Harold Morgan: I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now

A memory of Harold Morgan as related by Letty Patterson:

Horace H. Cummings a very orthodox and strict member of our church was the head (or some important executive in the academy management) of the Church School System. He was to visit us, so we made a great effort to have everything ship-shape.

For the assembly program (Devotional) Grover Brown and Harold were asked to sing a duet and I to accompany them. It's a wonder Brother Cummings' [strict] personality and expression didn't dissuade them. But they stood up bravely, Harold's pant leg caught above his hose supporter. Soon came forth the strains of "I wonder who's kissing her now... I wonder who's teaching her how... Wonder who's looking into her eyes, breathing sighs, telling lies. I wonder who's buying the wine for the lips that I used to call mine. I wonder if she ever tells him of me, I wonder who's kissing her now."

My word! I wonder who chose this song! I hope I didn't! No wonder Brother Cummings' face congealed. I'd like to laugh with Harold over this once more. 

As told in Holmes, M. S. T. (1971). A study of the newspaper career of Harold Morgan. Provo: Brigham Young University, 20. The picture of the St. Johns Stake Academy is from Udall, D. K. (1959). Arizona Pioneer Mormon; David King Udall: His Story and His Family, 1851-1938.

Grandma Morgan—Mary Ann Linton Morgan, Part 1

By Helen Morgan Ayrton

She was born 11 February 1865 to Samuel Linton and Mary Ellen (McKichins) Sutton. She was the third child of nine children. Her mother had been married to a Mr. McKichins [or McKechine] and had a daughter Sarah Ellen, who was ten years older than Mary Ann. Grandma told me that her mother left Mr. McKichins because he wanted nothing to do with the Church. The family group sheet in Dad’s records shows Sarah Ellen was adopted by Samuel Linton.

She was very fond of her family, especially her brother Samuel Linton. I remember going to Nephi once or twice during my early years and visiting with Grandma’s people. She thought a lot of her brothers, John and Samuel. My mother told me several times that Grandma’s father, Samuel Linton, was a very stern man. Dad mentions him in his Life Story.

Grandma had light reddish blond hair and was a stately woman who appeared taller than she was because of her slender but upright carriage at all times. She had beautiful brown eyes and very fair skin. She was always very proper, possessive of her sons, religious, and a quite beautiful woman who worked very hard all her life.

I remember several times being with her when she did janitorial work for Elias Morris & Sons in their offices located then on South Temple. She must have been in her late fifties or early sixties then.

Grandma became immersed totally in genealogical work. From some letters her fascination with this subject must have happened when I was a small girl. As I grew to a teenager, Grandma tried her best to interest me in the subject but somehow the “bug didn’t bite.”

Grandma lived for a time in Washington D.C. where Linton was studying for the bar. She lived with Lin, Eudora and one or two children (daughters). She also lived in California. The following is something which was found in one of her genealogy notebooks.

This Sun. Jan. 23 Larani and Jayne took Julia (Grandma’s sister) and myself and the little girls on a beautiful ride through the San Fernando Valley, Santa Monica Mountains, Van Nuys, Westwood, Bel Aire, University of California; through the famous Coast Highway then south to Ocean Park, Venice, Pala Del Rey.

Sat on the beach at the Palasaid; went through Manhatten, Harniosa and by Daud’s Beaches. Through the Palasverd Estate, over to Pont Permire where we had a delicious lunch Jule had prepared.

At San Pedro Harbor we saw 21 battleships.

We came on through the Western Ave. which reaches from the mountains to the sea.

In coming home we called at Mr. & Mrs. (?) (Jayne’s sister) and saw her lovely baby boy.

On the back of this page from one of her genealogy notebooks this, dated 5 April 1938:

I have found a wealth of books which may give much information on our lines.

