Bradshaw family history 1913-1939

In 1913, teenage David Bradshaw was the first of his family to immigrate to America from Durham County, England. Elder Allen, a Mormon missionary, loaned him the money for his fare and hired him to work on his farm in East Garland, Utah. His father, William Bradshaw, left to join him in the fall of 1914. His mother, Elizabeth Daniel Bradshaw, and his brother, Charles 13, sister Sarah Ellen, 31, and her children, Nevan 9, and Violet 5, left for Zion in March 1915.

They leased a farm and worked in a sugar plant but moved to the coal camp, Cameron, in Carbon County, by 1917. They were coal miners in England. Sister Elizabeth and her husband William March, son Lawrence, and daughter Marion joined them in July 1920. The eldest brother, John Henry, and his family, wife Nora Elizabeth Richardson Bradshaw, Ronald 7, Ken 6, Evelyn 2 and Alan 6 months arrived in November of 1920. They lived in a tent for several months waiting for a house to become available. Later they had Glen 4/22, Douglas 12/23, Rhona 9/26, Jack 2/30, Vivian 10/32 and Kathleen in 6/36.

Alan Bradshaw, 1936, Price High School band uniform

David married Stella Thomas, they had Dee 12/20, Billy 12/21, Lionne 5/23, Nadine 6/32, and Verda 5/36.. Sarah Ellen met and married George Genovich while working in Idaho. They had a daughter, La Von, in December 1919. Charlie married Constance Annie Blanche Bitton and had Cyril 11/22, Muriel 9/24, Dennis 1/27, Charles Vincent 11/28, Theodore Richard 4/31, Vernon Duane 6/33, and Myrna 9/35. Nevan married Ruth Woodward. Their children are Leah R. 11/24, Violet L. 7/27, and Donald 6/30. Violet married Gunnard Johnson and moved to Bingham, Utah, they had Darlene L., 8/32, Leila V., 1/35, and Richard G., 1/42.

Elizabeth Daniel Bradshaw was killed in a car accident in Price Canyon, the old highway 50, in February, 1930. Douglas 6, was hit by a hit and run driver in November 1930 and seriously injured. Glen 8, was hit by a car and killed less than a month later, both in Castle Gate. In 1939, Ted 8, had Rheumatic fever, Rhona 13, and Douglas 16, had St. Vitas Dance, four year old Myrna's leg was crushed by a roll of 90 pound roofing, and Vernon 6, was hit by a car and seriously injured.

The family members moved between coal camps, especially Castle Gate, Royal and Heiner. John Henry's family bought a farm in Wales, Sanpete County. Charlie's family had a farm in Wellington. David's family bought a farm in Wales then Woods Cross and later one in Melba, Idaho. Nevan and Ruth ran a motel and restaurant east of Wellington.

Farming didn't work out for them and they returned to the coal camps. In 1938 David lost a leg in a coal mining accident and moved to Idaho.

Lewis Wilford Tidwell was born in Mt Pleasant, Sanpete County, Utah on February 13th 1881, to James Harvey and Emma Sanders Tidwell. The youngest of 13 children born to this marriage.

He grew up in the routine of the day, helping on the farm which was the family livelihood. He was schooled only through the eighth grade because of the contingencies of the times, and the relative lack of time and resources which would have allowed further schooling. As an adult, he served a mission for the LDS Church, and upon returning, in April 1909, married Macel E. Cook of Moroni Utah.Their early married life was sustained by Wilford working at whatever job he could find , mostly farming related, and Macel teaching school. There were five children born of this marriage. Employment was limited to Sanpete, Emery and Carbon Counties, with the tenure of the family in Latuda, beginning in 1921. Wilford worked in the Liberty Mine between 1921 and 1929. Don and Jean, the two youngest children, were born in Latuda; Don in 1922 and Jean in 1924. When, due to circumstances at the time, the mine closed down in 1929, the family moved back to Moroni in Sanpete County. Wilford and Macel except for a short stint during World War II, remained there for the rest of their lives.Wilford died in December 1953 and Macel in December 1966. Both are buried in the Moroni City Cemetery.

PRICE - William Martin 65, Price, died March 4, 1976, in a Price hospital after a long illness.

