M Afton Felt (Harris)

Autobiography Editing Notes: The original document was provided by Edward or Eldon Price, about the year 1977 at a family reunion at the Gurr residence in Kaysville, Utah. The original was hand typed presumably by Mary Dell’s daughter. I scanned the typed xerographic pages and I publish them here now. By the way, Paul and Afton Felt are remembered also now for keeping the family together via reunions and get-togethers. -- Jonathan Clark Felt Mary Dell Young, a daughter-in-law of Brigham Young, was born May 19, 1864, to Nathaniel Henry and Mary Louisa Pile Felt on Main street, Salt Lake City, Utah. She lived there until she was two years old, when her mother moved to the Nineteenth Ward. This is her story: "Bishop Davis was our Bishop and his daughter was my first-grade teacher. We went to the school on First West. The building was pioneer style, the best they could build in those days, "but always kept clean". A large coal stove furnished the heat, and pitch pine wood was put in to keep the building warm. The interior of the school building was slightly furnished, with wooden benches for the children to sit on, and a rustic desk where the principal sat to watch the teacher direct the class, and also to watch how the children responded, as well as their behavior. He was very strict and punished them if they were disorderly in any way. EXPERIENCES IN SCHOOL. My two little (Mary Del was actual the little sister) brothers, David and Nathaniel Henry Felt, went with me to school. They were well behaved children at home, as Mother who was now living alone with us, was very strict and taught us to mind. When she told us once not to do something, we knew we had to obey her. My brother Nathaniel had made a little toy that whirled around and buzzed. He took this toy to school and some of the boys wanted to see how it worked. Nathaniel began to whirl it around and of course it made a buzzing sound and children began to laugh. The principal called Nathaniel to the desk and put on him his large white coat and a dunce cap made out of paper, then had him whirl his toy. He couldn't do it very well as the toy would hit the cap in whirling around. I stood this as long as I could, then went up to my brother pulled the dunce cap off, also the coat, and told him and David to come and we went home. My mother met us at the door and wanted to know what was the reason we had come home from school. We told her what had happened, and she let us stay home the remainder of the day. That evening the principal came over to see Mother and they talked and talked, but we children were sent from the room and didn't hear the conversation. Mother said we were to go back to school the next morning so we did, and none of us ever wore the dunce cap after that. SCHOOL DAYS. We usually had good teachers like Miss Davis; I thought a lot of her, as she taught us many things I will always remember. I went through all the readers up to the fifth reader. We were taught reading, writing and arithmetic. After finishing the fifth reader, I went to Morgan's College. I was baptized at the age of eight, by Thomas Higgs, In City Creek, and blessed by him. My teacher in the Elementary School and fifth grade, was Professor Cummings. All our lessons were written on the blackboard, and we used pencil and paper to copy them from the board, and had to learn them for the next day. We knew all the pupils who attended school and were all united as one, as no one was richer than the other, and there was no class distinction. The children were easy to get along with. EXPERIENCES IN CHURCH. Every Sunday, we attended church and had to be very quiet while the preacher was speaking. My dear mother read the Bible to us at home we memorized many passages of scripture. I attended Primary. Florence Ridges was the secretary and I was her assistant. My special interest in the Primary was teaching the little children and oh how I loved them. I taught from the first grade up to the third and rarely missed any meetings.The Mutual Improvement Association was organized to improve the lives of all who attended, and also to become more acquainted with the great principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It especially helped the young people and instilled in their young minds the truths of the everlasting Gospel. My mother had her three children go to Mutual, as she knew it would help her in various ways to raise them. I became interested in Mutual and looked forward to it. I always took part in whatever the Officers and teachers asked me to do. Knowing by taking part and in being obedient to those placed in authority over us, we could come back some day in the presence of God. Mother always taught me to be obedient in the home, if she asked me to do something I obeyed her without a hesitation. She said, "If you set the example of going to Mutual, other girls will follow and perhaps through this you may be the instrument of saving one girl in your crowd". OUR CROWD: We were a happy crowd of girls and had a lot of enjoyable times together. Our fun consisted of parties in our homes, one week the boys and girls would come to my home. Perhaps it was to make honey candy, popcorn, and we often made molasses candy. Then we played games: blind's buff, or rin-tin-tin come in. We sometimes sang the hymns learned in Sunday School or Mutual. We made up little plays and each one took their parts. Some of the crowd looked on while some of us did the acting, then we sat down to be the audience while they did the acting. Mother would often come in and sometimes brought surprises in the form of home made cookies. Oh! how could they be so good? The girls in our crowd were always ready for fun. No girl was dressed any better than the other girl, as there were no rich among us. We all wore