Dora Isabell Thompson Epps (The Ninth child of Edmund Albert and Ida Mae Smith Thompson)

My mother Ida Mae Smith Thompson was born January 21, 1892, in Pahreah, Utah. She was the third child in a family of 15.

I don't recall a lot of things my mother told me of her younger years, but here are a few I do remember. As a young girl they moved between Southern Utah and Flag Staff Arizona, because of the Manifesto. My Grandfather Smith had two wives. Mother told me he said if ether of his wives wanted to leave him, they could do so, but he was not going to give either of them up.

Mother told me as a young lady, her sister Martha who was just older than her would wear her shoes out, then she would coax my mother to let her wear her shoes to the dances.

I think John Dee Lee was some kind of an outlaw. I believe he robbed stages; any way I can remember my mother saying ; " His daughters would come to the dances wearing these fancy dresses with bullet holes in them".

My parents were married 14, October 1902, in St. Anthony, Idaho. Mother said that one time she and my dad went to some kind of show where a man with a trained monkey was on the program. The man told the Monkey to go down into the audience and put his arms around the most beautiful lady in the audience. He picked my mom and climbed up in her lap and put his arms around her neck. She said my Dad got real upset over that.

My dad always told me my mom was the prettiest of all the Smith girls. I had to agree with him. My two oldest brothers were born in Idaho, then my parents moved back to Escalante, Utah. Where they later had six more children, then they moved to Boulder, Utah where I was born. When I was 2 yrs old my family moved to Delta, Utah, where my youngest brother was born. I remember when we were in Delta, my mother would go stay with women when they had a new baby. In those days a woman had to stay in bed for at least 10 days, and my mother would take care of them and their new baby. My sister Velma would take care of Jim and I. I can remember I would get so lonesome for her.

We moved from Delta to Rupert, Idaho. From there we moved back to Utah. During the depression we often picked fruit. Then they would let us pick the fruit off the ground and we would take it home and can it. My mom was a hard worker and was always willing to help. She was well liked by all her nieces and nephews. She passed away October 9, 1955 in Ogden, Utah and is buried in the Escalante Cemetery.

Mary Lee Richan Reeder (2nd Child of Edgar Ray Richan and Velma Thompson)

Grandpa loved to sing, he would sing to me different songs I had never heard before. He called at the square dances in Henrieville. When they went dancing, they would bring there babies and put them to sleep behind the band, and dance all night.

Some times dad would take mom and the kids to see Grandma and Grandpa early in the morning, and we would spend the whole day, and Grandma would make us biscuits and jam. I loved Grandma's biscuits. When Grandma and Grandpa lived in the "C C" camp we loved to go fishing and play in the old houses in the camp. Grandma had a little round table with a small shelf underneath it. Grandma put books on the small shelf. I would take the books off and put them on the floor and sit on the shelf. One time one of our cousins tried to get me off the table, Grandpa said, "leave her alone, that's her table." I got that table when my mother died.

Grandma Thompson was special, she made us all kinds of things. I enjoyed going to her place. Barbara stayed there a lot, Grandma called Barbara her daughter, and she claimed her. Dad loved to tease Grandma, he would tie her apron strings to the chair she was sitting on, and when she tried to get up, the chair would come with her, she would then say, "damn you Ed."

Irene Richan Wilson (3rd Child of Edgar Ray Richan and Velma Thompson)

Grandma loved to have her hair combed. She would fall asleep when we combed it. When Grandpa died, Mom was doing the wash and she turned around and saw Grandpa sitting on the high chair, that's when she knew he had died. I liked to ride in Grandpa's car with the rumble seat.

Myrtle Richan Mangum (4th Child of Edgar Ray Richan and Velma Thompson)

I loved to stay over at Grandma Thompson's and sleep in her nice fresh sheets. Oh, I liked to sleep in her bed. Grandpa sang songs to us like; "Down by the Garden Gate". They always said the blessing on the food, and when Grandpa was alive they kneeled by their chairs when the blessing was said. We loved to stay with Grandpa and Grandma. When they lived at the "C C" camp in Huntsville, we like to play house on the foundations of the old buildings that had been torn down. We loved to go fishing at Pine View Dam, it was all most in Grandpa's back yard.