Born Oct. 27, 1910, Yale, Kan., to William and Mary Monay Martin. Married Pauline Powell, Aug. 29, 1934, Kansas City, Mo. Retired coal miner. Member United Mine Workers of America, Horse Canyon Local.

Funeral Monday 10 a.m., Mitchell Funeral Chapel, Price, where friends call Saturday; Sunday 6 - 8 p.m.; Monday prior to services. Burial Price City cemetery.

William Smith Kranwinkle, 69, of Salt Lake City, passed away June 19, 1984, at a Salt Lake Hospital.

Born September 14, 1914, in Spring Glen, Utah, to Theodore and Hazel Bellows Kranwinkle. Married LaRue Solomon, April 16, 1938, Tooele. He was a retired machinist after 42 years with the Denver Rio Grande Railroad. He was an avid bowler, and fisherman. He bowled in the Rio Grande and Union Pacific Leagues. He was a member of the LDS church.

Funeral services will be held Saturday, June 23, 1984, 11 a.m. at the Redwood Memorial Estates, 6500 So. Redwood Rd., where friends may call Friday 6 - 8 p.m. and Saturday one hour prior to services. Interment Redwood Memorial Estates.

Thomas N. Fitzgerald, 86, died Oct. 27, 1988 in Price.

He was born Sept. 18, 1902 in Price, son of Thomas and Minnie Nielsen Fitzgerald. Married Fern Smith; she later died. Married Florence Beveridge.

Member, Catholic Church. Life long resident of Price.

Graduated from Carbon High.

Mrs. Thomas Fitzgerald, Jr., died Wednesday of this week of kidney trouble at the Comstock apartments. Deceased was about twenty years of age and had resided in Price some two or three years, being the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Smith, coming here from Wyoming. She was married to Thomas Fitzgerald, Jr., about a year ago and was a most loveable young woman with a host of friends. Besides her husband she is survived by her parents, and one younger sister. The funeral services were conducted at the Catholic church this (Friday) afternoon by Rev. Father Giavonnoni. The body was shipped to Laramie, Wyo., for burial, accompanied by the husband and her parents. The pallbearers were A. N. Smith, J.W. Plant, Charles Atwood, George Richards, Morgan King and William Fitzgerald.

Funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon at the Notre Dame de Lourdes for Mrs. Fern Smith Fitzgerald and infant daughter. Later the bodies will be sent to Laramie, Wyo., where buiral will take place.

Mrs. Fitzgerald was the wife of Thomas Fitzgerald, Jr., an employee of the Price City water department. Her baby girl was still born yesterday and she died this afternoon.

Mrs. Fitzgerald was born at Denver, Colo., on November 1, 1905.

Price, Utah - Charles E. Fitzgerald, 73, died at his residence March 31, 1982.

Born June 27, 1908, Price, Utah to Thomas and Minnie Nielsen Fitzgerald.

William (Bill) Fitzgerald, 83, died March 26, 1982, in Pocatello, Idaho.

Born February 9, 1899, in Price, Utah to Thomas and Minnie Nielsen Fitzgerald. he married Marie Curtis June, 1951.

Joint graveside services Friday, April 2, 10 a.m., Price City Cemetery. Family requests no flowers. Burial, Price City cemetery.

Thomas Fitsgerald, Sr.

Sun Advocate - 29 Apr 1937

PIONEER RESIDENT, ONE-TIME COUNCIL MEMBER, SUCCUMBS

Funeral Services Set Saturday For Thomas Fitzgerald, Sr., Well Known Price Man

Thomas Fitzgerald, Sr. 83, well known pioneer citizen of Price and a man who has been identified with the growth and progress of this community for four decades died at his home Wednesday at 2:00 a.m.

Mr. Fitzgerald served as a member of the Price City council for four years and for many years he was prominent in civic and charity activities.

He was born in Towanda, Pennsylvania on June 27, 1851, a son of Thomas and Isabelle Lakaya Fitzgerald, who were natives of Ireland and who emigrated to the United States early in life. Mr. Fitzgerald was educated in his native state, attending Independent college at LaRue and later graduating with a pharmacy degree from Susequehanna Collegiate Institute in Towanda.