large home made leghorn hats, and enjoyed going out for a walk in the fields or nearby canyons. One day Miriam Silver and I went out for a walk and saw some beautiful flowers. We picked them and trimmed out hats with beautiful bouquets. We thought our hats looked beautiful as we proudly walked home. When we got there, my Mother looked at us, took our hats and rapidly pulled the flowers off and went outside the house and buried them. We felt like crying. When she returned she told us the flowers we had picked were poison ivy and we may get sick from them. Due to some luck we did not get any bad effects or itching of the hands from It, and years after, we often had a good laugh about our trimmed hats. Another girl friend, by the name of Hattie Cooper used to come and stay at our home, as she lived at Bountiful. One night we decided we wanted to go to a dance out there. We coaxed and coaxed Mother to let us go to the dance. At last Mother said we could go If we started early in the afternoon so we could get there before dark. We started out and walked many miles along a long road. We were only young kids at this time, but wanted to look like grown ups. So we went to a second hand store and bought some long dresses. My dress had a purple front and a very full skirt. Hattie's dress was long with a full skirt too. She went to the dance with the Bishop's son and I went with Orval Hatch. The boys laughed a little when they saw us, but we tried to act like grown up young ladies. What a good time we had. When I told by Mother about the wonderful time we had and how we were dressed, she said, "good gracious, you surely didn't go to the dance dressed like that?" We girls often went out in the fields and elsewhere to gather mushrooms. They were delicious when fried in plenty of home made butter until they were brown. We used a large hook to gather them. We also would pick raspberries and then dry them. When we wanted some raspberries we would soak them and then cook them thoroughly. They were very good with hot biscuits and were often made into pies. Apples were cut in quarters after they had first been peeled and spread out in the sunshine to dry. They were carefully covered with a mosquitobar cloth and if the sky was cloudy and showed signs of rains we had to go out and bring them in as they would mold if they got wet. After the apples were dried we often stewed them and ate them with hot sods or buttermilk biscuits. They also made pies suitable for a queen’s taste, especially when topped with good whipped cream. We were always blessed with good food and Mother was an excellent cook. OUR FURNITURE. Our furniture was not the best, but it was comfortable and neatly arranged. The bed my Mother slept on was a high bed with four high posts, covered with a white bed spread that had wide white ruffles around it. My two brothers, David and Nathaniel slept on a trundle bed which wheeled under Mother’s bed in the day time. Our every day carpet was home made, but on Sunday we had a special piece of carpet we always put down. It was the first Ingrain carpet in Salt Lake City. On Monday we would carefully fold it up and put away until the next Sunday. The room had a very nice appearance, as the carpet had fresh straw under it and the fragrant smell was a clean sweet odor. We enjoyed walking on it. CHRISTMAS IN SALT LAKE CITY. How we children waited for Christmas Eve, so we could hand up our stockings. It was wonderful to awaken Christmas Morning and find home made candy, molasses cookies, and sometimes a little money tucked in the very toe of our stockings. We were just as happy then as children are today. One Christmas morning we three children were all busy working. My brothers were bringing in the wood to fill our wood box, and I was helping Mother clean the house, when a knock came at the door. We opened the door and found President Brigham Young standing there with parcels in his arms. He came in and sat down and said, “Mary, I brought you these gifts to wish you a very Merry Christmas.” Mother opened the Parcel and thanked him. She was happy to find such lovely gifts, as it was a beautiful Paisley shawl and a linsey woolsey shawl of blue and white plaid. My present was a dress of Scotch plaid. Oh! how grateful we were to receive these lovely gifts. OUR HOME. Our home was located on North West Temple and consisted of a large front room about twenty by twenty feet, with a smaller room in the back, which we called the shanty room where we used to store things. It was lined with three or four inches of paper. In here we had a very large box, which was also lined with three or four inches of paper to keep the fruit from freezing. We always had to be careful in the winter to keep from freezing ourselves for we had very severe winters. The snow in the winter would top the five foot high fences. We always had to go out and shovel a path to the house before we could enter it. The air was wonderfully crisp and cold. The climate had changed a lot since those days. We even had to wear home made board shoes to walk in the snow. THE SEVENTEENTH WARD. We girls had wonderful times together, and enjoyed each others' company at Sunday School, MIA and all meetings. We were taught to keep the Sabbath day holy. One Sunday afternoon, the boys and girls planned a picnic to the Great Salt Lake. A boy by the name of William Hislip had bought some food from the bakery. They came to my home and wanted me to go with them, and I wanted to go. I knew if I asked Mother if I may go, what her answer would be. "NO, Mary, you cannot go as it would be breaking the Sabbath Day. No, dear you cannot go." We sat on our porch and talked and talked. I told the crowd to go on with the party, as my Mother would not allow me to go on Sunday. At last we decided to have the party on our