I was born December 20, 1904 in Winter Quarters, Utah to James Nielson who was born 18, October, 1860 in Laasby, Skanderborg, Denmark. My mother was Christine Smith born 22 March, 1863 at Fountain Green, Utah. My brothers and sisters were: Ida Marie Nielson, Niels Nielson, May Nielson, James Nielson, Christian Nielson, Joseph Nielson, Jennie Nielson, Caroline Nielson, James Nielson, Ethel Nielson, Martha Nielson, Decinious Nielson, Manila Nielson, and Minnie Nielson. I was blessed and baptized in Winter Quarters and attended school in Scofield, Utah.
I was the 15th child of the family. My mother died with the 16th child, and I was 18 months old at the time. I was raised by my father and my sisters helped. When I was a little girl, my father would put me in a sleigh and put a harness on the dog and I would ride all over town. In the summer he got a little red wagon for me and we went all over. There was a beautiful picture of me with light hair when I was young and I looked like Jalynn. When I was little, I had mumps, measles, and diphtheria. They always had a sign on the house, when anyone in the house had the measles. When I lived in the house in Winter Quarters, I sold the newspaper and became a news girl and sold the San Francisco Examiner. In mothers words, they charged me five cents and only gave me two cents. Then I sold the Grit and it was ten cents and they gave me four cents. I'd go on one side where the rocks were and the other side where the trees were. I'd sell all over town. I thought I was rich making all that money. I got tired of that and started tending children for a butcher and his wife. I got tired of that too.
In MIA, when I was young, we had dances in a big amusement hall. They had dances but the boys wouldn't dance. We had to dance with girls all the time. They had shows on Charley Chaplin, the silent movies. We would go there once a week and have to pay for it. When I was young, I played basketball and you should have seen my bloomers. They were black with elastic on the middle and elastic on the legs. We would go up where there were cattle and get mushrooms. My brother fished and gave us some. I went horse back riding up the hill with Winifred on Joe's horse. Oh, it was so much fun. My father went with us on picnics. He watched me skate. He would say, "Ella quit letting those girls fall on top of you." The first car I rode in was the old Model T Ford with Stanley Harvey. It made me sick as a dog. I have a picture of the school with Millicent when she was visiting us. I was dressed up with a crown on my head and a thing in my hand. I was the Statue of Liberty. Our outdoor toilet had a catalogue in it. We had dreams every time we went to the toilet probably about some of the things you couldn't get at the store. On the 24th of July we went up a big hill to Lee Marsden's. They had a bunch of lambs. The men built a great big platform and put brush on every side of it and they would give popcorn, ice cream and hamburgers free anytime we wanted. The Bishop was sponsoring it and he was the head of the mines. The Bishop's son married Lavern Parmley of Salt Lake. We had the best time. We ran races and made a lot of money, just like we did in Rupert. They played ball, and I like to play ball then. We had fun. When we got hungry again, we went back and had all the food we could eat. I would love to play horseshoe's. My brother, Niels said to me one day, "Ella you take off those overalls or I'll be mad at you and give you a licking". I went home and never liked him so much. I have a picture of me with his daughter, Julia and the big dog.
At Christmas time when I was 12 years old, it was snowing like the dickens in Winter Quarters, Utah. Tomorrow was Christmas and I wanted my Christmas tree. My dad had been to busy to get one. I put on my rubber boots, coat, and hat. I went down the hills, over the road, over the railroad tracks and walked in the water. I went way high in the hills. When I found my Christmas tree, I took my ax and cut it down. I let it roll down the hill. When I got to the water, I pulled it across the water, across the railroad track across the road and up the hill I went. When my father came home, he said, "Ella, your brothers and I could have got the tree". I said, "I don't care: tomorrow is Christmas". He said, "OK". He made a wooden stand and put it up in the room. I made popcorn, colored it pink and put cranberries around it. We put a bundle of tinsel on the tree. Its not like Darlene's. She has the most beautiful tinsel I have ever seen. On the tree, my father put handles all over the tree to put candles in. The candles were red, white, blue, green and orange. That tree was so pretty. He lit the candles and that tree was so gorgeous, much prettier than the trees are today. Lights all over the tree were blazing, blazing, blazing. They were so pretty. My father was so pleased with what I had done. I had made chains of different colors. I made little lanterns and put them all over the tree. I showed Marcie and Gayla how to make them. Underneath the tree were beautiful packages from my brothers. My father sent to Sears for a big bucket of caramels. On top of the bucket was a lid so we could use it. He sent for all kinds of candy: peanut-brittle, orange sticks and old fashioned chocolates. My, how we loved that candy. The next morning it was Christmas and I opened my packages. I got so many beautiful packages from my sisters and brothers. The most beautiful was the Elgin watch my father gave me. I loved it. I really did. I said to my father, I love books better than jewelry. Isn't that silly? I liked to read the Alger books. It was a wonderful Christmas. My brother Ed brought four boxes of caramels and one box of assorted candy. I loved my brothers, Ed and Joe so much better than the others. I was 15 when I started to date. My dad was a good sheepherder cook.
