Mary Luella Feller (Carter)

1930 - 2004. St George, Utah - - Mary Luella Carter Feller, 74, passed away Monday, November 1, 2004 at her home in St George, Utah. She passed away peacefully after a courageous battle with lung cancer. She was born August 9, 1930 in St George, Utah, a daughter of William and Golda Bowler Carter. She married George R Feller on April 8, 1950, in the St George Temple. They are the parents of five children. She is survived by her husband, George; children, Evelyn (Steve) Despain, Wilford (Debbie), Allen (Sheri), David (Jolyn), Russell (Janell); 24 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Funeral services will be held Saturday, November 6, 2004 at 2:00 p.m. at the St George Stake Center, 500 N Bluff St, St George, UT. Visitations will be held Friday, November 5, 2004 from 6-8 p.m. and again Saturday from 12:30-1:30 p.m., prior to services, both at the Stake Center. Interment will be at the St George city Cemetery. Source: deseretnews.com archives; Thursday, November 4, 2004

1930 - 2004. St George, Utah - - Mary Luella Carter Feller, 74, passed away Monday, November 1, 2004 at her home in St George, Utah. She passed away peacefully after a courageous battle with lung cancer. She was born August 9, 1930 in St George, Utah, a daughter of William and Golda Bowler Carter. She married George R Feller on April 8, 1950, in the St George Temple. They are the parents of five children. She is survived by her husband, George; children, Evelyn (Steve) Despain, Wilford (Debbie), Allen (Sheri), David (Jolyn), Russell (Janell); 24 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Funeral services will be held Saturday, November 6, 2004 at 2:00 p.m. at the St George Stake Center, 500 N Bluff St, St George, UT. Visitations will be held Friday, November 5, 2004 from 6-8 p.m. and again Saturday from 12:30-1:30 p.m., prior to services, both at the Stake Center. Interment will be at the St George city Cemetery. Source: deseretnews.com archives; Thursday, November 4, 2004

Mary Lou Feller I was born in St. George, Utah. A woman named Mrs. Heritance was a nurse that took care of the women and Dr.W.J. Reichmann came and delivered the babies and she took care of the women. Her place was on 391 W. Tab. I was the largest child that my mother had. I weighted 9 pounds and 4 ounces. That was always my claim to fame. I was the second child. Aunt Laura lived with us. She was about 15 when I was born. She always thought I was the sweetest thing in the world. We had quite an unusual situation when Uncle Gary was born. It was one of the coldest winters in St. George. Catherine, Aunt Laura, Gary and I had measles, mumps and whooping cough. We wouldn't get through with one until we'd had the other one. It was quite an ordeal. Gary was a new baby and had to be taken to Salt Lake to the specialist. My childhood was very secure. I always felt secure. We owned our home. We never had to move. We were always in our home that I loved so much. About the time that Gary was born, my folks had an addition to their home. It made it very nice. We always worked hard. We always had a lot to do. I helped take care of the mild that my mother milked and supplied to people. I washed the milk bottles and dished the milk up. My mother milked about 13 cows. I liked to help with the washing and ironing. I gathered eggs. I fed and watered the chickens. I spent a lot of time playing with our friends up on the red hill. We had a big enough lot that we had a good place to make play houses. The Wiley family lived across the street and they had two girls about my age. In Junior High Bernice Bentley became my good friend and is to this day. Because of the times and our limited circumstances we virtually never went anywhere. We would go to Gunlock two times a year to visit grandma and grandpa. In the summer we would go to get fruit to bring home and bottle. In the winter we'd get up there for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Our father had a 1935 Chevrolet pickup. That was about the extent of our traveling. Catherine was so much older. She had her own set of friends. She was 4 and half years older. We did things around home. Gary and I spent more time together. We played marbles and built huts and things. That is my very first memory; when he was born. I was three. I remember the morning he was born. I remember how excited we were because he was a boy and very saddened because he had two club feet. He was the most beautiful child with dark curly hair, beautiful skin, the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. My dad ranched in Diamond Valley and we loved to go up there. He raised alfalfa in the Santa Clara fields. Gary and I loved to go with him to both places. He grew corn in Diamond valley. He got the water coming from Goat Spring. We always had what we needed. We never went without anything. There was never had any extra. My mother was a very frugal and hard working woman. She did a lot of bartering with her milk and cream and butter with people what had other things. It was mostly due to her frugal ways of sewing that we always had nice clothes and plenty to eat. She bottled and canned fruit all summer. We never went without anything. I first went to school at the elementary across from the Woodward building. They didn't have kindergarten the year I started so I missed out on kindergarten and started into first grade. My teachers were Louise