Alice is shown at right with her sister Sadie and Sadie's husband Lyde Christensen

History of Alice Bevan Anderson

  Joseph Shields Bevan (15 Feb 1862-19 Nov 1925) and Emma Jane Elkington Bevan (7 Jun 1861-17 Oct 1941) had 4 children.  Emma Alice Bevan, eldest child of Joseph Shields Bevan and Emma Elkington, was born December 31, 1885, at Tooele City, Tooele County, Utah.  She was followed by Joseph Elkington Bevan (1 Feb 1889), Sarah "Sadie" Bevan (2 Jun 1894), and Dora Leona Bevan (6 Apr 1899).  If you're a grandchild of Harold E. (Lyde) Christensen, Alice was the older sister of our grandmother Sadie.

  My first remembrance is at the age of three being very ill with scarlet fever.  The only thing that roused me at all was my cousin, Fister Jo Lee, playing his violin.  This illness left me with an enlarged heart that is giving me trouble at the age of 75 (1961).

  Dad homesteaded where the smelter now stands, and we lived there until I was nine years old.  I didn't enter school until I was nearly ten when in September we moved to Salt Lake City.  Joe was six, and we started school together.  I advanced much faster than he did.  The only school I ever attended was the Emerson School in Salt Lake City, Utah.

  We were in Salt Lake City for just a short time when Mother became ill with brain fever.  She was very ill for six weeks.

  Our house was frame and the neighbor's house was so close that the eaves touched.  The neighbors, being in the insurance business, told Mother we should have our house insured.  She said we couldn't just then, but he insisted on sending the money for it.  Almost as soon as the insurance took effect his house burned to the ground, and our house too was burned to the ground.  It happened at 4 A.M.  As usual, Dad was at the mines in Tooele.  He didn't know we carried an insurance, and when he was told about the fire he said he was sure something had happened because a bird kept flying around his head and almost lit on his shoulder.  He was happy to know we could build again with brick and had enough for furniture.  Each house was built on the opposite side of the lots.  All Mother's lovely fruit was destroyed by the fire since it was in October.  In those days the fire department was in uptown Salt Lake City and traveled by horses; by the time they arrived everything was lost.  I didn't even have shoes to wear to school.

  As I grew older I sang in the programs in school with a chum named Elfie Naylor.  She had one sister and nine brothers; I then decided that large families were best.  Mother had just four, and they were four or five years apart.

  When I was fifteen Dad was called to go to Alberta, Canada, and help build up that country.  He mortgaged the home for all he could, chartered a boxcar, and took everything he owned in it.  Mother and we four children went on the train.  Mother cooked cake, chicken, and bread for Dad to eat while traveling; he also had a cow and lots of milk.  He had to eat bread and milk mostly since a bum got in his lunch and ate all the chicken and cake leaving just the bones.

  Dad's care was side tracked at Stirling.  He really intended to settle in Cardston but was talked into remaining in Stirling by Bishop Brandley.  Dad bought a ten acre plot of land; and while he and Mother built our house, we lived in a tent.  The government gave us a large round tent to keep the livestock, hay, and furniture in while we were building the house.  The house was one and a half stories, two rooms downstairs, and two upstairs with the stairs going up from the kitchen.  Some neighbors named Black came at the same time.  Mrs. Black brought several sacks of wallpaper samples, and Mother papered the front room with sample wallpaper.  We were as well fixed as most people and were treated grand.

  The climate, wind, and the new conditions made Mother very homesick.  Mother loved Salt Lake City and wanted to see her folks, but Grandmother died before Mother could get home to see her.

  We lived in Stirling a little over a year when Dad moved six miles west to help build the new town of Raymond.

  I had been going with John H. Russell for nine months.  He was a handsome and wonderful Latter-day Saint.  When George Miller came to Stirling, I became infatuated with him and engaged.  Then he went on his way to fill a mission.  In just a short time I forgot what he looked like since there was so many fine fellows, and I was still too young to know my own mind.  I kept company with Charles McCarty; he went on a mission too.  Then his brother, Wilson, took me out, but soon he went on a mission.  I met a very shy young man and married him on my eighteenth birthday, December 31, 1902.  He was William Richard Anderson.  Aunt Cla[ir?] and Uncle Sam J. Walters stood up with us.  Our home, consisting of one room, was built and furnished before we were married.  Dad performed the ceremony New Years Eve.  We then went to the dance, and I wore orange blossoms to show that we were married.