What a lonely life Grandma had. She never had more than one room with a small sink; the bathroom was down the hall. This was in the Sharon Building where she lived many years of her life. She had good friends—Cecilia Steed, a lady with a decided accent from the French side of Switzerland, and Margaret Harned, a Mrs. Jones who helped her with genealogy [I'm guessing Jessie Penrose Jones]. There were others but these are the ones I remember best. She used to keep her food perishables on the window sill of her room.There were two windows, one large and one small facing South Temple, so her room was on the north side of the building. Grandma had no possessions to speak of but accumulated many notebooks with genealogy notes, a good many of them in pencil. She did much Temple Work. Grandma went to the 14th Ward in Salt Lake City.

[To be continued.]

Where did John Morgan Die?

In Matthias Cowley's home in Preston, Idaho:

View Larger Map

As I understand it, John Morgan went to Preston, Idaho, to visit his third wife, Mary Morgan, who was in hiding there due to the polygamous persecutions of the time, and to see their three sons, Linton, Harold, and one-month-old Mathias Cowley Morgan. Mary must have been staying with the Cowleys.

While in Preston, Morgan suffered an attack of “Typho-Malarial fever”, probably a relapse of malaria due to infection during his service as a Union soldier in the South or during his time as President of the Southern States Mission. He died at the age of 52, leaving three families, one in Salt Lake City, where he had established his college; one in Manassa, Colorado, where he had settled so many converts from the Southern States Mission; and the family in Preston, who returned at that point to live with Mary’s parents in Nephi, Utah.

Matthias Cowley served as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve from 1896 to 1911. He was removed from the Quorum for opposing the Manifesto (termination of the practice of plural marriage). Almost a decade after John Morgan's death, Cowley reportedly performed the post-Manifesto plural marriage of Morgan's widow Mary Linton Morgan to David King Udall. I have seen the location of this marriage listed as being performed either in Preston, Idaho, or in Mexico.

(The information on the Cowley home is thanks to a reader's comment on my very favorite Mormon history blog and subsequent email communication from the commenter and kind blog owner. The address of the Cowley home is 110 South 100 East. The commenter also mentioned that John Morgan's infantry unit "barely missed going with Sherman on his march to the sea." [Email communication, April 30, 2009.])

Random Pictures 2

Harold Morgan visiting Carthage Jail.

Harold Morgan visiting Independence, Missouri.

Jessie, Alta, Helen, Paul, and Maxine.

Random Pictures

I will start posting about John Hamilton Morgan on Monday, February 23. Until then, here are a few scans from the family collection.

I wish this one had some identifying information! Whose dog is that?!

A card sent to Jessie on the death of Harold Morgan by old friends from St. Johns.


Harold and Jessie at the Los Angeles Temple with one of their sons-in-law.
The matching photo with their daughter is here.

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part C

On Family Life, Work, and Church Service

How long did you live in St. Johns?

I don’t know. I lived there I don’t know how many years and then we lived in Albuquerque. My Harold got a job on the Albuquerque Morning Journal and then we moved to Salt Lake. We come here to work on the old Herald and the night before we got here it went broke. So then he went over to visit the Desert News and they put him on the Deseret News and he worked there for years. He ... had a nose for news. He was very good.

After Helen was born then was Alta, Paul, Calvin, Maxine, JoAnn and Ann. I named Ann after JoAnn. … JoAnn…I forget what she died with—they said it was spleen anemia. They were going to take her spleen out. They were just experimenting. Helen, Alta, Paul, Calvin, Maxine, JoAnn and Ann …

Mother … was the best nurse I ever had. She could sure tend little babies when they were first born. I was afraid she would drop them and I’d lay awake waiting, but she never dropped a baby. All my worry was for nothing. There was nobody like my kids. I thought they were the only ones on earth.