Coming west in his early twenties, Mr. Fitzgerald engaged in placer mining in Alaska, Canada and Idaho and later entered the drug and restaurant busniness in Idaho. He came to Price in 1895 to engage in business. Mr. Fitzgerald was married in Salt Lake City in 1896 to Minnie Nielson, a daughter of N.C. and Caroline Nielson, who were residents of Sanpete and Emery counties.

Surviving are his widow: five sons, William and Thomas Fitzgerald, Jr., Price; John Fitzgerald, New York City; Charles and Gerald Fitzgerald of Salt Lake City; one daughter, Mrs. Belle Morrison, Price and four grandchildren.

Funeral services will be conducted in the Notre Dame de Lourdes church Saturday at 9:00 a.m. with the Rev. E. F. Dowling officiated. Burial will be in the Price City cemetery under the direction of the Flynn Funeral home. Rosary services will be held Friday at 8:00 p.m.

Sun Advocate - 6 May 1937 pg 2

Final Rites Held for Price Pioneer

Large Crowd Pays Tribute To Thomas Fitzgerald, Sr., Former Councilman
Final tribute was paid Saturday at the Notre Dame de Lourdes church to Thomas Fitzgerald, Sr., 85, pioneer resident of Price and former city councilman, who died at his home April 28 after a long illness.

A large crowd attended the services, which were conducted by the Rev. E. F. Dowling. Interment was in the Price City cemetery under the direction of the Flynn Funeral home.

Active pallbearers included Mayor J. Bracken Lee, James H. Braffet, Marl D. Gibson, Arthur N. Smith, Robert W. Crockett and Joseph Bunderson. Honorary pallbearers were Judge George Christensen, J. W. Hammond, Warren Peacocok, Arthur W. Horsley, George Nelms, Fred J. Thomas, McClure Wilson, Charles H. Madsen, James Alley and Leo Lowry.

Mr. Fitzgerald had been a resident of Price for over 40 years, and for many years was prominent in business, civic and charity activities in the community. All members of his family were able to be present at the services with the exception of a son, John, who was unable to leave his home in New York City because of illness.

I, Rose Johanna Christensen was born in Spring City, Utah, the third child of Louisa Sophia Agnes Peterson and Soren Peder Theodore Christensen, March 2nd, 1895. My father had been away from home most of the time when my sister Louise Martene and my brother Peder Bernard were small, so my father spoiled me and gave me my way in most things. I can remember several things that he and I did and I was only three years old when he died. We were living in Chester, Utah on the Madsen farm when he died. I can remember how I would wash his face until I would almost drowned him. There was a small ditch running through the place between the house and the coral, there was only a plank across it to walk on. Dad was going over to do chores one time, I wanted him to take me along, he wouldn’t so I can remember taking a hold of the back of his coat and bracing my feet and he pulled me across the plank and took me with him. Another time he took me to a little store in the town of Chester. He rode horse and I sat in front of him. When we got to the store I saw a little red rocking chair, I wanted him to buy it for me, he said no I couldn’t have it, so I picked it up and took it out to the horse, in a few minutes he came out, picked me and the chair up and put us on the horse and we went home. When he was dying he wanted me. Mother said they couldn’t find me. Finally someone found me at the corral in the manger crying my heart out. Mother was wonderful but I always missed him and I know I will love him when we meet as we will before to many years are gone. I wonder if he will still love me as much as he did, will he love my little sons and daughters and my grandchildren and will he like my Orson. After dads death, we moved to Spring City, Utah. Uncle Chris owned an old rock house that he moved us into when dad was dying. Uncle Chris told dad not to worry over us, he would see we were never neglected, so dad said if you will look after my family, you take all the stock and machinery and that will help take care of them. Well, he took all the stock and machinery dad had stocked the ranch, but if we had kept the stock and machinery we could have lived off it for a few years. They helped with a few sacks of flour and Aunt Marier would sneak a few eggs to us once in a while. Mother was 28 years old when she was left alone with 4 small children to raise with no means, no house and no way to make much of a living for us. As I look back I am sure that she went hungry often and gave we children what there was to eat. Warner was just a few months old when dad died, Tena, my sister sever or eight.

