HISTORY
OF RUTH DIXON ISAAC
Written by her Daughter Kathryn
My
Mother, Ruth Dixon was born January 12, 1898 at Payson, Utah at 400 north 84 west in the home her grandfather Edward Dixon built
and her father, Edward Henry inherited. She is the daughter of Edward Henry and
Victoria Alvira Selman.. Her
father had the nickname of "Eddie" and her mother was called "Tory".
Mom's
folks were quite well off financially because they had a nice farm and many
beautiful horses which the family loved to ride through the back fields to
visit their grandparents, the Selmans, in Benjamin. William
and Emily Richmond were their names.. My grandmother
Dixon and my greatgrandmother Selman were beautiful seamstress's and always kept their girls dressed
beautifully. Mother was one of 5 girls and her Grandmother Selman had 7 girls
so they had to be good dressmakers. Mothers Grandmother Selman run a millinery shop in Fayson
City at one time in her life. Both my grandmother and my greatgrandmother
did sewing for me and they made some very beautiful clothes and I remember them
Mom
had a lot of fun with her 4 sisters and one brother..
I remember one story Mom told me, she was mad at her sister LaPreal
and was chasing her around the house and Preal run
into a clothes line and caught her chin on it , itflipped
[sic] her backwards and knocked her out cold and Mom felt badly about that. Another
story she told me was that there was a family gathering at their grandparents
home in Benjamin and the kids found some of grandfathers grape wine and drank
some of it .That was a sick bunch of kids and after the older folks found out
about it and what caused it they just hung the heads over the ditch bank and
let them heave.
Mother
attended school at the Poteeneet school
which is still standing at the corner of 4th East and the old 91 highway. Her
friends were Juliette Douglas (who was special) Lillian Huish,
Deon Colvin, Waneeta Reece, Glays
Perry, Ernest Knutson, and Walter Strong. She went through 8th grade which is equlivent [sic] to our high school now. They went to shows
for 5 cents and to lots of dances. As the girls got older grandmother Dixon
would go along as a chaprone for them. Mom walked to
school which was 8 blocks, back home for lunch, back to school and home in the
afternoon. In the winter the hill behind the school was used as a sleding and sliding hill for the kids and is still being
used for that purpose as well as the school still being used. All of the Dixon
girls loved to dance and Payson had some of the big name bamds
[sic] come to play at the dances.
My
Father John Isaac and his brother Ben went to Payson to the dances and Dad had
a beautiful horse and borrored his fathers nice buggy to go to the
dances. He courted Mother and Uncle Ben courted Aunt Julliete
Douglass and later married them. Mom was 18 when she married Dad and they were
married in the Salt Lake Temple on June 7, 1916. A nice wedding party was held
for them at the home of Dads sister Margaret and her husband Bill Leyshon in Springville, Utah they cane [sic] home from the
Temple. When Uncle Ben and Aunt Juliette got married in December 1916, Dad and
Mother gave them a pig for a wedding present. Mom and Dad first lived in the
east of the one we live in now at 1200 west and 7300 south in Utah county. When
uncle Ben and Juliette got married they stopped off in
Springville at aunt Margarets and had scone, Salmon
and tomatoes.
The
Isaac family all had fun together especially at East Portal in the strawberry
valley. Grandfather Isaac bought a unused hospital
there and turned it into a large cabin and the families spent a lot of tome
there on vacations. Those who could would go up the first of the week and stay
and those left would come up on the week ends, Dad
and Mother, Uncle Roy and Aunt Twila, Aunt Margaret
and Juliette and the kids would go up early and Uncles Ben and Bill would come
later. The group usually would stay for 2 weeks fishing swimming and boating and
I remember how we loved that.
The
movies in those days were aiscent [sic] so the
Theatre managers would hire Mom and Dad and Aunt Margaret to come and sing
during intermission while they changed the clumsy film. They all loved doing
that as well as earning a little miney
[sic]. Their favorite song was "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" but they
sang many more beautiful ones.
Dad, Mother, Ben
and Juliette used to go to the wrestling matches in Salt Lake every Friday
night when the weather was good. They"d have
dinner out go shopping each time they went On other occasions [sic] Mom, Aunt Twila and Aunt Juliette would go on shopping tours in Salt
Lake· and spend all day at 1 t but Aunt Juliette was the only one who had any
money because uncle Ben had a money paying job at the Sugar Factory in the
office.
My
Brother Dixon was born Feb.28, 1917 in the home now owned by Mae Atwood east of
where we now live. When I was about to be born Mother sent Dixon, who was 18
months old, to tell Dad who was out in the field, He came born and I was born
on Sept 10, 1918 also in the home east of us When my Brother Jack was born our
folks had moved into the house at the end of the lane where mother lived the
rest of her says. Mother told me she was unable to attent
[sic] her mothers funeral because she was recovering from
a miscarriage at that time.1921. Jack was born on Sept.17, 1925.
