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Welcome Chapman Sr. Born to Benjamin Chapman & Sibyl Amidon July 4, 1805 at Reedsborough Bennington Co Vt. Merried Susan Amelia Risley of Madison Co, N.Y. She was born 24 Aug. 1807. In her youth the country was not thickly settled where they lived & bears would come & kill young pigs out of the pens to eat. Welcome was a cooper making barrels for the people. When they heard of the Vision of Joseph Smith they believed the Lord had manifest himself to Joseph. He (Welcome) was ridiculed by his brother & friends so he went horseback to Joseph Smith & found out for himself that it was true. Then returned for his wife & they stayed with the Mormons & went through all the perilous trials of the Saints. At one time when Welcome was on guard at Nauvoo the mob came to Susan Amelia & told her to move her household goods out of the house because they were going to burn it. With a sad heart she got everything out while they looked on. She couldn't get the cupboard out & said so. One of the men took it out for her & she & her children sat on their household goods with sad hearts & watched their home burn. Welcome guarded the prophet when he was in danger & when they were driven out of the beautiful City of Nauvoo, their wagons being overloaded, my grandmother carried her feather bed on her back across the river. She knew my father was on the way & wanted her feather bed to be confined on. They went into Salt Lake valley with the first company that Brigham went back for.
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In their travels to the mountains when they could get corn Susan Amelia would hold out of the back of the wagon one ear of corn to get the cow started along the days journey. They suffered many privations. My father was born after their long journey into Salt Lake City in the early days of scarcity & was not strong so he didn't feel like playing with the other boys but would stand & watch them as a boy, but grew stronger. He was a very kind husband & father, very loving to his wives. I loved to go visit his mother, my Grandmother Chapman, she would sing to us & when her hip was broken we used to go see her in the hospital. After she was moved home Aunt Catherine had her at her home to care for her. She never got so she could walk. Aunt Catherine, Grandfather's 3rd wife, was very kind to everyone. Her name was Catherine Stayner. Aunt Ann whose maiden name was McKay was not strong but very kind. She took care of me & Aunt Catherine took Lizzie & nursed her for she had a baby the same age. They all lived on the same lot in S.L. City. Aunt Anne & Grandma's house was on the street, Aunt Catherine's back in the lot. It was only through the lot to the LDS Hospital where Grandmother was taken with a broken leg. Lizzie & I used to go visit her. She would sing Old Dog Tray & Paddle Your Own Canoe to us.
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My father, youngest son of Welcome Chapman & Susan Amelia Risley.
I was born April 22, 1872 at Silver Creek Parleys Park, Summit Co. Utah. Father, Mother & Uncle Hyrum & Aunt Rhoda all lived in the same house when I was born. When we moved away Uncles family lived there still, we moved back again after I was about 5 years old.
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My Fathers name, Welcome Chapman born 2 Oct 1849, mothers name, Mary Adeline Potter, born in San Bernadino Calif Sept 7, 1855. My Father & Mother were married April 11, 1870 by Daniel H. Wells, Salt Lake City Utah, in the old Endowment House. After I was born Father moved away from Silver Creek but moved back after he married my stepmother. My Father & his Bro. Hyrum were married about the same time & lived on a farm on Silver Creek near Park City, at Parleys Park. He & his brother Hyrum were in partners, they had some cattle & farmed. It was a beautiful little valley with high hills on the south & east, a meadow on the creek bottom west, where I spent many summer days playing along the clear waters in its willows & green meadows. My father had walled up the spring we got our water from with rocks, it was between our log house & my uncle's. I loved to roam around the valley on hillside & meadow & creek bottom looking for flowers & pebbles, birds & the beauties of nature. When my Grandmother Susan Amelia Risley Chapman came to visit her sons, she loved to take long walks. I loved to go with her. This was when I was about 5 & 6.
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One 4 of July at Snyderville there was a big celebration with long tables spread with food. My father had charge of the ice cream, they got ice from the mountain. The Indians ate with us & in the afternoon we could see a forest fire, how the big clouds of smoke rolled up.
Aunt Ann MacKay named her youngest girl Mamie after me.
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She told us of birds and flowers on her daily walks and many stories.