There was an old Danish couple that was a family acquaintance, that lived in Manti, they were a childless family and were pretty well off. They wanted Bernard, they came to our place and wanted mother to let them have Bernard, they said they would give him a good home, a good education and some day he would inherit their farm and everything. They would give him things mom could never give him. They told him he could have a pony, a dog and all kinds of things and finally he wanted to go. Mother said he could try it, so Bert went. I don’t think mother stopped crying for 2 weeks. Finally Uncle Jim said this has gone far enough, get ready and we will go and see how he is, so we went with him to Manti. Bert saw us and he came running to meet us. Bert said I want to go home. They had a lovely home, it seemed like a mansion to me and they cried over him going but it sure seemed like everything was all right again. We survived somehow all together again.

We had one old horse Uncle Chris did not want. I had a good playmate living across the street, we were always together. His name was Lonzo Bertelsen. One day it was my turn to take the horse to the ditch to water, we would just ride it bare back and no rains or bridle to hold to. Lonzo came out and he said bet you daresent ride without holding to him mane. I said bet you I dare and I gave loose and fell off and broke my shoulder. We had to get to Mt. Pleasant to the Doctor. I don’t know how we did it but I got my shoulder set and had it done up for weeks. They took it down on the 1st of March and I was six years old on the 2nd. My cousin Celesta came out to spend my birthday with me. Someone had brought us a load of cedar wood a few days before. Mother was sick in bed, the neighbors were taking care of us children. Celesta and I were climbing around in the wood, there was one stick that would teeter with us. We were having a lot of fun on that stick when it tipped with me and I broke my shoulder again. Mrs. Bertelsen had her boy hitch up the buggy and they told me if I would be a good girl and not cry and let the Doctor take care of it she would buy me a sack of candy. They had a bad time getting it fixed and had to get another Doctor to help. I went black on them and poor Mrs. Bertelsen was so scared they finally got me taken care of and we got nearly home when I said, I was a good girl but you didn’t get me any candy. She turned to her son and said you take us home and then saddle up your riding pony and go back to Mt. Pleasant and get her a big sack of candy.

We lived in a two room rock house until I was 8 or 9 years old in the north part of Spring City, Utah. Fathers parents lived just through the block from us. Grandma Christensen was a large woman and I always idolized her. She was such a sweetheart. I had gotten a pair of new shoes, which was really something, so I had to run over and show Grandma. When I got there she was across the town canal that had to be crossed on a plank. She was bringing the cows from the pasture. The canal was full of water. I started to go across to her and in my hurry I slipped and fell in. I grabbed a hold of the plank and hung on until grandma go to me and pulled me out but one of my new shoes was gone and we never saw it again. Mother spanked me for loosing my shoe and grandma was about ready to spank her. She said she could have droned. While we were living there fathers brother Uncle Jim Christensen came to see us one day, he lived in Ephriam. After he had been in the house for several hours he pulled the cutest little pup out of his coat pocket and gave it to us kids. She was such a tiny pup and she tried to follow mother to the canal one day. We had a hole chopped in the ice that we dipped our water through when mother returned to the house the pup wasn’t with her and we could see her foot prints down to the edge of the hole in the ice. Mother walked down to the creek on the ice and called her. She finally heard her under the ice she chopped away the ice and got her out. Frozen stiff, mother wrapped her up and put her in the oven, and she lived for years after that. We surely loved our dog.

Tenas husband made us a swing in the apple tree, they were such big trees. We named our dog Friskey and she loved to swing. One day I had her on my lap and was swinging way up and the rope broke, down came the dog and me. She still on my lap for a little while, then she ran as fast as she could go yapping as loud as she could yelp.

Mothers brother Jim Pederson bought a 3 room house down town and gave it to mother. The two front rooms were made of adobe and one room of lumber. I was about eight years old then I believe. My brother Bernard went to work for the Desert Live Stock Cannery when he was only eleven years old and Tena worked first in Idaho then in Salt Lake until she and Albert were married. I thinned beets in the spring and topped them in the fall for Uncle Chris, my fathers brother. We would crawl all day and probably get only 2 rows thinned. They were such great long rows. For this we were paid about 11 or twelve cents a row. One fall I got my pay and I had made $8 dollars and of course my board. I took my money and bought enough material for mother a good dress and I bought me a red winter coat with the rest. One year I washed every week for the two Methodist school teachers, and they paid me 25 cents a week and I tended children once or if I was lucky twice a week for 25 cents a night. On this mother, Warner and I lived that winter.