I sold shoes for 15 years. I could walk along the street and tell them what size they wore just from looking at them. Oh, yes, I sold shoes and they’d come in some of those fancy women and I’d measure their foot, and I’d go get the shoe and they’d say what do you mean, I don’t wear that big a shoe—say a seven and they’d say I wear a five and I’d go get a five and I’d go get a five and put the shoe on behind and they’d stand up and they’d cram their foot in and their instep would be crammed up like that but they’d get it on their toes, push it down on their heels and right down under the heel, I would put SF [which meant] self-fit. And they’d bring them back and the manager would turn it over and see that SF and say we can’t exchange them. The women would fuss because he wouldn’t exchange the shoes and he would say well you fit them yourself, you wouldn’t let the clerk fit you, and we won’t take them. They would leave. Yes, I sold shoes for many years there. And then I used to model shoes. They’d get some new ones in and they’d have me put them on and then walk up and down and show the ladies how the shoes looked. I did that along with selling.

When I sold shoes was when I lived up in the Avenues, I think, I don’t remember for sure, I guess it was, I’d go down and catch the bus. Did we call them street cars then or buses? I think it was a street car. I’m sure it was. There was a street car line that came up from the Temple. I’d go down and catch them. And then I drove a car, I drove a car back to the back parking lot and then I’d go home at lunch to see that Ann would come home for lunch and then I’d drive back to Auerbach’s. I then I got Sister Aryton (Bill’s mother) to stay with Ann to see that she got home and see that she got lunch and all and then I didn’t have to drive up so far and back. Sister was very good with Ann. Ann was a mischief maker. There was this old man, we lived in the front of the house, and this old man lived in a little two rooms at the back and I used to fill a plate a paper plate with a nice dinner and take it over for him to eat, I felt sorry for him. And Ann, what did she do, she swiped his cane or something and hid it.

I was Stake Supervisor of the kindergarten department and used to go around and teach them how to teach their kindergarten/department in the Sunday school. I was in the Relief Society. I was first counselor in the Relief Society. And, what else…I had three jobs in the Church.

Pasadena. Walnut Street? I don’t know. I had a real nice ward in California. Yes. We’d rent a bus and drive it to the Church, we’d charge them $1 round trip to go from the Church to the Temple and back, plus my husband and I would make each of them a pack lunch and give it to them, and the Bishop would say be sure to get on the bus to go to the Temple and get a Morgan lunch and I got up and corrected him and said that J- T- was fixing the lunch, and you know what J- T- did, charged them for the lunch. And you know what my silly husband did, he’d follow J- around and those that couldn’t pay, he’d pay for the lunch. I said, my gosh there isn’t a person on that bus that hasn’t got more money than we’ve got, and he said well that’s not the point dear! We’re working for the Lord, this is the Church. I didn’t like that, paying for everybody’s lunch. So I said we could fix it cheaper that that, so we fixed the lunch. I’d make cookies and buy three or four loaves of bread and make them a sandwich and some kind of fruit—grapes or something. Then we’d just hand it to them, we wouldn’t charge them.


That's the end of the interview and the lives of Harold and Jessie Christensen Morgan. (At least for now.) Next up is John Hamilton Morgan.

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part B

On Childhood and Marriage

I got married the 28th of March and I wanted to be different. But I was just a woman and I got married and left immediately for Holbrook to go through the temple and we went back and went through the temple and it took us all day at that time to go through the temple. It took us all day long and we never had anything to eat—we didn’t eat anything and when we got out Harold was so sick. Got in a taxi and it was kind of hot in there. The Salt Lake Temple.

I remember one big snowstorm we had in St. Johns. Boy it was cold. And mother had gone to Phoenix to visit Addie and left we children with Dad and Dad had run out and the cellar was built on top of the ground with the double wall and little windows and he would go out there and cut off a piece of meat, it was frozen stiff, put it in the kettle and make some soup. We sure had lots of soup and the potatoes were frozen—just frozen and we’d have to peel the potatoes and put them in some water to take the frost out and put them in the soup and my little brother Paul had some boots and he had a boot jack to pull off his boots and he sat there and pulled off his boots and put them on until it froze his heels. We were in a mess when mother got home. All of the fields frozen. Then we had a big fire. Everybody in town was in it trying to…haystacks burnt up, trying to get the horses out—you know you can’t hardly get a horse out of a fire. They’d pull on the horse and pull on it and finally they would get them out, but they won’t go out of a fire, they want to stay there. This fire started on the Conrad Overson side. I think he was smoking and threw a cigarette down and started the straw and that started the hay and there was no water in town, they turned the city ditch water down and ran buckets of water down but it didn’t do much good. They didn’t have a fire department or anything. Someone said St. Johns had grown clear out to the Mexican graveyard. … I’d hate to live out there—if the reservoir broke, boy, would they ever go down.