Dad
raised sheep and farmed and there was not much money floating around in those
days and we didn't have much but we always had lots of good food and was the
same as everyone else during the depresson [sic] so
we didn t [sic] feel poor. Everyone was hit with
money problems then and Dad and Mother worked hard to make end meet. When I was
a Junior in high school the old home was remodolded [sic]
and where we were using 4 rooms we now had 6 and a bath. Dad worked at the
Leland Mill for Uncle Ben and he bought and sold grain so he made a little more
money, Mom didn"t like it when Dad and Jack
bought the mill because it left her alone more and she had been used to going
all of Utah plus Idaho and wyoming, This was in 1955
and Dad worked there for 6 years and had a heart attack in July of 1961 and
another one in Sept. He died in Hughes Hospital of a blood clot hitting his
heart.. Steven stayed with Morn for 3 years after Dad
died but when he got old enough to date girls and stayed out later she said she
didn"t need him, She had a nice car and could go
and come as she pleased.. She had some nice flowers and enjoyed working in
them. She had a little white poodle named Nikki which she loved and she kept
him looking so nice, She had taken him to Nebo clinic to get him clipped and
they let him get away and we never did find him, It. nearly broke her heart und
the clinic offered her another poodle but she didn't want it ..
Bill
and I would take her shopping with us whenever we went anyplace interesting
like shows, visiting out kids, shopping in Provo and she even went to Virginia
with Bill when he came to visit us.. I had gone back
to be with Suzanne when Ben was born and h:.td been there 2 weeks when Mom and
Bill came back to stay a week, We took her to the Smithsonian Institute to see
the Presidents First ladies gowns and the beautiful Hope Diamond. She had a
wonderful time and we had to take her back to see them all over again before we
came home. She was fun to take anywhere we went because she enjoyed life and
had such a good time.. Jack and Mary Esther were very
good to her also and took her many places. The great grandchildren loved her as
much as her grandchildrcn did and they were very sad
when she passed away..
Mother
took good care or herself and kept her neat and clean
and saw that her yards were kept up also David, Becky, Janene,
Mary Esther and Linda helped her with the yard work. Aunt Juliette and Mom were
still very close and they went to the Senior Citizens to play cards, have
dinner and they had a ball. Everyone loved to have them come because they were
so much fun and were always laughing and cracking jokes..
Jack was always good to Mother and handled her finances and saw that she had
what she needed and the her bills were paid on time
and such. I am sure that Dick would have done the same if he had been near so
that he could have done it too.
In October of
1977 Becky was married to Mark Hasson in the Manti Temple
and Mom was at the marriaga cermony
[sic] and also at the wedding in her new dress of Orange and white which was long.
and she looked so nice. After this event Mom was
always tired and she had the flu and she didn't feel very good. At Christmas
time she told me that her b.m..
stools were black and I knew that she was bleeding internally so I got her to
the Doctor and he tested her blood and found that it was counting 8 when it
should have been 13 at least so he gave her some Iron shots and medicine to
bring up the count but she was bleeding as fast as she was making blood. She
went to the Hospital in January and had 3 pints of blood and while she was
there she had her 80th birthday and Garth made her a pretty Jello
Cake to help her celebrate. The blood seemed to perk her up so we were able to
take her home but she was in so much pain from the bleeding ulcer that she
could not sleep nights and Doctor Brockbank would not
give her any pain pills because he said it would make her bleed more. Mary and
I took turns staying with her and it seemed that when morning would start to
break she would go to sleep for a few hours but as soon as night would start to
fall she would get those terrible pains back. We had her home for 3 weeks and
then had to take her back to the Hospital for more blood and she cried every
time the nurses would come near her with the needles to give her blood. She had
black and blue arms, hands and feet from the needles, She
was in the Hospital for 2 weeks end then we took her home but she was far from
well. It was a saturday
afternoon when I took her home and I stayed with her from then on until Monday.
Aunt
Juliette and Joyce came to see her on Sunday afternoon and they had such a good
time laughing like they always did. Mother was resting a little better now
because the Dr.. had given
her pain pills.
On
Monday morning at 5oclock shecomplained [sic]of her stomach hurting her and I felt it and knew she was bleeding again because it
was so hard and distended so I gave her a pain pill and it relieved the pain
somewhat. At 7oclock she started to vomit and it was pure blood and I dldn't dare leave her until she stopped for fear she would
choke then I called Mary to get an ambulance and they took her back to the
Hospital. They again gave her more blood against my wishes but she rested a
little.. We called Dlck and
Lucile and they came on Wednesday and had two good visits with her and at 2 oclock Thursday morning she started hemmorrhaging
again and the Hospital told us to come over. We were with her all day and she
never had a pulse nor any blood pressure and when evening came we decided to
take turns staying with her so Jack and Mary went home to take care of the kids
after school and we stayed until 6 and Jack and Mary would then go and stay
awhile with her.. Dick, Lucile and I came home to get some supper and at 7 oclock the Hospital called to say she had passed away. I
know she waited until we were not there to go because she had seen Dad die and
she did not want us to see her.
I
was brokenhearted to have her go but neither could I stand and see her cry with
pain and pray that God would take her home. we buried
her on March 6, 1978 beside Dad in the Spanish Fork cemetary.
She had passed away on March 2nd and the funeral was s very lovely. Her casket
was off while and the casket spray was pink and white rosebuds. Her three
sisters came from California and there were many many
of her friends there.. The great grandchildren sang I
am a child of God" and Paul played some of her favorite songs on the piano
and she would have liked that.. Kent came home also
and gave a very beautiful prayer.
My
parents were such wonderful people and I will ever be grateful they were steadfast
in the Gospel because I know that I shall be with them again in Eternity.