I went to the eighth grade and at the end of the eighth grade I graduated. They gave me something real nice for graduation because I was the head of the class and got all A's. I was valedictorian of the eighth grade. I sang at my graduation but I don't remember what it was I sang. I went to Scofield to school and I walked on the railroad and thought that was really fun. It was about a mile and we went past the hospital. I guess I'll have to tell you about the hospital. It was real tall and had a lot of patients in there and it divided Winter Quarters from Scofield. When I got a little better, the teacher said, "Ella, I'd like you to teach when the teacher can't teach". Another girl and I took turns. I forget her name but I remember she was quite fat but rather pretty. Once the schoolteacher I loved so well died and she was so sweet. The other girl and I had to teach more after this. One time I brought home $12.00 to my dad and he was so proud of me. My dad had the sheriff check on me as I was alone while he was at work as night watchman at the mine.
I had a sled my father gave me and it would go down the hill by the store and before I knew it, I had all the kids on top of me. We laughed all over and had so much fun in the winter. My brother, Joe, would take a sleigh to deliver groceries and I would sit on the running board of his sleigh. He had boys deliver for him and would stop at the store after and give them a big box of candy and me some also. We had a butcher shop run by Joe the Greek. If I wanted anything, he would give it to me for nothing. One day I took my friends up there and he gave us wieners and all kinds of lunch meat that we wanted. He also gave us tripe and I just loved it. You should try it sometime. Oh, he was a good old Greek. One day I went to a Greek wedding way up high above where the mines were and it took about three hours for them to get married and boy it almost makes you sick. They just yim, yum, yum all the time. Finally they took us off to eat and they had all kinds of food you could think of. Now, these Greeks were good eaters and they had so much food there that we ate and were filled to the top. It was fun and I sort of liked the darn old Greeks in Winter Quarters.
When I was still in grade school about the eighth, there were some teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Lisonby. He taught arithmetic and she taught social science. They had one room partitioned off and she taught on one side and he on the other. We had one class with him and then with her. One day he said, "Ella, will you come over to our house and bake a cake?" I made bread, cakes, pudding and everything to last a week. Then I'd go back to school on Monday. He would say again, "Ella, will you go down and make a pie?" It was that way all the time and I cooked and cooked. They moved to Salt Lake and I missed them so much. Mr. Lisonby died and also his little son. I read it in the paper, so, I wrote to her and told her how sorry I was. She wrote back and said there was nothing she could do, and said, "We love you, Ella. You did so much for us", and that is the last time I heard of her.
I wish I could go back to Winter Quarters of yesterdays. After the Harvey Girls went, I started going with two girls, Melva and Elva Hayman. Mr. Hayman was the head of the store and my brother, Joe worked for him. One day he invited me down for dinner and he sat at the head of the table and he had all the food there by him, and his wife sat at the other end. The girls and I sat at the sides. They had napkins and everything: knives, forks and spoons. He said, "Ella, what will you have"? And I said, "Anything you have". He sliced off some meat and served some potatoes and we ate that. He served us some vegetables and we ate that. He said we have the best dessert of ice cream and cake. It was nice to eat at their home because they were so sophisticated. I really liked him and Melva and Elva. One day Melva took me in the top of their house where they had toys for Christmas, and we would look and enjoy their toys where the mother had them all fixed. We were enjoying their Christmas toys when the other sister came home. She opened the door and came up to the attic and saw all the toys. She went and told her mother who was at the store as a secretary to her husband. The mother came there and scolded her but never scolded me. We had a lot of fun going up into the hills where the raspberries were and the lilies. We ate the raspberries.