Barbara Richan Harris (5th Child of Edgar Ray Richan and Velma Thompson)

The day that I was born my dad wanted a boy, after having four girls it was time for a boy. He told Grandma Thompson, "If this is a girl you can have her". From then on Grandma always said I was her girl. Grandma Thompson was a beautiful, kind, and loving person. She taught me many things; patience, how to crochet, how to sew little pieces of cloth circles together to make pillows, quilts and dolls.

Grandma and Grandpa helped me gain a testimony of the Church, and to have a love of family. I know they loved each other and they loved their family. Grandpa and Grandma were very hard working people, and were very clean. If you ever put your hands in any thing Grandma was cooking, you would get it. She was a very good cook and I loved her raisin filled cookies. In their later years Grandma would cook eggs and one of them would eat the white of the egg and the other would eat the yoke. I do not know who ate what or why, or if that's the way they liked it, or if for some reason they had to eat the eggs that way.

Just before Grandpa died he would set in the living room and look at uncle Jim's and Uncle Dillard's pictures. Grandma was a very neat and clean person. She liked to have things straight and would get a little perturbed when Grandpa would turn those pictures around to his chair and stare at them. She did not know at the time he was longing to see them before he died. Grandpa was a good, kind, and righteous man.

Grandma could tell you if the baby you were going to have would be a girl or a boy, long before it was born. With my first child she told me I was going to have a girl, and I told her, no grandma, the doctor said the heart beat sounded like a boy. Grandma said that the doctors are wrong. Grandma made her grandchildren crocheted sweaters for their babies. I told her I wanted a blue one for a boy, and she told me , I'll make you a white one with blue trim because you are going to have a girl. I got the white one with blue trim and I had a girl. With my second baby, we went through the same thing and this time she made me a yellow sweater for a girl. I never did figure out how she knew the sex of a child before it was born.

Grandma and aunt Dora always seemed to be there when I needed them. When my first child was about to be born, Grandma was living with Aunt Dora in Washington Terrace. I think we got them out of bed, but they set up with us until we decided I needed to go to the hospital.

When Grandma died, Mom called me to tell me she was dead and I did not believe her. I knew she was sick but I just could not believe she was dead until I saw her in her casket.

My second child was born October 1955, right after Grandma died. We named her Ida Mae after Grandma.

Albert Ray Richan (6th Child of Edgar Ray Richan and Velma Thompson)

Grandma taught me how to drink Tea. I remember that once I was left at Grandma's, I was very happy about that but soon mom and dad realized I was not in the car and they came back for me.

Carolyn Richan Carter (7th Child of Edgar Ray Richan and Velma Thompson)

I remember when we went on a trip to Escalante and Boulder with mom and dad. Mom showed us the house were she lived. She told us when Grandma and Grandpa Thompson went to the Temple, the whole town went with them. They would take their family and go over the mountains to the Manti Temple. One time on the way back Indians stopped them, Grandpa told his family to set still and don't move. The Indians searched their wagons for food and then left them unharmed.

Thora Ann Richan Slater (8th Child of Edgar Ray Richan and Velma Thompson)

I remember Grandma as a very elegant and gracious lady. I loved her beautiful white hair, and she loved to have me comb it. I would ask her, "is that OK", she would always say "yes". I also remember her classy hats.

Grandma crocheted me a dress when I was a little girl. It is green and white. I still have it and have put it in a frame to keep it and pass it down to my children.

Lois Mae Richan Dunn (10th Child of Edgar Ray Richan and Velma Thompson)

I was a flower girl at Grandma Thompson's Funeral, and my brother George was a pallbearer. Gail Epps was also a flower girl. We stayed at Uncle Bart's house. I slept on the floor in the same room with Mom, Dad and George slept on the floor in the same room were Grandma's body was. The next morning before the funeral started, George said, "I kept waking up and saying that Grandma was trying to get me". He had a lot of stories to tell about that night with Grandma, and made every body laugh.

We went to Escalante each year to decorate the grave. We had to clean the tumble weeds off. I was walking along and fell into a gophers hole and thought that the people in the graves were coming to get me, and I started screaming.

I don't remember anything about Grandpa Thompson, he died the same year that I was born. As I looked at Grandpa's picture I felt he was a very kind man, and I wished I had known him.

The thing I remember about Grandma is that one day I came home from school, Grandmother was mixing bread, I loved bread dough and although I knew better, I reached up in the pan to get some dough and grandma slapped the back of my hand. The slap did not hurt, but it broke my heart to think that Grandma would slap me. On the property were we lived in Hooper, there was some old sheds and we were not aloud in the basements of the sheds because there was so much broken glass down there. After Grandma slapped me I ran out into the basement of the sheds and cried, so no one would know Grandma had broken my heart.