Wanship was north of us, a Mormon settlement. The valley extended many miles north, the Silver Creek riming north, Park City was South, Snyderville west. We used to go to Snyderville where Aunt Rhoda's sister Susie Snyder lived, to Sunday school & meetings & the 4th & 24th of July celebrations, it was west of our valley about 3 miles.
After I was born my Father moved to South Cottonwood or Little Cottonwood it was often called because there was another ward near that was called Big Cottonwood. At Little Cottonwood there was a smelter, I think it is an iron smelter. My father worked in this smelter 2 or 3 years. My sister Elizabeth Amelia was born here, she was named after her two grandmothers. She was born Feb. 28, 1874. My mother died March 7, 1874, leaving my sister a very small baby a few days old. Our Aunt Catherine, my Grandfather Chapman's third wife, had a baby about the same age named Nellie, she took my sister Lizzie we called her & nursed & took care of her. So she was raised as a twin while they were babies. My grandfathers second wife took me & was very kind & loving to me. I always loved Aunt Ann & always will.
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while Grandma Chapman was keeping house for us, one day she left me asleep, locked the door & went to the children's dance not very far away. I woke & was so frightened to be locked in alone I tried to break the window with my fist. A kind neighbor went for grandma. I never left a child locked up alone.
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love her & her children.
My father liked her for her kind sympathy & loving care she gave me. When my sister was weaned my Grandmother Chapman, who was my Grandfather's first wife, took care of us children at Little Cottonwood for some time & kept house for my father so we were all together for a while.
Nov. 29th 1876 my father was married in the Endowment House to Harriet Zelnora Marsden (McDonald) (for time). I was 4 years old. She was sealed to her first husband for Eternity. She & father had one son who died soon after birth. We lived in her house, left her by her first husband, it was in the 13th ward when we lived in Salt Lake City 2� blocks east of Main St. 1� blocks east of the old theater. Her mother, we called her Grandma, & sister Clara lived in their house on the same lot. When they were first married we lived at Little Cottonwood afterward called Murray where father worked in the smelter but it was too hard on him. Then we moved to Salt Lake City there her baby was born, a boy who lived only a few days. Soon after this we moved back to Silver Creek near Parleys Park again. This is when I remember the beautiful valley, Silver Creek running through it & how I enjoyed roaming around & playing with my uncle's children. Susie about my age, Hyrum
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I had toothache so much, my first teeth had to be pulled by a dentist on my 4th birthday.
I remember having it so bad I lay on the floor with my head in a little round backed chair
rolling back & forth to bear the pain. My teeth had such long roots later they had to be pulled by a dentist & would give me a doll every time I had one pulled.
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about Lizzie's age, & Welcome, younger. I also enjoyed the beautiful hills & creek bottom of Cottonwood Creek in Little Cottonwood. I was 4 years old there. I remember my father bringing my stepmother a bunch of wild rose buds. It is my first memory of the wild rose & whenever I see wild rose buds I remember those my father gave to her. He loved flowers & nature in all its beauties & often showed us many of nature's beauty spots & drew our attention to the beautiful scenery as we traveled. I remember the mossy banks near the house that we lived in then, the wallflowers that grew on the mossy banks, near the house & choke cherries along Cottonwood Creek at Little Cottonwood. After we moved back to Parleys Park we lived there until I was 6 years old. Then we moved back to Salt Lake City, to my stepmother's house. She & her mother & younger sister Clara were all married to a Bro. John McDonald who died & each had a home on the same lot. My stepmother had a daughter 9 months older than I, Agnes McDonald. I loved her as I did any one who I was associated with. She was very proud & often called me a Country Jake because she lived in S. L. City much of the time with her Grandmother &
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I remember the big chunks of dried beef, how long it kept in frying condition & how good to whittle off & chew. It was when I was 10 that I was given my choice of the gold or silver lockets that father got for us with his & mothers pictures in when she died. I chose the silver one. I was so proud of my locket, guarded it so closely.