When I was very young I loved to sing. When I was at church, there was a Mrs. Anderson that discovered that I had a good voice. She asked me to come to her house and she would play the piano and help me learn to sing better. My father was a good singer and he sang for us each night. I wanted to learn to be a good singer, so, I did go to Mrs. Anderson's once a week once a week to learn how to sing. When I went there she would play the piano and help me. I kept on doing this every week of the year until she had me singing pretty good. She would go different places and get places for me to sing. I would sing in public schools, in high school, in different programs the would have in churches and the church. She was very good to me. She taught me many songs. As I grew older, and the years slipped by, she kept teaching me until I could sing pretty good. All my life I have been a soprano solo singer and always loved music. My father was a baritone singer.
Winter Quarters was like Yellowstone Park. In the canyon, where the mines were, on one side of the hill, there were beautiful shrubs, pines, lilies Indian flowers, violets and strawberries. The strawberries were small but they were good. There was a stream of water and a railroad track. We lived on the back side of the mountain. Our home had only three rooms and behind there was a cave. My father owned this home. In one room there was an organ. I think my mother played it. Caroline, my sister, took care of the house. She was bright and taught me how to cook. She could make the best apple pie, bread, cakes, meat and vegetables. She swept the floor so shining white with lye water. We had no carpet. She married John Robertson, a real nice man. He came to work in the mines. They moved away to Spanish Fork, Utah. She braided my hair so tight that it made me cry. She was good otherwise. She wouldn't let my friends come into the house to play. We had to play outside the door. Aunt Martha was a little jealous over me. Father said Martha saved more money for her father than any of the other girls. Caroline would go and charge all kinds of clothing, but Martha wouldn't ask for things. We both wanted cream one day, so, Martha chased me around the heater and I fell on the stove and burned my arm. I cried under the table until my father came home because she wouldn't help me. One day she chased me up the hill with a butcher knife in her hand, but I flew so fast she couldn't get me. I beat it far away and when I got home she had calmed down a bit. I had done something she didn't like. My father made Martha quit school to take care of me. She cried and cried as she didn't want to stop.
After the 10th grade, school stopped at Scofield, so we went to price. We got on a train, Kate Gipson (Gibson), another girl that lived by the store and I. She was my age and so sweet. So, we went one the railroad train. We had lots of fun talking and jabbering. When we got to Price, there was Millicent and she was smiling. She had moved to Price and I had missed her so. She met all of us and she seemed to be the head of the group. She was teaching there and she took us to the dormitories where we would be staying and we got everything free. There was my Winifred and it was so good and I was so happy to see her. Kate Gipson was so jealous because she wanted me by myself. I went up to Winifred and I talked to her and I saw her a lot while I was there. I got some of the best pine nuts that you ever tasted and ate them a lot. In the dorms, we could eat in the kitchen; breakfast, dinner and supper free and nothing to pay for. I met a boy waiting tables. I forgot his name, but I thought he might be the boy for me and I wasn't very old either. He would write me letters and he wrote me about three letters and it faded away. I hated to leave Millicent and Winifred but they lived there now. On the way back we had the most fun eating pine nuts that you'd ever imagine. We jabbered away and jabbered away. When the train came to that big store, we had to get off. We had lots of pine nuts left to take with us. Oh! I do love pine nuts and I wish I had some now. We got off at the bottom of the hill and we had to walk up steps to the big Wasatch Store. Oh! I loved that store. On one side they had the groceries and on the other they had the linens and material to buy. The secretaries were up above and one of them was Mary Parmley, the bishop's daughter. She was the best girl I ever saw, and one day her mother died. She was rather tall but lovely and I went over to the house to see her. It about broke my heart as I sat looking at her. She had been so good to me. The Bishop was quite short and fat with a mustache and almost bald, but he was a good Bishop and missed his wife. They moved away to Salt Lake and I think the Parmley in the Relief Society is a relative of his.
