The Springville Utah Herald
April 10, 1952
Native of Wales, Mrs.
Mary Jane Reese
On Monday, March 31, Mary Jane Reese celebrated her 84th
birthday with an informal family gathering and greetings from her many friends.
She was born at Pentyrch,
Glamorganshire, South Wales, on March 31, 1868,
a daughter of William and Elizabeth Jones John.
Her father was a coal miner, and like most other families in the
community, were in poor circumstances.
Food was not too plentiful and it was not uncommon to receive two eggs a
week for the family, having to cut them in two to sere four members in the
household.
Bread was baked in large brick ovens, located in the center
of a group of homes in order to serve several families. A long wooden shovel was used to put the
dough into the oven, directly on the hot bricks. She says that was some of the best bread she
ever tasted. Often pies were baked
before the bread and the neighbors would take turns using the ovens.
Mary Jane’s father died one month before her sixth birthday
leaving her mother with three small children, two boys and one girl. With the help of kind neighbors and six
shillings or $1.50 a week from the government, they managed to get along for
the next six years.
In 1880, at the age of 12 years, Mrs. Reese, with her mother
and two younger brothers, William and Thomas, began their immigration from Wales to America. They took the train from Wales to Liverpool, where they boarded the boat
“Wisconsin” for America. For supper that evening they were given large
round cakes called “Hard Tack”, but they were so hard they could not eat them
so the children used them to play with on board the boat, rolling them like
wheels and having a glorious time. They
went to bed hungry, but made up for it the next morning at breakfast.
They were two weeks crossing the ocean, with Mrs. Reese’s
mother ill in bed the entire trip with sea sickness. Half way across the ocean they were met with
an especially severe storm which tore the slabs and ropes loose that held the
baggage and the heavy trunks would roll from one end of the ship to the other
as it would be tossed by the huge waves.
After the storm subsided, the baggage was again anchored in place and
the water swept out without doing too much damage.
After landing in New
York, they spent two nights with other passengers,
sleeping in the luggage room, because of lack of funds to obtain a hotel
room. A small boat then took them to Boston where they later boarded a train for Chicago and on to Evanston
Wyo. This part of the journey took them on another
two day journey by team and wagon to Bloomington,
Idaho, where they were to make
their home.
Their first home there was a one-room log house that was
covered with rustic to make it warm. The
house was located a mile from town on top of a small hill. It had a wooden floor that had to be scrubbed
with sand on hands and knees every Friday.
A few months after arriving here, Mary Jane’s mother
remarried and due to the shortage of help in harvesting the crops, Mary Jane
and her two brothers had to go out and help their stepfather in the fields,
binding the grain and hauling it to the stacks.
Very often she would carry her younger brother on her back to and from
the field as he was in ill health.
A few months after her arrival, Mrs. Reese was baptized in
to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, much to the disapproval of
her family. She enjoyed going to the
meetings and participating in all their activities, walking one mile to and from
home in all kinds of weather, often o top of hard crusted snow four feet deep,
keeping her way by the tops of the fence posts.
On December 11, 1884, at the age of 17, she was married to Lotwick Reese, a hard-working pioneer of Bloomington.
They moved into a four-room frame home, two of the rooms being up
stairs. The house was located in the
center of the small town. Her husband’s
widowed mother came to live with them for the remaining eight years of her
life, as did an orphan nephew, who never marrying, spent the greater part of 40
years in their home.
Very early in her married life she learned all the phases of
keeping up a home, especially in making the family’s clothing. It was necessary then to make everything that
was worn, including underwear, coats and hats.
Long stockings also had to be knit at night by the light of the kerosene
lamps. Cloth to make many of these
clothes as well as the purchase of sugar, salt, and other necessary food
stables were obtained by trading produce – eggs, potatoes, grain and garden
crops at the local store. Very little
money was to be had and what they did obtain from selling cattle went back into
building up their farm and paying the taxes.
Extra money for household use was earned by churning and
selling the butter. She would make from
two to twenty pounds a week, depending on the number of cows milking. This would be sold at 10 cents a pound and in
real prosperous times for 25 cents a pound.
Tithing was paid to the Bishop with eggs, butter, grain or
whatever produce they might have.
She and her husband had eight children, six boys and two
girls. Deep sorrow came into their lives
with the loss of three of the children.
One girl, Elizabeth, died at the age of 14 of spinal meningitis. One of the boys, Ezra, died at the age of
21. He had been called on a mission and
had completed his training at the mission home, had had his farewell to leave
and was all set to go when he was stricken ill by cancer. Another son, George, after marrying and
establishing his own home, died at the age of 40 of heart trouble. Two of their children fulfilled missions for
the L.D.S.
Church.
Very often in their early married life there was no money
with which to hire help in harvesting the crops and it was necessary for Mary
Jane to go out and help in the fields. One
particular time she remembers distinctly was a year her husband was very ill
and the grain was ready to harvest, with no way of hiring help to have it
done. So she tied her four months old
baby on her back and went to the field and shocked the grain all day long. When it was all completed the townspeople who
did the threshing, threshed the grain for them free of charge. It was customary in those times to feed the
threshers during the time they were threshing the grain. They served three large meals a day to ten or
twelve men from one day to a week depending on how much grain had to be
threshed.
The family washing was done on the board until there were
eight members in the family. Water would
have to be taken from the well, carried to the house, then heated in the old
copper bottomed boiler on the wood heated stove. Oftimes the
children would have to go to bed while their only dress or pair of trousers was
washed, dried, ironed and ready to put back on again.
All recreation and activities in the community were under
the direction of the church, and much enjoyment was had from the dances,
parties, sleigh rides, candy pulls, and corn popping times that were attended
by all. Many a delightful afternoon or
evening was spent at each others’ homes with rag bees and quilting and whenever
they went visiting, they took their work with them.