Hopkins, Mary Phoenix, Linda Larson, Ruth Sorenson, Misha Seegmiller, and Kenneth Cannon. We were the first class of first graders the first year that the school was opened. A always thought that I was Mary Phoenix's favorite. I always ran errands for her. Louise Hopkins, Linda Larson and Ruth Seegmiller never got married. I was so self conscience in junior high school. Bernice always made us late but I just could not face going into that school alone. So I would always wait for her. I was afraid that somebody would look at me. Miss Neagle and Mrs. Syphus were outstanding English teachers. Bessie Snow was real good with history. High school was in the Dixie Building. Woodward was 7th, 8th, 9th & 10th. We had two years of High school and 2 years of college. When we went over to the college building we called ourselves as 11th graders freshman. As 12th graders we called ourselves sophomores and then juniors and seniors. I participated in the annual dance review that was quit a tradition and a big activity for girls. We had ballet and tap. We practiced during our physical education period. I liked tap the best. High school athletics and the ball games between Cedar and Dixie were a lot of fun. We really got involved in that. I was the secretary to the student council for two years. I got a scholarship to Dixie College. I was not a straight A student. I got some B's but I could have been straight A if I had applied myself. English was kind of a slow; I didn't have the interest in it like I had for Biology. I liked biology and genetics. I would never have made it in Chemistry if it hadn't been for my lab partner Ann Stewart (or Ann Chamberlain). They were just here the other night. She is still my really good friend. He is a dentist in Calif. I worked at the Studebaker agency as a secretary. I was about 18 when I worked there. Church life was the center of our social life. We went to primary in the basement of the tabernacle. We had our church meetings in the gym of the elementary school. Our school principal, Vernon Writhen, was our bishop. I was baptized in the basement of the temple. It was the only baptistery in town. At that time they had the priests go baptize us. Cecil Empy baptized me. My parents were there but they always had the priests of the ward baptize us. In mutual Harriot Cox was probably my favorite teacher. We would go to her house once in a while for parties and things. All of the ladies were just so good and taught us so much. I didn't go to dances. I knew I wouldn't get asked. We would go to church two separate times on Sunday and primary on another day and women to relief society on another day. It was very involving. I didn't date much. The only nearly date I had was when I was Golden Green Ball Queen and Fred Wells took me to that. I don't remember how I got to be Golden Green Ball queen. I was aware of George Feller's family but he was 4 years older than I was. I knew he was on a mission. In those days every return missionary spoke in stake conference. When he spoke in stake conference was the first time I saw him. My friends got goo goo over him but I didn't get too involved until he asked me out. The same Sunday at a fireside the MIA Sunday evening session of stake conference I was singing in a duet with Norma Cox and Velma Terry and he asked his sister who I was. It was the same day that he had spoken in stake conference. One or two days later he saw me in the post office. After coming home from his mission and counseling with Pres. Kimball, President Kimball advised him to go to BYU to school. I think he came home on a weekend to report his mission. I think he had just barely gotten home. He saw me in the post office and asked me out. George had gone to BYU from March to June and he came home to work for the summer. It must have been about Sept. He told me all along that I was the one he wanted. He had been up to Salt Lake and gotten a ring at Danes Jewelry store. He didn't get down on one knee but we were on the front porch of my house and he showed me the ring. We went on dates that were mostly church oriented. We went to the temple once a week with my parents. I went to the temple early in January. My bishop knew that my parents went every week and he asked me if I would like to go so from Jan. to April we went every week. He didn't have a car yet. We just had my father's big old ton truck. Most everything we did was church oriented. Edith and Grant Whitehead were our MN & Gleaner leaders. They were real active. That was our recreation because they had a good program going. That was our fun stuff. He worked real hard that summer learning to lay brick. Steve Kirkland taught him to lay brick. Steve Kirkland had come from Georgia shortly after George had come from Missouri. The families started to apostatize together. I, Mary Lou graduated from Dixie. George had gone to BYU for a short time and then attended Dixie College for a year. We planned we would get married about the time school let out but when April 8, was my parents 25 wedding anniversary we decided to get married then. That meant quite a bit to them and to me too. My Aunt Kate Squire had a really nice shower for me at her house. I am still using many of the things that I received, particularly a stainless steel double boiler. I think that is probably the only shower I had. It was during Conference when we got married. We had a really nice lot of friends came to