Mother would can everything she could and after we moved into our own home we had a dozen or so apple trees and also room for a garden. When the apples were almost ripe we would gather the windfalls and pare and dry them, but around February we were usually running pretty low on the things we had been able to put away for the winter, then we would live for weeks at a time on bread and syrup. It really got pretty tiresome to eat it day after day. I remember once we had lived on it for weeks, we went to visit Betsey Bertelsen she wasn’t much better off than we were. Someone had given her a bucket of small apples, she didn’t peal them but she pared them and fried a big pan of them. We had fried apples and bare bread, but I will never eat a meal that will taste better than that did.

Uncle Jim would bring us a piece of mutton when he came from the herd. He had quite a herd of sheep in those days. He had charge accounts at the stores where his mother and crippled sister Aunt Amalia would charge their groceries. He fixed it so mother could charge to, but she wouldn’t do it unless it was starvation. He used to get real cross with her because she wouldn’t use it. Once in awhile we would manage to get a big raise and we had a cow a couple of time until we would run out of feed and then it would be sold.

Our main fire wood would be sage brush, it really grew large in the hills east of town. We had a small express wagon, I don’t know how we got it but I used to take it and go up into the foot hills east of town and put all I could stack on the wagon, tie it on and take it home. I would make trip after trip that way for several days until I got enough to heat water to wash with.

We did janitor work for the church for awhile and we did janitor work at the school house. We had to build fires in old stoves every morning and we had to carry wood and coal enough to last through the school day. I was to small to do much of that, the dusting was usually my job.

The first time I saw Orson, he was driving an old horse up the street. My cousin and I were walking along. There was a lot of grass and stuff growing along the side walk and the horse was over to the side trying to get it to eat and he was trying to get it to stay on the road. We sure laughed at him because he sure looked mad, he couldn’t keep that horse on the road. Then a few days later I was invited to this uncles place to an ice cream party, the Joe Downards home and he was there. He took me home from there that night and we got chasing around together. We went roller skating, we had a lot of good times together.

My aunt had died and Grandma gave me her clothes. We had just a two roomed house and I was in the bedroom getting my slip on and Orson was in the front room waiting for me to go to the party. The slip had a draw string in it and I use to tie it and then pin it to be sure it stayed there but we had been house cleaning and the pins were out in the front room so I just tied it extra tight and thought probably it would stay up. We went to the party and were just to the corner of mothers lot and down came the slip around my feet. Orson just walked over the block and I grabbed the slip up and threw it over the fence. He use to kid me about it a lot. I never lost anything but that in my life.

Price, Utah - May 16, 1911
Miss Rose Christensen
Spring City, Utah

I was married in 1911, when I was 16 years old to Orson Francis Grames. My first baby, a boy was born in February 1913. I was 18 the next March. He lived only 5 hours. He cried and cried. I ask the Dr. if he couldn’t do something to stop his crying and he said it will develop his lungs. After three or four hours he went to sleep. I was so glad he was resting, Orson kept asking is the baby all right, finally I turned him over to show Orson he was all right, and he was dead. They told me later the Dr. said before he left, he wouldn’t live. Vendora was born the next December, then Francis, Mazel next, then Nola. We were only loaned her for one short month, then she was taken from us. Then Keith came along and Lyle last. Times were hard, we always had enough to eat but not many luxuries. I use to can all the fruit and vegetables I could get. We had a wonderful old cow, lots of milk and cream.

We set up housekeeping in a 2 room log cabin. Orson had bought the lot an it was our own home. It had a large room and a lean two on the back that we used for a kitchen. I am 5 feet tall and when I stood in the back of the room my head touched the ceiling. Across the middle of the room there was a large log that ran from one side of the room to the other. Orson use to pick me up and bump my head easy on it. One day he had been doing this and I said if you don’t cut that out I will bump your head. He began to laugh and said you couldn’t do it, so I grabbed him around the legs and heaped and I sure cracked his head a good hard whack on the log. We sure had lots of fun always he was such a happy fellow. We could always find something to laugh about even when he was so sick. When we knew he wouldn’t be here long he was never cross. Well to get back to my story, the log house had a dirt room on it and when it rained it came right in covering everything with mud. That wasn’t the worst though, the big room was lined sides and room with a cotton material we used to call factory, and I guess it was about ready to run away it was so full of bed bugs. We would go to bed and sleep about one hour then the bugs would take over and we would kill bugs for an hour or two. We had an iron bed and we would stand the legs in water with coal oil. I tore all the old factory off the walls and I used gallons of boiling water and creosote in it every day. I got rid of the bugs. Every day I would go over the mattress and quilts to get the bugs and eggs off. Before Regnald was born I had the bugs licked. Vendora and Francis were born in the log house. We had put new tar paper room on it before Regnald was born.