Did the reservoir ever break when you were little?

Yes, it did. I remember all the houses floating off and one house cracked right in two, furniture going down.

Sister Greer had her home just above us and they opened her house for a mortuary and it was full of dead people. One woman I remember, mother told me, this woman had this long hair and it was just full of cockleburrs and they had to just comb it the best they could and then cut it off so they could fix her hair. Yes, that was a terrible sight. Never will forget that.

Where did you live after you were married?

In the Aircastle. It was just an old house. It was just a slim house with an upstairs and they called it the Aircastle and they had a little room built on the back and we lived in the little room on the back—in St. Johns. They had an apple tree out just by my door, I lived…so I would take those apples that fell on the ground and peeled them and dried them and I had a flour sack half full of dried apples and then I took some of the crabapples and made jelly and bottled them whole, and I didn’t pick any, I just took what had come from the ground, and when they come over and saw what I had, they charged me for it and then we moved. We were paying them rent and they were so mad to think I had got some of their apples, they charged me for them. The rest of the year they just lay there and rotted.

Dad was a blacksmith and Brother Udall asked him if he would take some apples on part of his pay and Dad said he would do that, so he said for me to go up and get the apples, and Brother Udall said there they are on the ground, you go and pick your wagon full. So I took the apples home and mother said, well these are all bruised. I said, well she had me pick them up off the ground. So mother said well, you stay here, I’ll be back in a minute, so mother took the wagon, spitting fire when she left, and she went and dumped them in Udall’s lot and she went to the door and said I brought your apples back, there they are, she said, I’ll take money for what you owe my husband. The Udalls were just beside themselves. Nobody could get the best of mother. She said you better get it, I’ll take the money. I’m not taking rotten apples. Mother was a regular businesswoman.

If Dad had let her do the charging and collecting he’d have been rich, but he was so good to people. I don’t know whether that is good or not. I guess they didn’t have any money—if they needed something from the market, I guess they’d charge it. He did keep books, but he never collected much, until after he’d call. Mother sure collected.

Where was your first baby born?

In St. Johns. Mother’s home. Helen, oh she was cute, oh she was pretty. Everybody in town came to see her. She was the prettiest thing—well, I thought so, I was her mother. She laughed. I used to take her to choir practice with me. I used to keep my babies clean. Sister Brown would come down and say what’s the matter with Jessie. And mother would say, why. And she would say well all the other girls take the babies out but I never see Jessie take any of them out. Mother asked why I didn’t take the babies out and tend them for the mothers and I said because they stink. The babies did stink. They didn’t keep them clean. Mother said well that is excuse enough, I don’t blame you.


To be continued...

Happy Valentines

I realize this is a birthday card, but how better to celebrate Valentine's Day here than to enjoy some of the sentiments shared by Harold and Jessie...

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part VII

Jessie in Salt Lake City.

Harold and I were buying the St. Johns Observer. I ran the press and Harold wrote the stories and set the type. One time Harold shoved his hand under the press while it was going. I ran across the street and got Dr. Bolton and Harold nearly fainted. If he hadn’t had his hand full of type he’d never have used that hand again. The type smashed his hand and one knuckle was dislocated.