In the year 1932, three years after the death of her
husband, and after spending one year with a daughter, LaVina
in Los Angeles, Mrs. Reese came to Provo to make her home
where her youngest son, Eldon was attending the B.Y.U.
Since his graduation and marriage, she had visited with her
other children, Ivan and Victor at Bloomington, Idaho; Merrill at Heber
City and LaVina
at Los Angeles,
while maintaining her home with Eldon and his family. She is happy and proud of her 18
grandchildren and seven great grandchildren.
She has lived in Springville for the past ten years, where her son, Eldon
teaches at the high school.
Four years ago at the age of 80 years, she underwent two
major operations and has enjoyed fairly good health since then.
She has been active in the LDS church working in many
capacities. She is well known for her
beautiful crochet work, quilts, and rugs.
She is very grateful that she had the privilege of coming to
this wonderful country and accepting the LDS faith and the opportunity of
rearing her family here.
Additional Information
By LaVina Reese Hunter Doerfler,
a daughter
Even at the young age of almost 17, Mary Jane could see what
a good, honest and fine man Lotwick was, and when he
asked her the important question, “Wilt thou?”, it didn’t take her long to make
up her mind to say “Yes”. Their
courtship was short.
One incident they often spoke of was going to the circus in Montpelier. They went by a team of horses in a big lumber
wagon. They traveled in this fashion
each way 12 miles. Isn’t that
romantic? Well, it seemed so to them at
that time.
Lotwick’s friends often kidded him
and asked, “Lodi,
where did you get such a beautiful young woman?” He always had a dry witty answer, he said,
“Hard work always pays off, if you work hard enough, you can do anything in
life, but had better pray a little too.”
Lotwick and Mary Jane lived in the
two room house for a short time, then later built on four rooms. This house was and still is located in the
center of town on Main street
and Canyon Road. Everyone says, “It is the nicest home and
people are always so welcome there. It
has the good old pioneer spirit.”
They did not have any vacuum cleaners or any kind of
sweeper, only the broom. Well Mary Jane
Reese was a very meticulous housekeeper.
Often she would take the carpets up and put them on the clothes line and
beat them and shake them and give them a thorough airing, but the harder thing
yet was to put the carpet back down.
First she padded the floor with fresh straw, then she laid the carpet on
the straw. She had carpet stretchers,
and she would be on her knees and tack the carpet down on three sides, but the
last side was so hard to do, she would clinch the stretchers into the edge of
the homemade carpet and pull on it to bring it to the wall, she would have to sorta jump off the carpet (get her weight off) and then
pull on the carpet stretchers to bring the carpet in the right position. Then she would tack it down to the
floor. This was done in four rooms and
they were large rooms. Hard, hard work,
but she was happy when everything was clean and in good shape and she never
complained.
She made her own soap for washing clothes. She saved all the waste fat and suet and when
she had collected enough, she would make a can of soap, and she used a large
honey can which made about 20 pounds of soap.
She made and quilted one quilt with 1300 small pieces in it. She made one of these for each of her children. Mary Jane and LaVina
picked from 30 to 50 quarts heaped up of raspberries every other day. We put up some and sold the rest of
them. People would come from all over Bear Lake
and Northern Utah to get my mother’s
raspberries. There were the must
luscious large and sweet berries in the valley.
My mother put up over 800 quarts of fresh fruit each year, also
vegetables from our own garden. Our
store house in the basement was always full of good food.
Mary Jane Reese was an ardent church worker, and she was
very musical. She had an outstanding
sweet fine voice and she gave of this talent very generously in Relief Society
and in all the Ward parties and entertainments.
One song, a favorite of everyone’s was, “Just A Flower That You Plucked
For Me One Day.” I have this song and I
accompanied mother.
Mary Jane was an excellent cook. Once a year the Ward had an “Old Folks Party”
and she would make from 200 to 300 tarts for the party. They were so light and flaky. I haven’t tasted anything like them and the
men would cry out, “Pass those Mary Jane Tarts this way.”
She mixed bread by hand every other night or four times a
week, making eight loaves in each batch, and oh, so flaky and good. We had big dinners and parties in the Reese
home for our families and all the relatives who resided in Bloomington, about thirty or more.
We sang songs, told jokes, played games, had candy pulls,
popped pop corn, and everyone had such a good time. We all looked forward to those Mary Jane
Reese parties and delicious big turkey or chicken dinners with all the
trimmings.
In her later years Mary Jane said, “I am 82 years old and
living with Eldon and Venna and their family and many
thoughts of my past life have been running through my mind. We had many experiences in the little town of
Bloomington in
raising our family; some faith promoting incidents and some bad ones. I am very grateful for having had the
privilege of coming to this wonderful country and accepting the gospel and for
having eight fine children, all reared by the gospel principles, and I would
like to advise them all to stay close to the church.
“Today has been a happy one with my children and
friends. LaVina
here from California,
Merrill and Stella and some of their family from Heber, and we are with Eldon
and family. Ivan and Victor telephoned
me from Idaho,
I wish they could have come, but too much snow.
“I am so thankful for my family and friends. Many came today including the Bishop and
family.”
Mary Jane Reese lived a life full of love, kindness and
compassion for everyone. Always her
example was living the Golden Rule. She
taught this to us children and admonished us to be cheerful and happy and full
of love.
Sometimes she would repeat the following to us, “Set your
jaw bone, stiffen up your backbone, go often on your knee bone, laugh with your
funny bone, and forget your wish bone.”
She died November 29, 1954 at the age of 86 ½ and people
remarked, “She is beautiful in death even as in life.” I feel that her reward even as my father’s
reward will be great and that they will be exalted together throughout
eternity.