our wedding. His companion, Clair and Loddie Anderson, People from the mission field, Brother and sister Van Burran, Brother and Sister Snodgrass, Brother and sister Ensign all came. We were married by Frances J. Bowler my great uncle. In as much as George's Family did not want to have anything to do with the wedding at all; Ellen Bentley offered to have the wedding dinner for us. She took the day off work and my mother hired somebody to help her do a little clean up. Anyway Bernice and Mishia and all of them helped their mother put on a lovely, lovely wedding dinner. His sister Doris came but nobody else in the family. Anyway Mrs. Bentley had just the loveliest dinner. Everything was so pretty and nice. She had pretty table clothes. As I remember it was roast beef and potatoes and I remember this fruit cup. It was so good and so nice. Then we had a reception that night in the old institute building across from the old Dixie College. Ted Writhen was George's best man. He had become really good friends with him in the Elder's Quorum because of all this other with his family. Catherine was my maid of honor and Aunt Laura's two girls Cathleen and Patricia were the flower girls and my parents stood with us. By then George had a car and we drove to Cedar that night and then got in a terrible snow storm the nest day up at Sipio pass. We got to Salt Lake and conference was going on. We could not figure why his closest missionary companion Wayne Reed, had not come to the wedding and so we drove to his house. There was a note on the door telling us that they were attending his wife, Shirley's funeral. The story behind that was this woman had been married and had a little boy and her husband had died and her little boy had died. She went on a mission to Calif. Wayne and George were both there. After they got off their mission the mission president recommended that Wayne marry Shirley. She wanted to be sealed to Wayne and have the sealing canceled from the first husband. She went to Joseph Fielding Smith. He listened to them and talked to them. You get married for time and then come back to see me in a year and if you feel the same way we'll consider it. Within 11 months she was dead. She had a quick growing cancer. Wayne then married her best friend. They had 8 wonderful children together. When we came home we stopped by Manti and did a session in the temple. Lambda Delta Sigma had a tradition. Every spring they had a mock Trousseau Tea and they asked me to be the bride for it. Also if we made a piece of hand work to put in the hand work display we got to put our name in the hat. Zima Read and Mrs. Hafen would make two satin quilts and if your name was drawn you got to have one. I got one! It was that orange and purple one that I made your quilts off of. That was pretty special. When we were first married we lived in Snow apartments downstairs. We lived in the north east apartment. We went up to go to school at BYU in November. George was determined to be an architect. We only went a couple of days until he found out they did not have the right courses. The University of Utah let him transfer up there and we finished the quarter. But he met with so much worldliness that he decided he did not want to be apart of it. We came home for Christmas and stayed. That's when we got this lot. (445 Diagonal St.) He was working on our house one day. Bill Writhen had gone to Las Vegas to lay brick. Las Vegas started to boom in 1950. Bill stopped and asked George if he could lay brick. George said yes so he talked him into to going down there. So for a year or two George would leave here Monday morning and then come home Friday night. Then he was in the accident and was laid up for a year. When I got married cooking was not a problem. I had cooked at home enough and baby sat and cooked it was not a new thing. I baby sat for Deanna Doll and her sisters. I started babysitting when I was 9 years old. Deanna was 9 months old. They called and wanted Catherine but she could not go. She said my sister could go. They had four girls and I was their only baby sitter. We had a good time. I baby sat for years. I went quite often. I loved setting up housekeeping. It was just a little apartment but I enjoyed it. We worked at this house as we could pay for it and finally we barrowed fifteen hundred dollars. We were still building the house when the kids started coming. During the summer we would live at 250 N. 300 W. in Winifred Smith's home. They would go to Canada in the summer. When we quit living there Catherine and Loraine had a trailer that they had lived in, inVernal. We parked it along the fence and built this house. When we started living in this house there was absolutely no floor coverings. I had a new stove because we had bought it months and months before. We had it forty years. We had a furnace but no drapes or anything. Before Evelyn was born I worked for Howard Carter down in the court house or the recorders office. I worked right until time for her to be born. George was still working in Las Vegas. While George was working in Las Vegas he was in a terrible accident. It was quite a trial in our lives. He was hit broad side and it jerked his back so bad They let him come home but they told him he had to have a back operation. He was driving our green Buick. He got hit by a ton and a half truck with a steel bumper. It did not cut him but his back was bad. We made arrangements