  Early days were indeed dull since there were no movies, cars, phones, or radios and very little money.  What money there was had to be spent to put in the crops and buy machinery.

  Our first child was a girl born September 29, 1904, in Raymond, Alberta, Canada.  She was given the name Thelma Bevan Anderson.  After the birth of my first child the doctor attending me said I probably would not live if I had other children.  However two years later a second child was born to us.  It was our first son born on August 24, 1906, at Raymond, Alberta, Canada.  He was named William Bevan Anderson.

  When our second child was eight months old, my husband built a house on a wagon 9 by 18 feet.  It had a door in the center, a sheep camp on one side, a small pantry on the other, a table, a rocker, and a high chair.  There also was a children's crib, a folding bed, and a sewing machine.

  With about six head of horses we started out in March.  We traveled three days north to Clarasholm, Alberta, Canada, since we heard of a banker that owned lots of [acres of] land and wanted them plowed.  We drove out to the land, but it was just rocky prairie.  We hauled water in barrels and started to plow the land.  We must have had an extra wagon to haul the plows in, but anyway, what I thought was to be a vacation turned out to be a job cooking for five men--besides the children.

  We stayed there to harvest the crops and came home in October in a snow storm.  We had sold our house, so we rented a house.  It was sold in less than a month, and we were still in it when it was lifted up on wheels to move.  We really had to move quickly.

  The following spring I came to Utah with my two children to have my third child because I had such terribly hard confinements almost dying each time.  Aunt Phoebe's husband, Dr. Davis, thought I had better come to Utah to him.  Soon after I arrived, both children got scarlet fever, and Bevan nearly died with a diphtheria throat.

  My baby was born feet first and had to be turned.  It was a tiny baby boy weighing less than four pounds; he was born on June 4, 1908, and was named Francis Marion Anderson.

  When Francis was two months old my husband came to Utah to help us move back to Canada.  On the way Bevan almost fell of the train and was caught by the hair as he was falling.  I had only been home two weeks when my baby died.  My folks live on a ranch and didn't know of the baby's death, so I went up there right after the funeral.

  We then bought a house in Raymond that seventeen Japs had been batching in.  We had to use hoes to scrape the mud and dirt off the floors.  While living here I had two lovely daughters.  First, Fern Alice Anderson was born on February 17, 1910, and Sadye Leona Anderson was born on January 17, 1912--both in Raymond, Alberta, Canada.  We lost Sadye in young womanhood at the birth of her second child.

  Farming and beet raising was a summer job.  The winters were lazy for men, but we women had a harder time trying to thaw out food and keep the family from freezing.  Food consisted of meat, spuds, milk, bread, a very few vegetables, and no fruits.  Syrup took the place of fruits, and rutabagas, the vegetables.  We also had cabbage if we happened to have a good year for a garden.

  My folks left the ranch and bought a nice house in Raymond, but they soon moved to Utah.  We moved in[to] their house.  Our sixth child was born in this house on November 25, 1913.  We named this child Max Freeman Anderson.

  In July, 1913, we left Alberta overland with two other families.  We had two wagons and a democrat buggy for me and the children.  We turned the front seat to face the back seat with a card table between, and this rig was trailed behind the wagon my husband drove.  There was chicken wire around it so that the children couldn't fall out.  They could play games, cut out pictures, and draw as we traveled.

  At night we camped and made supper; we pitched a tent to sleep in.  One woman and family had a sheep camp wagon, and she baked the bread for all of us as we traveled along.  After several drought years in Canada, these families were very poor.  Mrs. Wiscrim dyed sacks to make shirts for her five boys.  My husband was the only man who had money, and the others had to exchange a driver for what cash they had to have.  Traveling by teams is slow; twenty-five miles is a good day’s drive.  We had to haul grain to feed the horses.  One family had a cow.  We brought a load of furniture--a piano case organ, sewing machine, range, rocker, high chair, trunks, etc.