Harold got the news. He saw some Mineer lady pass by the window one day and she was just about to have a baby. He thought that by the time the paper came out that she’d have had that baby—so he put it in the paper that Mrs. Mineer had a big, bouncing, 9 pound boy. My land, I looked out the window the day after the paper was released and there walked Mrs. Mineer down the other side of the street still expecting her baby. Finally, two days later, she had a baby. Thankfully it was a boy. Harold was that kind of a guy. He wanted to scoop everything. He wanted to know everything first. He always liked newspaper work. He was the Editor of the high school paper and I helped him. I got so used to him making mistakes on the high school paper, it wasn’t anything getting used to him working on the St. Johns Observer. One time in St. Johns, the Professor walked over to see the Little Colorado River and some high school boys went over after him and dunked him in the river. Harold put it in the school newspaper and he got in a lot of trouble. He had a way about him that if he was in trouble, the whole student body would stand up for him.

We moved to Salt Lake and Grandpa worked on the Tribune. He was head of the copy desk. That means they sat at a round table and they went through yesterdays newspaper and got the news of the day and he gave each person a piece to rewrite. He was very good on news. He had a nose for news. I think he was one of the best newspapermen I was ever around.

When we moved to Salt Lake we lived down on about 8th South and Main Street in a little house behind a big home. We had two rooms and a cookstove. My mother-in-law lived with us and she had a good way of scraping her feet, like my house was so filthy that she had to scrape her feet. That used to irk me.

Helen, Alta, Paul, Calvin and Maxine.

We had the Deseret News, Salt Lake Tribune, New York Times, a Chicago paper, and the San Francisco Examiner every day delivered to our home. Harold would read them but I just read the headlines of some of them.

One time they chose out of each ward a couple of people to sing in the Singing Mothers at Conference. I was chosen to sing alto. I sang on the front row of the choir seats in the tabernacle just clear of the podium. I was always singing in a group, a quartet or a double quartet.


That was the end of the interview. I'm going to post some miscellaneous items and will probably miss a few days before starting to post Jessie's interview by one of her grandsons.

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part VI

Just before Helen was born we heard the Lyman Dam had broken and we went up to see the water. It took all the houses over in Mexican town and we could see them floating down the water. Several people were killed.

I was married about 15–16 months and I had Helen. She was born in St. Johns. I thought Helen was so cute. I came home one day from meeting carrying Helen and Charlie Wright’s wife was walking in front of me. Her baby was talking and she put her baby down and it walked. Helen wouldn’t do anything. She’d just sit like a dummy. I put Helen down. Mother and Daddy were sitting on the porch, and said, “Here’s this dumb kid. Anybody can have her. I don’t want her.” My Dad said, “Shame on you. What’s the matter?” I said, “She’s so dumb she can’t do anything. I don’t want her.” He said, “The problem is—you never teach her anything.” He said, “Let me take her.” He took Helen and stood her out and said, “Come to Grandpa.” She ran up to him and he said, “Say Daddy, Mommy…” He kept asking her words to say and she’d repeat them. Then she started to sing “Catch The Sunshine.” Daddy said, “See, all you have to do is teach her.” Oh dear, I thought she was precious then. She was smart as a whip.

Helen, Maxine, and Alta.

Grandpa came back to St. Johns when school was out and taught school in St. Johns. They had a big banquet up to Patterson’s Hotel and all the teachers had to go. I didn’t have any shoes. I didn’t have anything to wear. We had to put all of our money into Harold so he could go to the banquet.

Helen and Alta.

Alta had the thickest hair. I used to curl Helen’s hair, it wasn’t as thick, for Sunday school. I’d just cut Alta’s hair off in a dutch cut. Mother would say, “Shame on you. You always curl Helen’s hair and fix her up and that little darling Alta you never do anything for her.” I said, “Do you want to curl it?” So she started in and until she got to the first ear she’d say, “Turn your head, darling.” After she got past there she’d say, “Turn your head.” And then as she got near the back she’d say sternly, “TURN your head.” I’d say to Mother, “What’s wrong with the precious little darling?” She’d say, “Hush up.” Alta’s hair was so thick and when she’d curl it, it would stick right straight out. She looked like the devil.