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Aunt Clara, & I was a Country Jake because I lived at South Cottonwood & Silver Creek, she only coming on visits but after we left Parleys Park & went to S.L. City she lived with her mother. When we would make trips to & from S.L.C. we would often camp on the road & how I did enjoy the beautiful mountain scenery, big stream of water & canyon & trees & flowers. Our house was between the mountain or high hill on the east & Silver Creek west. At sheep shearing time we all went to the camp, Father to sheer, Mamma to cook. I remember gleaning wool from the bushes that the sheep went through. There was a spring between Uncle Hyrum's house & ours, my father walled it up for drinking water. Lizzie fell in one day, I pulled her out. The first water cress I remember was at that spring. One day as we children were playing along the creek bottom down in the field I was the last one to leave, there was always some pretty green leaf or flower I was looking for. In reaching out for it I slipped down on quicksand & was sinking when my cries brought the others back to help me. Susie being the oldest, got there first & helped me out. Wanship was north of us, Sniderville west 3 miles, where we went to S. School & meetings.
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Our mother made the big flag for this celebration, that is how I came to make one. We children played down in the willows, Uncle Hyrum's boys would climb the bushes & get the birds eggs to show us. We always put them back, we felt so sorry for the poor mother bird.
I believe children are often shown things as I was the Airplane or airship
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The 4th of July 1878 celebration at Snyderville, with long tables spread for the town people & others who came as we did from nearby ranches or farms. There were Indians who sat down at table & stayed all day at the celebration, On the mountains west could be seen smoke rolling up from a forest fire, the first I had ever seen. When we lived at this beautiful ranch or farm on Silver creek we had a lovely Newfoundland dog that was our companion in our roaming around & at play. I was a sober child & often got by myself & thot of many things. One day while sitting alone behind the house thinking of going to Salt Lake City & our home there, of friends & relatives, I looked over toward the city which was a long day's drive from our ranch, & in the sky I saw what I called a boat sailing through the sky. It was more like the Blimp than aeroplane for there was no wings. The Christmas we were there I got my first reader & a doll. Our father made a dancing doll that he made of twigs with a wire in the back. By taking hold of the wire, he moved it up & down very slightly & it danced, its joints were so loose. Our stepmother had dressed it in bright red. We always laughed as it danced.
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One day I was told to bring home a watermelon as I came from taking fathers dinner to him where he was cutting stone for the Temple. It slipped & burst. I went back to the tithing clerk & he gave me another.
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When we moved back to S. L. City in 1878 to the house our stepmother owned, I went to my first school. We were in hard circumstances, father was out of work & not well. Mother took in sewing, she was not strong either, he would run the sewing machine. He was very kind & loving to her & us children & she was so very good to us so loving & kind, yet I always mourned for my own mother. I know motherless children have a lonely cast off feeling. I cannot remember anyone treating me unkind but I always appreciated every kindness shown to me. I & sister Lizzie felt very near to each other. We often went to our grandfather's, she to Aunt Catherine's, I to Aunt Ann's, who we were with so much when they took care of us after mother died. We would see Grandmother Chapman & Grandfather but these Aunts who took care of us had children our age & younger. Aunt Ann named her youngest girl Mamie, that is what they called me, but my father always called me Mary for I was named for my mother. It was at Silver Creek at our ranch that I learned the first songs that I can remember. It was our father's half brother, Uncle Lyde we called him, who taught me the Sailors Grave.
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Aunt Catherine's 2nd son, his name is Elizure after his grandfather, he stayed with us several months, maybe all summer.
They were Lillies, they had a bulb that was eatable.
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about this time I learned Mary at the Garden Gate. Later our stepmother taught us girls, Lizzie, Aggie & I, to sing together. I liked to sing alto. Aggie & I were often taken for twins, her mother dressed us alike. Aggie was jealous of us girls & made it very unpleasant for us but her mother was very just & kind to us. It was always easy for me to mind, I loved to do what ever she asked me to & anything I could for her. Often the others would try to get out of the things she wanted them to do but I was willing & she often told me "the willing horse does all the trotting." Our father loved flowers & often brought home rare & beautiful bunches & drew our attention to lovely scenery. He came in one day at Silver Creek with a bunch of cowslips he called them, afterwards I heard them called dogtooth violets. They were dainty lilly-like, pale yellow. I have heard since that my Grandfather Chapman dug the bulbs of this flower & brought them to the hungry Pioneers for food in the early days of Utah when food was scarce. We are told that the Pioneers dug roots, this is one of them. The house my stepmother owned in S.L. City in the 13 ward was left to her by her first Husband John McDonald (he was the grandfather of the man who made the McDonald candy of SL City)
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When we were about 9 or 10 years old Grandma McDonald married a Bro. Colman who had a big farm at Big Cottonwood. It was fun to drop potatoes & have the horses follow us & cover them with the plow. I gathered big dandelion leaves for greens where they grew so thrifty. There were buttercups we called them. They were like narcissus, only one blossom to a stem, pale yellow & so sweet. Also white Violets, I have not seen either flower since they were growing along the fence rows.