  We rested on Sundays.  The horses needed to rest too.  We washed, cooked, went swimming, and fished.  At night we would all sing; my husband had a mandolin and a guitar.  There were twenty of us in the party and seventeen horses.  We had traveled three weeks when we got to Dillan, Montana.  I took the children on the train to Salt Lake City, and the rest stopped in Lima, Montana, to put up hay for a sheepman.  He talked my husband into homesteading there after the hay was up.  One family, Wiscrim, settled in Idaho.  The other, Stevens, came on to Utah--Logan, I think.

  I visited relatives, traveling from place to place for weeks with our clothes in a trunk, until I was disgusted.  Then I went to St. Anthony, Idaho, and lived six weeks with Will's brother, Fred.  Finally, Will built a room on the ranch at Snowline, Montana.

  After what I had been through visiting from place to place with my five children, that one room cabin looked like heaven to me.  It had only a table, stove, organ, rocker, high chair, and sewing machine.  We also had a washing machine that we had to turn by hand.  I made a boiler out of a five gallon can, and will made Benches around the corner for the table.  Chairs were something we didn't have.  There was mud between the logs, or rather poles, and they were green so that beads of water were on everything, even the mattress.

  Will had a job cutting logs for the sheepmen, so my brother Joe came from Canada to live with us.  He arrived on Christmas Eve.  He walked five miles from the train in snow up to his knees.

  There was very little Christmas for the children.  All they had was what Mother sent them.  Will's brothers sent us twenty-five dollars, and every cent of it was spent on oats for the horses.  That almost broke my heart.

  We had only two beds and used the organ for a partition between them.  One bed had to be made on the rough board floor every night.  The mice were as thick as flies; they had nests in the ground everywhere and would play on the cupboard shelves all day and steal the feathers from our pillows at night.  I was nearly crazy with mice.

  I never saw a soul except my own family for nine months.  We did not have enough food, a cow, and we were only allowed one can of milk a day for mush, gravy and all.  The children missed school that winter.

  In early March as soon as the snow melted, the ladies from our near neighbors, five miles, came to visit me.  After not seeing anyone for nine months the shock nearly killed me.  I was in bed for three days with a raging headache.

  After this log job was finished my brother left.  My husband got a job plowing for the neighbor sheepmen, so we left the ranch and lived in a tent for a month.  It was June and lambing time with a few thousand lambs bleating all day and all night.  I was pregnant and deathly sick.  No one will ever know what it was like to live in a 12 by 12 tent and be too sick to raise your head.

  We then went to Lima, Montana, and rented a five room house, furnished.  I lived there alone because Will was still working too far away to come home only once a week.

  I met some nice people there.  Among them were two missionaries.  I enjoyed entertaining them because they were very young Utah boys and very homesick.  We had a branch of the Church there.

  My baby Max was about fifteen months old when he became very sick with diarrhea.  The doctor said he couldn't live, and that I ought to send for my husband.  My oldest girl was eight years old, and it was Sunday morning, so I sent a note with her to Sunday School asking the Elders to come at once and administer to my baby.  I could see that he was almost gone because his eyes were set.  The Elders brought the entire Sunday School with them.  They administered to my baby with everyone kneeling around the bed.  The baby was healed instantly.

  I put my little eight year old Thelma on the train from Butte to Salt Lake City, and told her to get off at the lonely Snowline Station and walk to the ranch to get her dad.  When they got home in the evening Max was entirely well.  My husband couldn't believe he had been so near death.  It seems as if when there was sickness or death I was nearly always alone.  But the Lord was with me always and helped me all my life.  Now when I look back I feel He did a wonderful job in my behalf.

  On the 29 Sept., 1915, I left Montana for Utah once more.  The children needed to be in school, and I needed a doctor soon.  After a short stay with Mother I was able to rent a four room house, and my husband shipped our belongings down.  He too came soon after selling his horses, wagons, harnesses, etc. for $1,000.

  He had a brother in Sandy, Utah, that was a butcher and doing fine.  His name was Mark Anderson.  He taught my husband meat cutting and how to buy and sell groceries.  Will rented a store, hired a butcher, and started in business for himself on 2 January, 1916, in Tooele, Utah.