Alta, Maxine, Helen, Joan, Paul, and Calvin.

When Alta was a baby we moved up on the hill to H. Udall’s house. His wife had just died and he wanted me to move up there. She had five rooms and we just took the three and I was afraid to stay up there because Ruth had just died. He rented the other side to George Brown and Amy.

I stopped working at the phone company when my children came. I had to nurse them and stay in bed for a long time. They didn’t even let me dangle my feet for two weeks. I sat up on the side of the bed one day after I had Helen and mother caught me. She thought I was going to die. It was just the law that you stayed in bed. I stayed in bed for two weeks and Mother took care of my baby.

Calvin, Paul, and Maxine.

To be continued...

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part V

I came to Salt Lake and lived with Addie and Andrew and went to the LDS High School, Mother paid them board for me to stay there and she would send me a couple of dollars extra just for me because it was hard to get extra money in those days and especially for mother. We just lived a little ways down from West High School but I walked to the LDS High School right across from the temple.

In high school in St. Johns Harold Morgan was President of the student body and I was Vice-president. Harold danced at the dances like he was saying his prayers or something. He’d hold your arm and we’d dance up one side of the dance hall and get to a corner and we’d have to stop and walk out because he couldn’t turn around. So we’d have to start all over again and then he could do pretty well until we got to the other corner. He was funny.

We got married in Mother’s front room on March 28, 1914. He didn’t buy me a ring until we moved to Salt Lake and then he bought me the one I have now. It was wider then and it was all gold. Later he took it and had it cut down and covered with silver gold and left the yellow-gold on the inside because he was afraid we’d look old.

When I was first married we lived in an old house that was just a slim house two stories high. It was called the air castle. I lived in the back in two little rooms and my mother-in-law lived in front.

This is not Jessie.
It is a single-operator telephone switchboard from the right era, however.

I was a telephone operator for five towns and I’d go to work every morning and keep the telephone office. People would call me up and say, “Jessie, has Lavenia left home?” and I’d say, “I don’t know whether Lavenia has left home or not,” I’d say, “I’ll plug you in.” I’d plug in and nobody would answer and so I’d say I guess nobody answered so she wasn’t home. One day the St. Johns newspaper called me up and George Waite ran it and he said, “Jessie, if you don’t stop having every old woman in town call here, I’m going to get your job,” I said, “Go ahead and get it—you won’t get much, I only plug it into the paper when they ask for you,” I worked for the telephone company before I was married and kept right on working after I was married.

Harold taught school out to Sadro. Sadro is a little place between Gallup and St. Johns. He lived with a Mexican family. He’d come into town and the first thing he’d want was to go up to the drugstore and buy a big bucket of hot chili because that’s what the Mexicans ate. He always got a bucket and ate it. I never ate it because it was too hot.

Addie, my only sister, lived just a block below me, and we’d meet every morning and go up to mother’s and she’d walk back with us. One morning I had the boiler on to have wash water because I was going to do my washing as soon as I got home. My mother-in-law was going to do my washing as soon as I got home. My mother-in-law Mrs. Morgan, lived right in front of me and she went in after I had left one morning to teach me to do my work before I went anyplace. She put a big log of wood in the stove and got the water to boiling and then she put a cup of coal oil in the water and it boiled up on the stove and blazed up and burned the ceiling that we’d put up. We’d just returned home and saw all the smoke and found it was our own house. We got the hose and put it out.

I was so glad because I got to move over to the Dormitory. It was a great big house that the Whitings owned and they had it a long time as a Dormitory for the high school for kids that would come up for school from out of town. So I moved up there and then pretty soon Roll Jones and his wife moved over there and then George Brown and his wife Comfort. They had to call Comfort, Amy, to make her happy. And the three married couples lived upstairs in this house. We all had a baby about the same age and we kept a screen across the stairs so they would not get hurt.


