Washington Arthur LEMMON

                   Historical information included in notes.


Bertha Merinda THURMAN
Life Story of Bertha Marinda Thurman Lemmon BeutlerNotes give to Ruth Lemmon
Born: 7 March 1887 to Edward Moroni Thurman and Lavina Samantha GriffithBlessed: 5 May 1887Baptized: 7 March 1895Married: Washington Arthur Lemmon 8 Sept. 1909 and later A.W. Beutler 17 Aug. 1929.Died: 6 July 1955I was born in Hyde Park, Cache, Utah. We moved to Star Valley, Grover, Lincoln, Wyoming when I was two years old. My parents homesteaded a place. I went to school in Grover in a log cabin. I was seventeen years old when my parents built a new home on the highway. We lived on Willow Creek in the summer. We made cheese and had a dairy. We were bothered by a big bear that ate the cheese and cream from the vats. He also opened the door into the cheese room. Men were hired to help with the problem and the bear was shot.Later my sister Nellie and I made bear tracks around the cheese and on the door by putting our hands in the mud. For a while it made quite a bit of excitement, but we had to confess there was really no bear before the men were called to help again. Mother (Lavina) had two living children and one had passed on at about two and a half years, when my Father took on another wife in polygamy. Her name was Fernina Besella Stewart. She became the mother of six, Charles, Camarah, Ray, Matilda, Nellie, and Marion. Then she passed on leaving the task of raising these small children to Mother. We grew up as one family, there was always harmony and love. It seemed as though we pared off into couples to form very close friendships. My partner was Nellie. We were always together.Mother had twelve children of her own. She raised nineteen children, Minies six children and her own and one grandchild, Lavina Hepworth, Camarah's child.I helped and worked out of the home from the time I was old enough until I married. Although Father was a school teacher we were unable to afford much formal schooling. I worked in Freedom, Grover, Etna, Montpelier, and Hagerman. I did mostly housework. When I was seventeen years old I had a bad spell of rheumatism. For weeks I had to be turned, and would scream if any came near my bed the pain was so bad. The following year I went to Blackfoot to work to see if the change of climate would help. I worked in Etna the following summer then went back to Blackfoot with my sister Mary and her family.It took five days to go to Montpelier. We tipped over in the creek and the load came on us. We were not hurt badly but frightened. After I returned home Mother, Katie and Hattie went down to Mary's and I kept house for the family.On 8 September 1909, I married Washington Arthur Lemmon at Pocatello, Idaho. We went on our honey moon to Seattle, Washington and to the World's Fair. It was the Yukon and Alaska Exposition. We spent one month there, one in Portland, Oregon, and the rest of the three months in Utah. We returned to Auburn, Lincoln, Wyoming and made our home there.Arthur and four thousand dollars in the bank when we went to bet married. He was a good provider and manager. We always drove the best horses and had one of the first cars.The day we were married Arthur bought seventy-five head of horses in Pocatello. They were sent home and after we returned we lived on the ranch and Arthur broke the horses and sold them. We owned and deed cattle also. We homesteaded six hundred acres of land north of Grover, Wyoming, and bought a ten room house in Grover. We did much traveling back and forth and finally sold the home in Grover and settled in Auburn, 1919. We had a hard time traveling to our dry farm because of the deep snow.Lyle had his little finger cut off int he hay rake when he was four years old. Claud Lemmon lived with us part of the time. We owned one of the first cars in Star Valley in 1913 an Overland. We took a trip into the Unitah Basin looking for a place to move but didn't find anything to suit us so we returned to Auburn. Arthur never was satisfied with Star Valley. We took a trip every summer.In 1918, Arthur went to Blackfoot with his horses because our crops failed us the summer before. We bought a dapple grey stallion with $500.00 he inherited from an Aunt. The house laid down and
died. I bought hay from John Anderson for $50.00 a ton for the stallion and some on stole it. This went on while he was herding horses in Blackfoot.Our children went to school in Auburn. We ran sheep on the dry farm at Grover. In 1923 Arthur jumped off the barn and broke his leg. He was laid up all winter. He went to Pocatello, Idaho, to the St. Anthony Hospital and was operated on for appendicitis which had bothered him for a long time. The first operation was unsuccessful and the following week they operated him again. He died the next morning. His intestines were paralyzed and black. He died on 17 November 1924 and was buried in Mendon, Cache, Utah the 20 November 1924. Our trip home was terrible. We were two days coming form Montpelier.I lived in Auburn two years and had two miserable years. The man who stayed and worked for me was Dick Simpson. Matthew and Hattie, my sister and family lived with us in part of the house. I bought a house in Afton, Wyoming and moved there 2 September 1926. I married A.W. Beutler on 17 August 1929. He ran the ranch for a few years then built a shop and did blacksmith work. The place was probated at Auburn and Glenna and Lyle got the ranch.