for the surgery. We were real nervous about it. Dr. Reichmann had an orthopedic surgeon from Salt Lake that recommended he get the surgery. He went to George P. Miles and got a blessing. All I remember from that blessing was that he said, “You shall return to your work.” Then when he was an invalid for a year it was interesting. He didn't come out of the anesthetic for 4 days. It took 7 weeks for him to get over the fevers. He had fevers of 108 all the time and he got down to 80 some odd pounds. It was from an infection of some kind. He had a big blood tumor on his head. They said that was due to infection. They were going to operate again on his abdomen this time. They said he had an abases between his diaphragm and something else. I finally consented to let them operate on him. I was pregnant with Allen by this time. They said we have opened 8 people with insides like this and 7 of them are dead. I said if he does survive what kind of a prognosis can you give me? They did not want to tell me anything. Maybon Ashby was our bishop. He had gone down with me and was there until after the surgery that evening. Just before he left to come home, I had to take him to the bus, he said Mary Lou he is going to be all right. This Bill Writhen that had asked George to come down there let me come to their house and sleep. They knew I was in such a state. I went there with the understanding that they would call me if he took a turn for the worse. They did not call me. His pancreatic duct had ruptured and the pancreatic enzymes had eaten all of the fatty tissue on the organs. After 7 weeks he got home. While this was going on down there and I was pregnant, and I was quite sick, Wilford kept having Asthmatic pneumonia. The only thing that would help him was steam. Pure steam. He could get air in but he could not get air out. They had to melt the mucus away with this steam. It was about 11 months after that that Evelyn had this weeping enema that we have talked about. She had it on her elbows and her knees and on her wrists. She was just 2 years old. Dr Reichmann did everything! Dr. Vese from primary children's hospital was in town and he looked at it. I remember these little tubes of cream that cost 7 or 8 dollars and they were just terrible. My mother would bind those little joints up and they would never stop weeping. George, was n the living room, we had that three quarter roll away because we had to have a board on it. I remember one day he asked Evelyn if she wanted him to build her a tedar tauter for her. He took her out there and started building her a tedar-tadder. By night time those sores had dried up and she has never had a problem again. That was the first thing he did out of this house. He got a job working at Dixie Feed. He did book work and stuff that he did not have to lift. Then Mr. Barnum wanted his to manage a western auto store and he did that for a year. Then he went back to Dixie and graduated. Loraine said, George you ought to go get your teaching certificate you are such a good teacher. And so that is when he went back to Dixie and finished in May. Then we went right to Provo. We went that summer and all the next year and didn't stop. By the time school started he had his teaching certificate. He came back here to teach. We had an insurance settlement from the people that hit him. We paid all of our bills and we built on the first basement. We had enough to add the two bedrooms and the basement room. We thought we had saved enough to go to school but ended up having to barrow $750.00 more, but we got pretty close. Blanch and Owen Wright lived in our house while we were at school. I belong to the DUP and the Church. I was primary president in Provo and I was primary president when we came home. I have taught MIA and lots of other classes and cub scouts. Most recently I was Relief Society President. I had Allen and got home a day early because I got along so good. During the night I heard this noise and I said George something is wrong with our baby He said it's not the baby it's Wilford. Wilford was in a grand mall seizure. George put him over his shoulder and commanded that he live. That was the day we brought Allen home. Wilford was just 17 months old. A few weeks later he had another seizure. I had him in the sink bathing him. My father was at his house working and I ran to the door and called for him. Because he had had such high fevers with the pneumonia he kept having seizures. If he got too warm he could be put into a seizure. He out grew it. Another time Bruce had the measles and our kids had gotten around him before he broke out. In those days they had gamma globulin shots to make them lighter. One morning David came in and said there is something wrong with Russell. Russell was having a seizure. Dr. Ranchmen felt it was some virus from the measles. I was a teenager it was during world war II. There were a lot of good movies. My friends and I really enjoyed going to a movie. I took some really good literature classes at the college. Linda Snow Paxman was such a good teacher. I took Mythology classes that bits and pieces of that learning has stayed with me through out my life. It has a lasting effect on my life. I had an exceptionally sewing teacher and she taught me the fine art of tailoring and bound button holes. She was very ornery and crotchety to the students but she was especially helpful to me. She would teach me anything and