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& had a first wife, then married Aggies grandmother & mother. She & sister Clara each had 6 children, Aggie being the only one to live long. So her grandmother & Aunt kept her much of the time, she being the only child left in the family. Her grandmother & Aunt lived in a large brick house with 3 apartments with fruit trees & garden spot & a well. Our stepmother had the shop that had been his carpenter shop of 2 good sized rooms & a 3rd of the lot. We followed father around the City in different wards to be near him at his work. Sometimes Aggie went to live with us, often she stayed with them. We lived in the 2nd, 14th, 21st & 22nd wards but mostly in the 13 ward. The street car barns were on the same block with us, I used to like to watch them come in for fresh mules. We were often given the privilege of walking around the block, they are big blocks. We always had to come home at the time our playtime was up, we never stayed over time & were never allowed to go without permission, which is very good training for children. The lot we lived on was the place in the 13 ward, was between Joseph E. Taylor sexton & President of the Stake we lived in, 13 ward, his two wives. The younger had a little boy 2 years old when we moved
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I was baptised by Ferimorg little in the 13 ward Salt Lake City
Jenies father being a Sexton Joseph E Taylor who was President of the Stake
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away to St. Johns, we loved to play with. The other family the youngest child Jennie was our age, pretty & red headed with an older sister named Elinor & Josephine. I though the names pretty & named two of my children after them. Jenny often came running in to tell us her father was going in the white-topped buggy to the cemetery & we would ride with them. It was a treat for us. When she had whooping cough we were told to keep away from her, Aggie & I did but Lizzie was small & thought she had something nice so she went up to the broken picket where we crawled through to play & called Jennie, so she coughed in Lizzie's face. Of course we had it, we took so much licorice while we had it that I never liked it after.She had an older brother who liked to tease us, always threatening to cut our ears off. We liked to watch his magpie & hear it talk. Jennie had such lovely dolls & silk dress for them. They had everything better than ours altho we were in pretty good circumstances by then most of the time. Our mother was very ambitious, used to go out sewing by the day or took in sewing most of the time. She was a good dressmaker & loved fancy work.
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We always went to S. School & meeting, Primary & Mutual. We often went to the Tabernacle Sunday for meetings. The wards nearby did, those far away had theirs in their ward meeting houses but anyone could go to the Tabernacle for any meeting.
The snow got so deep at Silver Creek & in the city we had to wade through it to get to school but we only had to go 2 blocks to the meeting house. It was the school house too & across 2 streets.
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Our father had a good job then. I used to take the scraps of wool & make combed wool flowers, hair flowers or embroidery. She showed us how & let us help her, she kept us busy doing useful nice things for which I am very thankful. That is how I made the flag at Silver creek my own way when 6 years old. When it was done it had red & blue stripes with white sky but I didn't try stars. Hyrum climbed the willows & we had our play, he often climbed & got bird eggs to show us, the pretty different colored eggs, while the poor mother bird fluttered & mourned so pitiful before he could get them back. Here I first saw the big water bug with eggs on its back. They were in the spring ditch where the water ran over the hole our father had walled up so we could dip in the bucket without riling the water. There was watercress, there was also the tiny insect that made its cocoon of tiny rocks. Our house was a large log room with a lean-to for a kitchen on the south. Facing west, the meadow & Silver Creek were in front with hill behind in the east. The spring was between our house & Uncle Hyrum's. His is the house where I was born, I see I repeat for I write it at different times.
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Sheep camp at shearing time.
I enjoyed the scenery, I loved mountains where it was summer.