porch. Just when we had the lunch spread out, and we were eating and having a very good time, who should come up the walk but Joseph Dean, our ward teacher. He looked amazed and asked if we didn't realize it was Sunday. So I explained to him that I couldn't go to the lake. "Well, he said, it is much better for you to do it this way, than go out there especially on Sunday". He went into the house and talked with Mother, so we went on with the party, and we were glad he was not angry with us. EXPERIENCES TO REMEMBER. Judge Elias Smith was one of our neighbors and lived where the Utah Motel is now. His chicken coop and ours were In the same building. My brother David went out to gather the eggs and brought in a bucket full of eggs. Mother said, "David, where did you get all those eggs when we only have five chickens?" David told her he guessed Judge Smith's chickens' eggs were sliding down into our nests. David knew exactly how the eggs were sliding down for he had planned it that way. Mother put all the eggs into the basket and said, "David, you take those eggs right over to Judge Smith and tell him what you did and not to send one egg back, as they are all his. David was reluctant: to go, but Mother insisted. So he went out of the house slowly with Mother watching until he knocked on the door and went in. Mother waited and waited for him, and when he did come she said, “David why were you so long?” David replied, “Oh, Mrs. Smith had some buckwheat caked with sugar and cream and she invited me to have some. “My, they were good.” I’m glad I took the eggs over.” DATES. When I reached the age of thirteen years, I started to go out to the dances and went with Donald Smith. Mother went to all the dances too. She kept close watch who I went with, but I went with good boys and Mother was good to them all. All the boys used to engage us ahead of their partner for the dance and we did have a good time and never stayed out late after the dance was over. Later on one of my boy friends was young man from Springville named Emmett Lynch. I was working in my brother’s store at Provo when I met him. He wrote to me for some time, but through no fault of his, I did not get some of his letters we drifted apart. A friend of mine, Lillian Boyer, intercepted my mail and I didn’t realize it until many years later. I think it was for the best as he wasn’t a Mormon, but a good man. NAMES. After living in Salt Lake many years, Brigham Young, President of the Church, advised my mother to marry William J. Silver. He operated the silver and iron works and was the founder of this great industry. By marrying him, Mother could give my two brothers a better chance to get a vocation in life. So, she married William J. Silver on October 12, 1870. Later two children were born to them, the first, a baby boy, named William P. Silver. The second child was a little girl by the name of May, who later drowned in the 19th Ward, in the foundry pool. The Silver Machine Shop was on Center St. and Fourth North. We did our washing in a dug out close to the shop, the washer was run by the machinery from the shop. I did the ironing and received fifty cents a day to iron shirts. This money was high wages in those days, as many girls only received fifty cents a week doing house work. When the Legislature was in session, Mother boarded two men at her home. This gave her extra money and was convenient for the men for it was near the Utah State Capitol. Robert Slater was the name of one of the men) he bought me a little cup and an it was inscribed the name of Dell. I liked the name and from then on, I was called Mary Dell Felt, instead of Mary Adelia. All the boys and girls would write my name Mary Dell on Christmas and birthday cards they sent me. MY HUSBAND. One of the sons of Brigham Young by the marriage of him to Harriet Emeline Barney Young was Joseph Ormal Young. Joseph first married Martha Jane Hyde, daughter of Joseph Hyde. Their family consisted of nine children, some of their names are, Joseph, Jesse, Ruby, Raymond and Florence. Three of their children died. He also married Arbella Bird (Aunt Bell). She is his second wife. Their children were, John, Jennie, Ormal, Frank, Myrtle, and Nellie. Aunt Bell went to church and was a good mother to her family. She was born in Springville, Utah. She lived there with Josephine Grosbeck when she met Joseph Young and he married her. I was learning to dress make and worked in the Constitution Building on Main St. One day Joseph Young came in and talked me into taking guitar lessons, he furnished the guitar for me to take lessons on. I was delighted, as I wanted to learn how to play. Joseph had a big music store and sold pianos, guitars, and other musical instruments. He often came in and visited with me, but little did I think he would some day be my husband, as he was a handsome man and had very fine manners. The city had planned a fine celebration, and all the girls in our crowd dressed up for the occasion, and we all wore mustaches so we would look different, as they were going to have a parade and also roll a barrel of fire down Main St. We were all elated and having a good time laughing and talking as we passed Joe's store. Joe came out of the store and wanted to know what we were doing and we told him what was going on. He talked to us for a while and then watched us. I can't imagine what he thought. One night, George Hardy and Joe walked home with me, to Fourth North. After laughing and talking a while, George said he thought he should go and he bade us good night. Joe talked a while and then asked me to marry him. I told him before I could give him an answer he would have to go with me and ask Mother's consent. So we went to the house and visited with Mother, and then he told her he wanted to marry me. Mother replied, "That's up