I loved to ice skate and ski. I had a friend named Tarza. I loved her so. She was beautiful. We made hats. Tarza lived across from Aunt May. Between their houses was a well and in the well was buckets. They hung down the buckets and they put milk, buttermilk and things they wanted to keep nice and cool. If you wanted a drink of water, you would did it from the well. Aunt Jen taught me to cook, but Aunt Caroline was a good cook too, and so was Aunt Martha. Aunt Jen taught me how to make cakes from scratch. We made pies out of lard and they made the best pies. Darlene once had a pig and she had a lot of lard. I wonder if she still has it, probably not. Its been a long time. I went to the 11th grade of school.
My father run a farm for his younger brother, Chris (Nelson). Then his wife decided to let her family run it. It made them sad to leave the farm. I had an Uncle Chris (Christian Nelson, Roadmaster for the D&RG Railroad). You should hear about him. He is a famous guy in my life. He was head of the trains. His office was up high in the store. When he would come over he would put me in his arms and love me and give me a book or something. I remember standing on the hill when I had the mumps, waving at the men on the track. When Uncle Chris came they would throw out lumps of coal for us and we would go get it. We had a coal shed full of coal and my father paid $5.00 a ton. There was once a big lump of coal that our Grandfather Nielson and others had brought out of the mine. His name was on it with other names and it was in the Utah State Capitol. Wayne took me there and we asked where it was. They said it disappeared. Maybe someone needed some coal. Well time went on and we decided to move again. I guess I didn't tell you about that. We lived up in a gulch in another house and that was when I was living in a boarding house working. I met a man at this time and he was so good to me. Then I met a man that taught me first aid and I took it from him. One day we went down by the water, where they had frogs in the water. We went on a raft. I was on the raft and Beatrice wanted to get on the raft where I was . She fell on to the raft where I was and we all fell into the frog pond. We were soaked to death and Beatrice was the cause of it.
The night before I told my father that Leslie Boothe was coming to visit me from Burley, Idaho. My Dad said, "If he comes here, I'll kick him out. He doesn't need to come around my daughter." My Father was home and I wondered what he would say when he saw Leslie Boothe. Leslie stood waiting to be introduced to my father. I said, "Papa here is Leslie Boothe. The man I said was coming to visit me." He was very nice to him and didn't try to kick him out. Leslie wanted to get married then, but I wasn't wanting to get married so he went back to the mines. Later, I decided I really did love Leslie Boothe and we got married. My father didn't know about it until I wrote and told him. My sisters stood and witnessed the marriage. We lived right across the street from the Judge, the man who married us. Les paid ten dollars for a wedding ring, and it wasn't the one I wanted. I didn't dare tell him. If I had any sense I would of married him when he had lots of money, and I would have had the diamond, ruby ring. The next morning we were able to go ahead to Winter Quarters. When we saw my father, he cried and cried because I had gotten married.
My father died 11 October, 1925: his name was James Nielson. I called the mine and had Les come home and I cried and cried. I could hardly stand it. Leslie and I took my father back on the train with Melba. We went to Richfield, an ambulance was waiting to take my father to the mortuary. We stayed at Aunt Hanna's house (Anna Johanna Nielsen Brown). Our hospital was operated like this. My father only paid a dollar a month and we got all the medicine and doctor free.
This is a part of a longer story told in Idaho where six children were born to them. The children's names were: Melba Ella, Darlene, Leslie James, Wayne Ronald, Beverly Carole and Maxine Olive.
Leslie Boothe died 20 May, 1968 of a heart attack on the Twin Falls street while taking a walk. Ella Nielson Booth passed away 7 February, 1981 in a Convalescent Center in Ogden, Utah, They had a service for her in Ogden and in Twin Falls. Buried in Twin Falls.
This story was donated byGene Halvorson if you are interested in more information about this family please contact him.
Written in 1957 by Ena Gudmundson Carrick as she told it to Shirley Ann Marchbanks Harris, a granddaughter. My age at writing his story is 82 ½ years and I am enjoying good health and a sound mind.
I was born on the 29th day of December 1874 on a little island just off the coast of Iceland called Vestmannaeyja, Iceland. My father was a ship’s pilot. He worked on the coast going out to the ships and checking whether they had any disease aboard before he would permit the ships to come into the dock. In order to do this work, he learned seven different languages in order that he could converse with the ships from the different countries. Sometimes when the weather was too bad to bring the ships in he would stay out for two or three days.
I was born in a two-story house which had two large rooms downstairs and a pantry and three bedrooms on the second floor. My mother always had good things in the pantry and I well remember this particular room.