To be continued...

Photo of the telephone operator from flickr.com/photos/32912172@N00/3173597640/.

Morgan 3: Jessie Christensen Morgan, Part I

Jessie Christensen Morgan

b. 13 June 1893 St. Johns, Apache, Arizona
m. 28 March 1914 St. Johns, Apache, Arizona
d. 9 January 1980 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
b. 12 January 1980 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah
Husband: Harold Morgan
Father: Marinus Christensen; Mother: Frances Ann Thomas

MEMORIES OF JESSIE CHRISTENSEN MORGAN as dictated to her granddaughter, Jessie Tanner Smith, December 1975.

My Dad was quite a churchgoer and Mother was sick all day just before I was born. She was kind of spunky and she wouldn’t ask Dad to stay home. Dad would come home from one meeting and ask her if she was all right and go back to the next one. She’d say she was all right. Then he came and she told him that he’d better go get Sister Moore quickly. Sister Moore was the midwife. They didn’t have doctors. They never heard of one at that time in St. Johns, Arizona. So he went down to get Sister Moore. Just after he left there came up a big wind storm and it rained while he was gone. The front door and the back door blew open and the wind blew right through the house and it was raining hard. Mother got up to shut the doors and fell on the floor and I was born. When my Dad came I was trying to get my breath from the rain blowing in my face. So I was born on the floor in my Mother and Dad’s home.

Marinus and Frances Christensen.

I can remember my sister, Addie. She was the oldest and she’d comb my hair. I would have it in ringlets all the time and to put it up she’d wrap my hair around the rag and then the rag around the hair. On Sunday morning, why she’d take the rags off and curl them over around her finger and make the curls big. Sometimes she would pull my hair. She would say, “turn your head.” Mother would tell her not to pull my hair. But she still pulled it because she hated to do it, you know.

Adeline Christensen Gibbons.

Elmer was a terrible tease. He was terrible. One day he got a dump cart. A dump cart had two big wheels and was drawn by a horse and they would fill it with manure and dump manure all over the lot. One day Elmer told me to come on and take a ride with him. I told him I didn’t want to but he said I could get down when he got down to fill the cart so I got in. Then he told me to put my arms around his waist and hold tight. I told him I didn’t need to hold so tight but he said I needed to, so I did. He held my hands and drove with the other hand and said, “get-up” to the horses. Those horses were locoed. They would fall down and raise up and fall down again. I’d scream and tell them to get up and they would raise up and fall down. I was scared stiff and Elmer held my hands and wouldn’t let me get down.

Elmer Christensen. (And chickens.)

One day we had to irrigate our lot in St. Johns. Mother had made me some rag dolls. I thought they were so pretty. I had 8 or 10 of them. We had to fill the barrels as we irrigated the lot to wash. Then the water would settle and Mother would have 4 or 5 barrels full of water to wash. I had my dolls sitting along the ground and the irrigation came down and as one barrel got full, Elmer would dunk a doll in it. I’d scream and mother would ask me what on earth I was screaming about and I’d say Elmer was baptizing my dolls. He was so funny. He was the biggest tease on the earth. I don’t remember much about him only that he was the best ball player.

They would always get in the street and play baseball on Sunday after meeting. He was kind of a handsome fellow and he used to run from base to base and his necktie would blow out over his shoulder and I used to think he was so cute.

The Christensen children with their mother, Frances Thomas Christensen. Jessie is standing on the right.

To be continued...

Morgan 2: Harold Morgan, Part IX

I arrived in Pasadena Nov. 11, 1956 and went to work on the copy desk. Bill Summer was managing editor, a very likable fellow and a good newspaperman. There was plenty of work but the pay was the best I had ever received.