  My baby was born while he was away learning the business, and the doctor and nurse that I had were engaged and away.  I just had a midwife and no help.  I myself had to hold the baby's cord while she tied it.  Again I say the Lord was helping me.  This son was born on December 29, 1915, in Tooele, Utah.  We named him Richard Blaine and called him Arby or R.B.

  The next morning, on the nine o'clock train, the doctor, nurse, and my husband arrived.

  My Aunt Sarah’s husband felt sorry for me and rented us a modern house just before my next baby was born.  I was still in need of more room, but since it was modern it was a great help.

  Eighteen months later another son was born to our family on June 18, 1917.  He was given the name Jay Wilson Anderson.  I had a hired girl during this time and kept her for two or three months.

  When Wilson was a year old, my Aunt Phoebe and I took a trip in her car for two weeks. I was young and enjoyed life whenever it was possible for me to laugh and feel happy that life was getting better for us.

  We moved in November to a large two story house with four bedrooms.  The children and I had the flue.  My husband stayed with Mother so he didn't get it.  Dad helped me and several women at different times, but I was too sick to remember.

  Again in June we moved to a place we bought.  It was a large house, and we built the shop in front of it.  On November 12, 1920, I had a baby girl and nearly died of hemorrhage.  We called this girl Gayle Anderson.

  In the spring my sister Sadie came from Canada with her four children.  Just after they arrived they came down with the Measles.  Then of course my children got them, and we had seven sick at one time.  My sister Sadie was so wonderful that we loved having her around under any condition.  We always had fun no matter what.  By this time, we had a piano, and she loved to play.  We all sang away the blues.

  Living on Main Street we had a lot of company dropping in all the time.  The show was next door, and the children would climb up a ladder and watch the movies.  We really enjoyed living there, but we moved too soon.

  My husband bought a brick home just before my tenth child was born.  On December 11, 1923, our last child was born to us.  We named him Don Ross Anderson.  We still have the home, although I have spent much time at our auto camp Little Reno in Grantsville, Utah.  It was a place we got during the depression through the bank after the bank closed.  We lost $7,500.

  My greatest heartache was losing my 28 year old daughter Sadye in childbirth.  She left two young children, Joe and Connie.  Shortly after Sadye's death we returned to Tooele to live.

  During World War II I had three sons who served in the Armed Forces: Don Ross in the Army, Wilson in the Navy, and Blaine in the Seabees.  I was very thankful to have them all return home safely.

  We have had many happy times together on picnics and outings.  We went to the Island, over to Little Valley, to a place above Lake Point, and Lagoon to mention a few of them.

  In 1954, we purchased property along the Jordan River on North Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah, and built a twenty-seven unit motel and a forty space trailer park.  We called it the Riverside Motel.  We have resided here and operated it since that time.

  Many things have changed.  Life is easier, but after the children left, Christmas and holidays are empty and rather lonely.  We love to think of the days when our home was full of young folks getting ready for dates and dances, taking the care whenever the keys were left in it, and chasing to Grantsville or Stockton or up the canyon.  Cars were few in those days and not so fast.  Everyone young and old went to the dances and to house parties.  There was a lot of work for me then, and I am still at it.

  Our children had to work.  They earned everything they got.  We had a store, and they had good training there, both girls and boys.  The boys all have their own business.  Don has a farm and loves it, and he works at TOD [Tooele Ordnance Depot].  He is the baby of the family with a wife and four lovely children.  Thelma, Fern, and Gayle are my living daughters, and they have grandchildren of their own.  Bevan and Wilson each have one daughter.  Max has three children, one girl and two boys; he also has a grandchild.  Blaine has two daughters.  [Since this has been written Blaine and Donna have had a new darling daughter.]  I have twenty-six lovely grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren.

  On May 26, 1961, at 4:45 P.M., Alice Bevan Anderson passed away after having suffered a coronary occlusion.  She died at her home in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Funeral services were held in Tooele, Utah, on May 29, 1961.  Burial took place in the Tooele City Cemetery.