My sister Becky and I used to bring fish from the docks on a flat board which we carried. We used to do this to help out the family. Mother and Father would salt them down and keep them over the winter to cure. They would take them out and scrub them and lay them out to dry. When this process was finished they would take them to the market and sell them. My father took care of these fish along with his job on the ship docks.
At this time, my sister, Lula, Hannah, and Tilda, who were older than I, worked away from doing housework in other people’s homes. My brother, Simund, who was the oldest in the family, lived at home as well as Becky, myself and two smaller sisters Nona and Mary. While my brother was in Iceland, he used to go out on boats and bring in fish. My mother at this time kept house for this large family.
When I was about 9 or 10 years old, my folks send me to a private school where I learned to read and write in the Iceland language. The man who taught me was cripple and when I used to write with my left hand he would beat me to make me use my right hand. I studied under this man for about a year.
The Latter-Day Saints Missionaries came to our house when I was about 10 or 11 years old. About a year after the missionaries came my Mother and Father were baptized members of the church. It was soon after this that they decided to come to America.
The trip to America took a lot of thought and effort on the part of the family to get enough money together to come. In order to raise part of this money, they sold their home which also had a nice garden spot and was one of the of the nicest places around. My father and mother, my only brother, and my three youngest sister were the first to make the trip. They came in approximately the year 1886 in the Spring.
At this time, myself and my three older sisters were left behind to do the housework in various peoples homes to earn our board and keep. The people who I lived with had a big store to take care of. They had a family of five boys and one girl. They employed three older women to help with their work. My particular job was to run errands. They were very good to me while I lived with them. At this time I was able to visit with my older sisters.
About a year after my father came to America, he send money for me to come to America. At that time there was a family by the name of Johnson who were going to this country and I was allowed to come along with them, they would look after me some, but I was more or less on my own. (This family later had a boy who was born in Spanish Fork by the name of Mark Johnson, and another son Will Johnson who worked in the Courthouse in Provo.)
The first day out on the Ocean, I was overcome by a dreadful case of seasickness. I had to look out for myself pretty much. It took our ship a week to come to Liverpool, England. We stayed at Liverpool for about a day and one half and then were able to get another ship which took 15 ½ days to get to New York, America. We then took a train which brought us to Salt Lake City, Utah. Then we took a train on to Spanish Fork where the Johnson’s took me to see my folks. A year later my three older sisters came. When we all were here we were baptized members of the Church in the Spanish Fork River.
At this time I stayed with my family for a week, but due to the expense I went to work for my board and keep with a family who promised to send me to school. I got very little school however, as this family was always finding reasons for keeping me home to do various tasks and take care of their home. I stayed with these people about a year and then went to work for a family by the name of Jones who had 14 in the family including me. While I was working there, Mr. Jones was a farmer and owned one of the largest farms in the town. Mrs. Jones was a very particular women in regards to her housekeeping and during the year and a half that I worked there I worked very hard. The floors were just wood and we had to keep them scrubbed snowwhite. We used to wash in the mornings from about 9 in the morning until about 10 o’clock at night, scrubbing the clothes on the board and cleaning them so they would look white on the line. With this big family we used to have to scour the tableware with brick every morning to be able to set a good table. Her husband, however, did all the mixing of the bread. For this hard work, I used to get $1.50 a week and out of this I had to buy clothing. The money I was paid with was called script and I could only spend it at certain stores.
One day while I was working here, I was sweeping the yard which had no grass but I raised a little dust and she got after me. At this time I was so fed up with her constantly being after me to do everything just so that I threw the broom down and said I was quitting.
After quitting my job at Mrs. Jones, I went to work in the shoe shop where I worked with anther girl, putting buttons on the shoes and making eyelet’s and sewed the whole top part of the shoe. We did both mens and womens shoes, but the men working there put the soles on the shoes. At this place I got Saturdays off and was paid $2 per week. At this time Mrs. Jones sent for me to come and bathe the children on Saturdays and black her stove, for this she used to pay me a dollar for the day, she was so glad to have me come back to do her stove for her.