to Mary. She can suit her self, as I want her to be happy." The following Sunday, he took me in the buggy to introduce me to his first wife, to get her consent. She said it is all right and to go right ahead. I had met her before and I loved her and we got along swell together. So, I became Joseph Young's third wife. My husband and I were married in the Endowment House, Dec 4, 1884. Our children are as follows: Silver Howe, Mary Louise, and Glenn. My husband went on a mission to England and did much good in expounding the gospel. Traveling without purse-or script. He made many converts. He was a good church worker, and always dependable in whatever they asked him to do. He had a quiet disposition and was very kind in his ways. He thought a lot of his brother Royal, they always got along together well. He was a devoted husband to all his wives and children. We all loved him and lived very happy lives, as one large family together. My first home was a red brick house on state St. between Fourth and Fifth So. just opposite the City and County Building. At this time the circus was occupying the City and county-grounds. But many, years later the City and County Building was built in: We owned a lot of property and lived here many years and then sold out and moved to Forest Dale. We first built a large brick barn and petitioned the upstairs and down stairs with heavy muslin, and screened the doors on account of the flies. Then Joseph built a nine room house for his first-wife “Aunt Jen” and family, and I lived there too until he could build my house. He also built Aunt Bell a home. My house was at 2445 South ran East below Driggs Ave. It was a nice brick home of six rooms. We all lived close together and all of us worked in the Church. My mother became very ill and died May 11, 1912. After her death we moved into her old home on 4th North and Main St. in the Nineteenth Ward. On Oct. 30, 1915, my daughter, Mary Louise was married to Abram Harold Lewis. All during this time my husband had been very sick. He stayed in his other home because I was busy taking care of my mother when she was ill. He died Aug 1, 1917 at this home at the age of 68 years. We all missed him as he was a wonderful husband and loved all his children. He was very quiet in his way but was well liked by all his friends and neighbors. His memory will always live with us as a kind an devoted husband. LATER LIFE. After my husband's death my daughter Glenn and I moved to 3rd So. and 4th East to live with Clyde and Lavon Felt. On November 1, 1919 Glenn was married to Joseph Ralph Haas. Previous to her marriage I took a job as a cleaning woman at the City and County Building. I moved to the Lake Hotel and was a member of the Eighth and Ninth Ward. I was president of the Relief Society here for a year and a half. Also I was a Stake missionary for 18 months. I then moved to 3rd East between 4th and 5th South, where I was in the Eighth Ward. While living here we went on many Temple excursions. Bishop and Sister John Fetzer went with us also Sister Anna Tonnison and many others. We went to the following temples Logan, Manti, St. George and Arizona. Our last trip was to the Cardston Temple in Canada. This was just before Sister Fetzer died. I have worked in these temples and have done thousands of names for dead people who were waiting for someone to do the work for them. I think there is no work more enjoyable and I intend to do more Temple work as soon as I can. Until the year about 1935 I continued to work at the City and County Building. I worked there over 20 years. In the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Marth Crow was Captain; First Vice Captain, myself; Second Vice Captain, Lucy Wilson. I have worked many years with the D.U.P. and have enjoyed these many years with these wonderful women. I have been Chaplain many years and still hold this position. In 1937 I was hit by a car but I didn't go to a hospital. I stayed with my daughter, Glenn until I was well. In 1944 I was hit again and dragged down the street several feet. Again I stayed with my daughter. In 1946 I was crossing the street with my friend Anna Smith when we were both hit. She had both legs broken and I had a badly hurt leg and broken ribs. I had my eyes operated on for cataracts in 1947. After this time I could again read and enjoy our standard works. In 1947 I moved to where I now live at 261 East 6th South. In 1954 I broke my leg getting into a car. I guess it was just worn out after all the accidents. I stayed with my daughter, Louise Lewis for over a year until I was well again, then I returned home. I have been a block teacher for almost 70 years and I am still active in the Relief Society, Sunday School and Mutual Improvement Association. I will be 98 years old this May 19, 1962. I live in the same home with my daughter, Glenn and she helps me in many ways. This poem was given to Mary Dell Young on her birthday, May 19, 1940. MARY DELL YOUNG Many Happy returns dear sister true, As the years pass by I will think of you; As you stood at the door with outstretched hands To welcome me to a sister band. Your smile was sweet and very sincere, As you greeted each one with a word of good cheer; And you didn't seem strange as you stood in the door, For it seemed that somewhere I had known you before. As you walk along life's pathway, Whatever you do or whatever you say, May the spirit of God like a beacon light Shine in your path to guide you aright. And when at last your work here is done, And life's book is closed with the setting sun, And you pass beyond to that radiant shore Perchance up there you will stand at the door. And welcome those you have known down here, With a happy smile and a word of cheer. And I shall love to be among Those who are welcomed by Mary Dell Young. Maude Kenner