I had never been around anyone that had had a baby and I had a nurse spoken for, but I had small pox which caused me to abort and that was the reason I lost my baby. He was a 7 month baby. Of course the people were all afraid to come in with the small pox and so Orson and Bert were my nurses and they didn’t know as much as I did about things. When I think about the things we should have done, if I hadn’t of been a tough old Danish woman, I don’t believe I could have made it. When Francis was about 6 months old Orson and his brother Marion came home one day and said, take your kids and go over to dads, we are going to tear the house down. I had never heard of it even, let alone packed a thing. The in-laws had a boarded up tent and Orson and Marion put our beds and table in there and the rest of the things we owned were put outdoors, while they built a 3 room house for us. We lived in that until Lyle was 15 months old, then we moved into a lovely new home, we had built. It cost us about 5 thousand dollars to build and we had a big garage and a lot 50 by 150 feet and we had to sell it for 28 hundred. Orson had signed a note with a brother-in-law and we had to pay it, and it came due right when we were in the big depression, we could have saved our home for 10 dollars a month but couldn’t get the 10 dollars. I could have done house work and earned it but Orson wouldn’t let me do it. Then we moved into Orison’s fathers old home, and tried to rent and save ours but that didn’t work so we finally sold it. Then we lived in the old log house of Grandpa Grames, in the bed bugs again. We started to build us another home, but before it was finished so it was livable we had to move back home, we tried to rent a place to live in but couldn’t find a thing. We got one room to rent of the Higgens family, the boys, Keith and Lyle slept in the garage. It got so cold, we had to get the boys in, so we moved into our half built house. The house was made of railroad ties and they had seen better days, they were black. We only had one big room and we didn’t have any partitions in yet. We had all the windows ordered but when they came we were short 2, so I hung old quilts over them until Uncle Bell Downard made a trip to Salt Lake and he found 2 windows the size we needed, then he helped Orson put in partitions. I tacked cardboard on the partitipns so we had a little privacy. Orson and I lathe’d the house and finally we were able to have it plastered. We then had 3 small bed rooms and three clothes closets. All winter we were glad that the corner lot above us was vacant and a lot of willows and big weeds grew on it, as we had no plumbing outside of a water tap in the kitchen. My cupboards were orange crates ad curtains. Uncle Bill again came to my rescue. He wanted me to stand so he could see how tall I was, then to my surprise he came one day with my kitchen cabinets he had made me a present of it. I love that grand old man. One spring we got our bathroom finished and the sick in my kitchen. Then a few years later we stuccoed the outside of the house. Later dad and Lyle built a big porch on the back, it was screened from the center to the roof and it had glass windows that we would close also. After the children were married and after Orson died Lyle tore out the middle bedroom and made two large clothes closets and a small hall. I lived there until I was 60 when I married Bill and moved over to live with him. We have been married for 14 years, he has always been very good to me. We have done a great deal of Temple work together. We put in 2 years on a Stake mission, in my life time. I have worked as a genealogist, both ward and stake, worked in Primary for about 25 years, as a teacher, a counselor and as president. I have been relief society visiting teacher for about 40 years. I was Magazine representative for 3 years. Bills health wasn’t very good so I resigned from the magazine job, then in the fall of 1969 Bill first had shingles then he had convulsions, was in the hospital, lost two of his 4 heart valves this September. He had black out spells the Dr. said he either had to have oxygen for the rest of his life or go to Salt Lake and have a pace maker installed, so we went to Salt Lake. He had to have another operation in there and he lost so much blood, he is just beginning to get a little better and then to make matters good, I had a stroke on the 28th of February, was completely paralyzed on my right side, I spent my 75th birthday in the hospital. I still have trouble with my legs, especially at bed time and as you can see I can’t write any more, so I believe I have hit the high spots. Someday you can finish this when I go to meet those who have gone before me. I wish I could leave you all a small fortune but all I can leave you is my love and you have all got that. Grandma Rose.