I worked in the shoe shop for about two years and at this time I was able to attend Mutual and go out for an evening and stayed at my mother’s home. I then went to Scofield where I worked in a Boarding house, but did not stay there very long as the work was very hard. So I went back to Springville and went to work for a lady by the name of Mrs. Deal, worked for her about six months. I then went to Price, Utah on the train and from Price we went by Stagecoach to Nine-Mile, where I worked for a man by the name of Ed Lee who was an Uncle to J. Bracken Lee. He would tease me and give me a bad time. We worked very hard cooking for the officers who came in from Fort Duschene. There were also Negros who we had to cook for and many people from all over who traveled though Nine-Mile until I was about 20 years old and then I went back to Scofield, Utah and worked again in a boarding house. It was at this time I met Jack Carrick, the man I was to marry.
He had decided he was going to marry me before he had even met me. My sister Becky was working at Winter Quarters and had showed my picture to Jack and he told her he was going to marry me. It was just after I met him that we started to go together and about six months later we got married. We were married at Winter Quarters, Utah by Bishop Thomas J. Parmley (Jack’s sister’s husband). He also blessed all of our children except Hannah. At this time Jack was working in the mine and making $1.75 for a ten-hour day. We rented a place for about six months after we were married and paid $5.00 a month rent.
Then one of the miners, who had a nice home, he stole some explosives and was fired from the mine. He was pressed to sell the house where he lived which I had wanted to buy, so I went to a boarder of one of my sister’s who was also a good friend and asked to borrow money to buy the house. They wanted $130.00 for the house and he let me have the money and after two months we were able to pay him back what we had borrowed and the house was ours. The ground was not ours, however, as it was owned by the mining company. This house was a three room home, with enough lumber to build an other room. It was in this home that my children Isabell, Little Johnny and Helen were born. When Helen was two years old the mining company wanted the ground back so they gave us enough lumber to build on more of their ground. We had enough lumber to build a 4 room house with a pantry. Little Johnny was born in the second home, he died when he was four months old.
In the year 1900, There was a terrible explosion at the mine in Winter Quarters. There were 200 men killed in this explosion. At this time Jack was working night shift at the mine and the explosion occurred at 10 o’clock in the morning, which was fortunate for us. There both fathers and sons killed in this explosion. Some of the boys were as young as 15 years of age.
In about the year 1903, we sold our home and all our furnishings and went to Canada. At this time my sister None and her husband Leo Harmer were already in Canada homesteading. We left Winter Quarters and traveled to Salt Lake City, where we stayed with or the home of Williams. Helen, at this time was very sick and the doctor had given her no hope to live. At this time Mr. Robert Williams administered to Helen and blessed her with health and strength that she would get well and someday go through the Salt Lake Temple. At this time she is my only child to be married in the Salt Lake Temple.
When the quarantine was lifted in July, we continued on our way and went to Raymond, Alberta, Canada and stayed at this place for a year where we farmed with Leo and None. The following year we went to Taber, Alberta where we took up a homestead. At this time we had a cow and a team of horses and took care of 150 acres. It was while we were in Taber that Hannah was born. About three weeks before she was to be born in March, I went by wagon to stay at my sister Lula’s in Raymond where Hannah was born. When she was about two weeks old I went back again by wagon to Taber. I took my three other children with me at this time.
When they were plowing and clearing the land to plow, they had burned some brush to clear the field but the fire jumped the furrows and started a prairie fire, which took about a day and a half to put this fire out with many men working all night to stop it. It soon burned itself out after it reached the river.
Jack was a good surveyor and at this time he surveyed a coal mine for a mining company which turned out to be one of the biggest coal mines in Taber. They struck a vein of coal four feet wide. We worked hard on the farm at this time getting very little money for our efforts.
We stayed in Taber for about four years and at this time decided to return to Winter Quarters and we bought us a nice home here on the company ground. While we were in Winter Quarters, my children Florence, little Joe and Bill were was born. Little Joe lived to be a year and a half and died of what was known as inflammati on of the bowels. It was while we lived here that I lived neighbors to Mrs. Tally Evans, who was a very good neighbor to me. And we had many good times together with our children. We lived in Winter Quarters for about five years and we then moved to Mapleton, Utah where we bought another home and ground and lived for many years, even after Jack passed away December 25, 1941. We moved to Mapleton mainly because Jack did not want to raise our children in a mining camp. So our children were mostly raised in Mapleton where they all married. Jack stayed in Winter Quarters and worked until the mines were closed down. He boarded at Winter Quarters and came home on weekends when he could.