I did think Grandma was a very beautiful lady.

E. Dorrene Thompson Jensen (2nd child of Ira Edmund and Velma Olive Briggs Thompson)

I can't remember very much of my Grandmother as we were growing up. She lived in Utah and we lived in Idaho. She came for visits. I remember she had pretty hair and loved to have it combed. She crocheted beautifully. She crocheted me a beautiful set of doilies for my hope chest.

I remember Grandma saying that she would never eat rabbit, so on her next visit mom fixed rabbit. I don't know how she got Grandma to eat it, but after the meal, she was told that she had just ate rabbit. After that she would request rabbit when ever she came to visit.

When I was eight or nine years old, I spent a few days with my Grandparents. They lived in Ogden in an upstairs apartment. This was during World War II. A family of Japanese lived in the apartment below and Grandma worried about my playing with the Japanese children.

I remember one evening we went to the skating rink with aunt Dora to watch her skate. She was really good at figure skating.

I remember Grandma best after 1951. She was unable to come to my wedding, so Darrel and I went to see her. She was living in Henrieville, Utah at that time. She had a real love for Henrieville. I remember asking why she or any one would like living out in the sticks. Grandma got a little upset over that statement. You had to go to Panguitch if you wanted to go out for the evening; whether it be for a show, dinner, or if you needed a doctor or a bus.

When it came time for us to return home to Ogden, Grandma asked if we could drop her off at the bus station in Panguitch so she could get a bus to Ogden so that she could go stay with her daughter Dora. We convinced her to travel back with us. It was a fun trip. We stopped for the night in St. George. We then talked Grandma in to going to the movie with us. We discovered that Grandma really enjoyed Westerns.

Grandma Ida Mae Smith Thompson made her home in Ogden again from that time until her death, 7 October 1955.

We had some wonderful visits and dinners with her, and she was there for the blessings of my first three children. It was so very special.

Dora Isabelle Thompson Bright (5th child of Ira Edmund and Velma Olive Briggs Thompson)

I don't remember much about Grandma Thompson because we never saw that much of her, or as a kid I was more interested in playing with my cousins when we made it to Utah, instead of Grandma. I do remember when I was quite small, around 8 or 9 years of age, her teaching me to knit using a pair of "Spike" nails and some string. I have a set of pillowcases that she crocheted the lace on, that are absolutely gorgeous and pink.

I recall that once we went to Utah to see her and Ellis wouldn't come into the house to eat, because she said he had to give her a kiss first. I promised my self that I would never do that to my grandchildren.

As I got older I do remember a sweet, quiet woman and when she came to visit us in Bhul, Idaho, she had me pin up her hair. I was really surprised to find that she had black roots under her gray on the back.

I wished I could have known her and grandpa better, but in those days it was a long trip to Utah and Dad had very little money and lots of kids to feed and clothe.

Rosalee Thompson Riddle (4th and youngest child of Earl Smith Thompson and Leora Larsen)

Ida Mae Smith Thompson is my grandmother on my Dads side. He was her sixth child. I don't remember grandma at all, only by pictures, but what I am about to write I am being told it by my mother.

I was only 2 years old when she passed-away. She would come and stay with Mom and Dad. She would sit and rock me in the rocking chair hour after hour when I did not feel well. She would come and visit us a lot. When she visited she would hold and rock me.

We did not have a lot of time together so there wasn't much she could teach me or do with me because I was too small. I guess this is all because that is all mom can remember that I did with her. I sure wish I could have had sometime with her and remember her.

Elizabeth Thompson Miller, (1st child of Lorias (Tommy) Elmo Thompson and Blanche Welch)

I can recall a few things about grandma, but not much because I was six years old when she died.

I remember going to American Falls, Idaho with my dad to get some of grandma's furniture and belongings from a garage of my dad's ex-wife's house to move grandma to Ogden, Utah.

Many times when we visited Grandma at her home in Ogden I can remember how much I liked her red telephone she had, and I always admired her little tea-pot she had on her kitchen table.

On the day she died my mother had gone to the hospital to bring grandma home. My mother left grandma's room to get a nurse to get a wheelchair to take Grandma home. When they returned to the room Grandma had passed away. I remember attending her service in Ogden and crying. My parents left me with friends while they took Grandma back to Escalante to be buried.