I had a bad stroke, I had a slight stroke the 30th of May this year 1947. I will always be a cripple with canes. Five months ago May 8th I found Bill dead in bed. I sold the home, moved to Provo and I live in one of Mrs. Shelly’s apartments. I am so tired, I hope I can soon join my loved ones again.

July 1975
I am living in Helper with Mazel. My family is all very good to me. I love them all.

Tuesday, March 26, 1991 - Sun Advocate, Price, Utah 7A

By James Young - Contributing writer

The centennial of the organizing of the town of Price is coming up in 1992. As a part of the effort to be ready for the celebration of that event, the restoring and refurbishing of the two old cabins in the Price City Pioneer Park is in the works.

Time has a habit of wiping out history. People grow old and die, and soon there is no one around who remembers or ever knew the history of an area. For example, who was Leander Clifford? One of the two old cabins is believed to have been built somewhere in the Price area in 1884 by Clifford. Other than that, no one seems now to know anything about Clifford and that old cabin. If someone does know more than that, please contact the Sun Advocate

By contrast, a lot is known about the other old cabin in the park. It was built by 19 year old Albert Grames in 1881. His parents lived in Salem. They became weary of all the Indian trouble that settlers were having over there. Little progress could be made, since it was difficult to clear land and build fences or dig ditches with a gun in one hand and an axe or shovel in the other hand.

In 1877, Caleb Rhodes and Abraham Powell, both Salemites, had come to this north-western corner of Castle Valley to trap. They found very few Indians here, and these seemed to be quite peaceful and friendly. Later history bore that impression out. There is no tale of Indian trouble in this area. These scouts trapped through the winter and returned to Salem in the spring. During the next winter, Powell was killed by a grizzly bear near Mt. Nebo.

Friends of the two, and in some cases, relatives by marriage, came to the Price area in 1879. During 1881, Albert Grames came here and built a cabin to establish a squatters right on a piece of land at the area where Gordon Creek enters the Price River from the west.

His parents, Charles William and Maria Lillywhite Grames, came to the valley in 1882. Having built the cabin, in due time, Albert Grames inherited it. In 1883, he married Cecelia Downard. They had five children, two of whom died in infancy. Cecelia died in 1891. In 1895, he married Lily Susan Bass. Soon after that, he rented a house in town where their first child, Esther Jane, was born. In the meantime, he had bought three square blocks in the northeastern part of town and dismantled the old cabin and hauled the logs to a location at 471 E. 200 North.

At the new site, Albert used the old logs and additional new logs to build a larger cabin, and higher, to make room for a loft. The old roof had been slabs, brush and dirt. The new roof was boards and shingles.

Of Albert's 15 children, 14 were born in the old and new cabin. Several of his grandchildren were also born there later. There were at least five of the Grames children and several close relatives who died in the cabin, mostly in the later enlarged cabin.

To provide for his 10 living children, Albert Grames was a very busy man. He opened the first jewelry store in town and repaired watches and clocks. Many of the tools he used are in the possession of living children and grandchildren. The walls of the old cabin were covered with about 20 clocks of every kind, including cuckoo clocks. He also was a tinsmith. He soldered and repaired buckets, pots and pans, and made these kinds of things when needed. He could play almost any musical instrument, from accordian to a piano.

On the 4th and 24th of July, he awoke the town by going to the top of Wood Hill and shooting off an old cannon. If there is anyone who knows what became of that old cannon, please come forward. It would be a great thing to have on display.

The first piped-in town water supply was achieved by laying a pipeline from the river to a pond in the western edge of what is now "the Cove" at the northern, highest edge of town. Part of the old pond dam is still there. Water was pumped from the river up to the pond, Albert Grames operated and serviced that pump. A gravity flow pipeline conveyed the water back to town, all of which was then below the canal.

Housing a 12-member family, how much laughter, how many tears have those old logs witnessed? Think of Christmas time, of birthdays. As Edgar A. Guest said in his famous poem - "It takes a heap of living to make home." What tales those old logs in that old cabin home could tell.