At this time work was quite scarce as the depression was on so he did odd jobs when he could. At this time I started to go out into peoples’ homes and take care of women who were confined after childbirth. Isabel, Helen, Tom, Hannah, Florence and Bill were all married at this time. I went into a good many homes doing this work and there was plenty of work of this kind. I also went into the homes of all my children and cared for their children when they were born. I helped bring about 225 children into the world during these few years.
About this time my older boy Tom disappeared from home which made us all feel very bad. We never heard from him from that time nor were we able to find out what happened to him. It was on Christmas Day, December 1941, that my husband Jack passed away. It was very sudden as he had never been right down from any illness, but he had not felt too good for sometime. This was a great loss to me. Being in good health myself I continued to go out on nursing cases until I reached the age of 65. It was about this time I took out my citizenship papers and became a naturalized citizen of the United States having been a Canadian citizen. I continued to lived in my home and do my housework until the year 1952 or 53 when I took an apartment in Springville. My home at this time had no plumbing on the inside and was heated by coal heat which made it a job in the winter months to keep pipes from freezing and to keep the home comfortable. This was my main reason for taking an apartment. The past few years I have lived alone visiting my children at times. I enjoy very much T.V.
Grandma Carrick continued to live in Springville until she decided she needed to be with someone. She went to a Rest Valley View at 317 South 400 East. Here due to a fall she began and did not enjoy very good health from then until her death. Was preceded in death by her youngest son just the year before and had 27 grandchildren and 66 great grandchildren and at least 5 great great grandchildren. This was retype by Kip Peterson a great great grandson to be put on the web pages. If anyone as any facts and dates, I would be very happy to add the info and if anyone has account of Jack Carrick feel free to send it to me, so I can add his stories. I was very proud to retype this stories. We surely had one wonderful Grandmother. My Mother was Isabell Carrick Nielson daughter her name was Laverne Nielson Peterson.
This story was donated by Kip Peterson.
Jim Nielson was born at Richfield, Utah on April 22, 1892. Another of Stena and James Nielson’s sons was named James when he was born on February 24, 1885, but he died when he was four years old. The James Nielson of this sketch had made it to age eight and maybe finished two years of school when the family left Richfield for their two-year residence in Spring Glen in the coal country. It seems likely that Jim was allowed to continue in school at Spring Glen, although some of the Nielson boy had to quit school early to help support the family. He was ten years old when, in 1902, the Nielsons left Richfield a second time and moved to Winter Quarters. Jim worked in the coalmines, but I have no information about how early he started. It is known that young boys were in the mines at Winter Quarters helping their fathers with the actual mining, or doing odd jobs. As Jim grew up, at some point he joined his brothers Ed and Joe in their recreational activity which is often mentioned in family stories, visiting the saloons of the mining town. These three brothers learned to like fighting and would look for chances to get in fights in the saloons. When Jim was 20 years old, he married 17-year-old Isabelle Carrick.
Isabelle Carrick was born on October 27, 1895, at Winter Quarters, Utah. Her paternal grandparents, Jacob Carrick and Mary Ann Scott, were born in England in 1818 and 1827, and they both died there. Three of the seven children, Mary Ann, Jacob, and James, immigrated to Utah separately. The first one to immigrate was Mary Ann Carrick who left Liverpool on the Guion Line’s steamship Arizona on November 1, 1884, and arrived in New York on November 11, 1884, with 163 Mormon converts and returning missionaries. Mary Ann Carrick was married at Logan, Utah on March 25, 1885, to Thomas Jennison Parmley, an English coal miner. Thomas J Parmley was born in Durham, England in 1855, and immigrated to the United States as a single man on the Guion Line’s steamship Wyoming leaving Liverpool on May 12, 1881, and arriving at New York on June 1, 1881. He became superintendent of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company mines at Winter Quarters in 1888, about ten years after the mines were opened up and taught English coal mining methods to the Utah miners. He also became Bishop of the L.D.S. Church ward at Winter Quarters, and was both bishop and mine superintendent for 32 years, until about 1920. Mary Ann Carrick Parmley died on July 13, 1919, and Ella Nielson remembered the day she died and that afterward she went to visit Mary Ann’s daughter, Mary Parmley.