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The Christmas we were at Silver Creek we got dolls & books & nice clothes. Our father went in to the City for things. We loved Uncle Hyrum & Aunt Rhoda. She was always so kind & loving, we would stop at her sister's, Susie Snider, when we went to Sniderville to Sunday School & meetings. Wanship was a Mormon town northwest of us, Park City was south up in the mountains, a mining town. I only remember onE summer & one winter at Silver Creek. That summer Father & Uncle Hyrum went fishing. I remember the large trout packed in cool grass. He cut it before the dew was dry, it kept fish so nice. When sheep shearing time came we went to the camp. We children would help set table & wash dishes. Mother cooked, Father helped with the shearing. We gathered wool from the bushes for Mother. When we went to S. L. City it was a long day's ride. I wanted to stop & pick every unusual lovely flower but soon learned the team could not be stopped
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A big black & white New-foundland dog went with us everywhere we children went. We loved him but he got to getting the eggs, every time a hen cackled he ran for the eggs, so had to be killed.
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for such things. Some times we camped on the road by a roaring mountain stream. I loved to sleep out under the stars. I always saw the beautiful scenery, the forests or lovely trees, the pretty hillsides & the meadows. It was a lovely time when Grandma Coleman, Aunt Clara & Aggie came to see us. I had named my doll Aggie, & when Grandma Chapman came to visit she took long walks, I loved to go with her. She told me stories of birds & flowers. Our dog always went along. When we moved back to S.L. City I packed all my playthings in a small box. We were so loaded it could not be taken so I had to leave my doll Aggie & all my things. We were to get them some time later & never went back. For years I longed for those things. I know a child's longings are as real as grown folks & in all our moving I found a place for my children's playthings to go, (I see I repeat for I write at different times). My father had logs laid up for a new house but he left because he & Uncle Hyrum were not getting on too well, Father was being imposed on, that is all I knew.
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One summer Father worked in the canyon where the rock was quarried for the Temple. We went there for 2 weeks for an outing. It was in a beautiful canyon. There I saw my first wild raspberries. A friend of father's had let us use his tent. One morning we woke & found a small lizard asleep on Lizzies chest. They blasted such big rocks. We ate in the big dining room. There was a girl about my age that lived at the camp.
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They had a hard time getting a start in the City but it was time I went to school & other things were to their advantage. When Father could not get work Mother took in sewing. She not being very strong, he would work the peddle while she guided the sewing. We moved around to different wards, the 14, 21 & the 22, to be near his work. I still would like to hear of some of those friends we made in these wards, some times I see their names or their family's names in the Deseret News or church magazines. The ... of the 14 ward, the Durrs, Edith & Ella of the 22 ward, were such dear girls. Their mother was a sister of Joseph F. Smith. The spring I was 10 years old in 1882 father had work on the Railroad at Kaysville north of S.L. City. Aggie went with us, we enjoyed being together. We had a garden, the first for so many years. We had such lovey tomatoes. It was such a treat, to take the salt dish out in the patch & break open a big one. They do not taste near as good now after 60 years as they did then. In Primary we children were each to glean 1 pint of Beans where they had shattered out. I got mine & they were to be stored for times of famine, so they must have had to be renewed many times before now. We had a cat we children thought so much of & when
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It was at Kaysville that I met the big water bug again when I came so near swallowing one in drinking after dark. I always looked in the cup after that before I drank. It was the summer we lived at Kaysville I think, when we went by train to the 4th of July, that the nation was in mourning for President Garfield who had been asassinated. There was a big parade in mourning for him, the whole nation were in mourning.
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when the alfalfa was being mowed its hind legs were cut off. It was terrible to us to see it suffer.
When I see the names of the dear friends we had there, in the papers, it brings back many lovely memories. there I saw silk worms, the eggs, the moth, the worms eating the mulberry leaves & the cocoons they weave & the silk that was woven from those cocoons. The best apples I ever tasted were there at Kaysville, it was west of a mountain. I have never tasted any like them since with a distinct flavor I have not found yet. I remember playing at the Sheppard's & Blood's homes with their children, I think it was when we went back to Salt Lake City that father went to work on the Temple block cutting stone with his father & Uncle Joseph who had both been cutting there for several years. Grandfather was called from Manti to cut stone. we got our supplies at the tithing office across the street east from the Temple block. The tithing clerk used to ask Aggie & I if we were twins & when I told him she was 9 months older than I, he said, "Well your mother was a very smart woman." but we told him we had different mothers. We used to take our old rags to the Deseret book store, they were calling for them to make paper.
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