedroom in the basement of the main house.