The second one of the Carrick family to immigrate was Jacob, Isabelle Carrick uncle, who came on the Wisconsin in 1888, leaving Liverpool October 20, and arriving New York October 30, 1888, with 125 Mormon convert and missionaries. Isabelle Carrick’s father, John James Carrick, who was born March 4, 1869, and was a plumber, sailed from Liverpool on the Guion steamship Wisconsin on October 5, 1889, arrived in New York on October 17, 1889. John, who was 22 years old shared the voyage and the rail trip to Utah with 142 Mormon converts and missionaries. His destination, as noted on the passenger list of the Wisconsin, was Pleasant Valley where he was to be involved with coal mining at Winter Quarters, John James was married in Winter Quarters in 1895 to Isabelle’s mother, Ingveldur Gudmundson.
Isabelle Carrick’s maternal grandparents, Gudmund and Johanna Gudmuondson, were born in Iceland in 1842 and 1841. All of their eleven children were born in Iceland and several of them immigrated to Utah about 1889 and settled in the Spanish Fork area. Their sixth child, daughter Ingveldur, was born in Iceland in 1874, and was married to John James Carrick on April 26, 1895, at Winter Quarters. John James and Ingveldur had ten children at Winter Quarters during the period 1895, when Isabelle was born, to 1916. John James Carrick may have been a coal miner, but since his sister Mary Ann was married to the mine superintendent, he may have had a job that was better than working in the mines.
Jim Nielson and Isabelle Carrick had ample opportunity to get acquainted, through church and other activities, and they were married on September 28, 1912 at Price, the county seat of Carbon County. They no doubt went to Price on the train - otherwise they would have had a 40 - mile trip by buggy on a dirt road. There was still a lot of family interaction at Winter Quarters at that time. Both Ed and Joe Nielson were married and raising families, and for a number of years the three families would have periodic get-togethers at one of their houses in turn. It has been written that these visits often ended up with a fight among the three brothers, and damage was done to the house and fixtures. Niels and his family was still there, and their father James was still at Winter Quarters living with Ella and Martha. Caroline and her husband were also still there, but May and Jennie was gone. Niels left for good in 1916.
Jim and Isabelle’s first child was born in Winter Quarters on November 8, 1913. They were still in Carbon County, possibly at Winter Quarters, when two children died as infants in November 1914, and December 1918. They may been at Eureka for a few years, where Jim would have been a silver miner, before moving to West Hiawatha, another coal mining town a few miles southwest of Price. LaVerne was born in 1921 in West Hiawatha, and they were also there for the birth of Lee Earl in 1924 and Betty Lou in 1928. They were at nearby Mohrland when Arthur was born in 1930, Norma Jean was born in 1932, and Thomas Hugh was born in 1936. Jim no doubt went to West Hiawatha and Morhrland to mine coal.
In 1945 when his sister Jennie died, her obituary stated that Jim was living in Hiawatha, and he may have lived and worked there until he retired from mining or other work. Isabelle died in Salt Lake City on December 16, 1967, at the age of 72. Jim died in Salt Lake City on January 30, 1971, at the age of 79.
James Niels Nielson-Born Nov 8, 1913 at Winter Quarters; married Rena K. Brandel, Jun 18, 1938
Baby Girl Nielson-Born Nov 12, 1914 at Pleasant Valley; Died Dec 6, 1914
Baby Boy Nielson-Born Dec 31, 1918 at Pleasant Valley; Died Dec 31, 1918
LaVerne Nielson-Born May 1, 1921 at West Hiawatha; married Feno Peterson on Feb 8, 1941
Lee Earl Nielson-Born March 20, 1924 at West Hiawatha; married June Wallace on June 25, 1946
Betty Lou Nielson-Born June 28, 1928 at West Hiawatha; married Clyde R. Buckley Aug 10, 1943
Arthur Mack Nielson-Born Sep 30, 1930 at Mohrland; married Frances E. Egan, May 14, 1953
Norma Jean Nielson-Born Oct 8, 1932 at Mohrland; married Melvin J. Bacon Aug 2, 1957
Thomas Hugh Nielson-Born Nov 26, 1936 at Mohrland; married Clone E. Walters, Sept 3, 1961
This story was donated by Kip Peterson.
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