help me. She really taught me a lot. I could go back and do most of what she taught me today. I took one of Evelyn's and Wellford's little wool coats when they were three and four. I turned the wool material around and recut and sewed them for made them for Vicki and Brent. They were the cutest over coats, little dressy coats. I did lot of sewing for the children. I was still sewing most of their stuff when Doris came to live with us. I made Doris a blue creap dress that she looked so pretty when she wore it and wore it and wore it. One Easter we always went some place on a little picnic. It might only be at water cress springs but we always went somewhere on Sat. afternoon. The school always went on Friday. On the forth of July when I was real young we would always go down to the square below the tabernacle on what is now the library and run races and play games. We always looked forward to that. Christmas was always very exciting, we looked forward to it. There were not a lot of gifts and such but a lot of home made clothes, but they were nice gifts. We always had the nativity scene with our own kids like we do now. I knew my grandfather Carter personally. Only for a short time. He died while I was quite young. He lived with my folks a lot of the time. I knew him very well. I knew my mother's father at a distance. He was quite a bit older than my grandmother. He was a very different personality than my Carter grandfather. He was a proud Englishman. We loved to go to his ranch in Gunlock and get fruit. His father died when I was 2 years old. I remember my grandma Bowler very well. It was a real good time in my life raising my kids. We owned our own home and George taught at Woodward and at the high school. He laid brick on the weekends. We had Doris with us by then. She was nine years old when she came. She was born in April and she was born in July. They all went to school with George in the mornings. Russell and Doris did not like to eat school lunch so they would come home. We had a very ideal life. By the time we got George well and Wilford a little better and all it was a good time. In 1958 George started teaching Woodward in the 7th grade. I did part time work at my convenience at the Washington co. court house. I did not go on a regular basis. My father would come here and stay with Russell. After he got in school then I went to work. Evelyn graduated from Dixie college and went directly to University of Utah and finished a BS degree in Medical technology. She married Steve Despain when he came home from his mission and she worked and put him through school. Wilford went to Dixie one year and served a mission in Spain and went right on to BYU and got a BS degree. He tried for medical school and didn't succeed. He went into the jewelry business. Allen didn't go to school before he went on his mission. He went in Nov. as soon as he had his birthday. He served in Oregon, Idaho, and northern Utah. He came back here and served as student body president and went to BYU and didn't quite finish. In May of 1980 he and Russell started the Feller Stone business. At that time they bought a quarry much against my better judgment. As conservative as my mother was she never apposed it in any way. She always wanted to know when they got home no matter what time it was. David served in Germany. He graduated from Dixie and went to SUU and got a BS and went to BYU and got a Doctorate. Russell left in May of 1980. He went to Japan and then came home and joined Allen in the business. Brent was the first one to go on a mission. I remember we went on a Saturday to what is known as lower Sand Cove, between Gunlock and my grandfather's ranch. There was a great big rock. I looked up and there was Brent on that rock and he was meditating. He was thinking about his family and being gone. He was the first one to go on a mission. When Wilford got his mission call Doris was living with us. He was determined that he was going to go to the Indian reservation. He spent the whole time trying to get her to teach him Navajo. He about drove her crazy. She got a little aggravated at him because he kept it up, and kept it up. “Jatahey, Jatahey, Jatahey!” So when he got his call to Spain he was pretty ecstatic. When Wilford was in Spain it was a new mission. Everyone was anxious for Allen to get his call. It was deer season and the boys got up at 4:00 to go deer hunting. The call came and we had to wait until he got back to open his call. His face just dropped. Oregon, My brother is in Spain. George and I decided to serve a mission and we ended up serving three. We waited until I could retire. We got called to Tahiti. We were in the MTC for 9 weeks. I thought I would loose my mind. There is quite a bit about that. I could take the pages out of my journal because it is quite complete. Then President Derek was the mission president in Pennsylvania. He asked the stake president to send him two couples. Bishop Elliott asked us to go. We were called to work in the office. Just before we left they called to change it to Punsitani. Then we came to Virginia to be with Allen while he was mission president and to help with Megan. We did not go to the MTC. We just came out with the dogs. We brought the beagle dogs for the boys. We picked up puppies in Little Rock Arkansas. My mission journals have a complete account about our missions. As recorded by Sheri Feller shortly before Mary Lou died.