I immediately got in touch with Paul and family. The next three week ends I spent at their home in Rivera. I was overjoyed to see him and his cute family. Sometime after I left Salt Lake Jessie went to Phoenix, … Mom and Anne came to Pasadena for Christmas. I had secured an apartment on South El Molino. Once again we were a real happy family [until Anne left home] …

How lonely it was without our little girl. Mom became busy in the ward acting for sometime as second counselor in the presidency and as head of the visiting teachers. I taught the Special Interest class in Mutual and was chairman of the Ward Genealogical Committee. I also served for two years on a stake mission. We had considerable success, having baptized more than 15 persons. As Genealogical chairman we were successful in stirring up much interest and conducting a number of successful excursions to the Los Angeles Temple.

In 1962 I was ordained a high priest, having been a member of the Seventies Quorum for more than 40 years. I was ordained a Seventy soon after high school days under the hands of the late President Charles H. Hart. Early in the summer Jessie was called to Flagstaff, Ariz. by the death of her brother Frank. It was soon after she returned that we joined a tour which took us through some 15 or 16 states on a visit to many places of Mormon historical interest. In another record I have written a history of this trip. What a wonderful time we had.

On the way back to Pasadena Jessie stopped off in Salt Lake City and then returned to Chicago …

Shortly after she returned to Pasadena I was examined for some rectal pains and was told that I had a malignant inoperable cancer. The Dr. Paul Blaisdell, said I probably had only a short time to live. However, I decided this should not be the end. We called in the elders. All the family came home. The ward members were wonderful with scores of letters, cards and phone calls. They also did fasting and praying in my behalf. From Oct. 9 through March 1963 I was in bed much of the time. I also had many calls from my co-workers. Each day I began to get stronger until April when I returned to work. What a happy day that was. The Lord had really been most merciful and kind. Within the past few weeks the manifestation of His Power has again been shown.…

In the course of this narrative I have made little mention of my experiences as a newspaperman but I can assure they were varied. I believe the field offers the greatest assortment of characters of any profession. Many experiences were thrilling and many were sad and depressing. I have interviewed many of the great of the nation and the world. Some of my stories have caused the resignation and sometimes the imprisonment of public officials for theft or other causes. Other stories have detailed notable events and promoted many schemes for the development of natural resources.

To me it has been a most satisfactory and rewarding life, except form a monetary standpoint. In this respect it could have been much better, especially during the first few years.

Harold died on November 1, 1963. His "extra" time gave him the opportunity to write this history. One of his granddaughters wrote a master's thesis on his newspaper career and one of these years I will locate a copy. (There is one in the BYU library.) Here is a last picture of Harold with his oldest children.

Morgan 2: Harold Morgan, Part VIII

The depression was on in the 1930’s and The Deseret News had reduced even the low salaries it was paying. We lived in this large home for more than a year and then moved to a two story, four bedroom home three blocks west on Third Avenue. Here we stayed for another year then moved to a three bedroom home on Seventh Avenue and H Street. It was while we were here we had a narrow escape in an automobile accident. Mom and Paul were taking me to work, going west on Seventh Avenue when a car speeding south on F Street hit the rear fender of our car turning it upside down. Luckily no one was hurt but unluckily the fellow who hit us was on relief and had no insurance.

Paul in the navy.

Cal in Coast Guard uniform and his wife Christel.

Our next move was 79 D Street, opposite the home of Pres. J. Reuben Clark. It was while here that our two sons, Paul and Cal volunteered for military duty. Paul going to the navy and Cal to the Coast Guard. I made an unsuccessful attempt to get in the Intelligence service, being past the age limit. However I did carry a gun, taking a job in the auxiliary military police guarding industrial installations.

For several months I was stationed with five other men at the Mt. Dell Reservoir above Salt Lake City in Parley’s Canyon. It was a good assignment. Three of us had a camp in a small grove of trees and the deer hunting was fine.

Helen.

It was while at D Street that our lovely daughter, Helen was married to William H. Ayrton, a young man in the Twentieth Ward. Mom served as secretary of the Ward Relief Society. She did an outstanding job and made friendships that have lasted until the present time.

It was while I was doing some publicity jobs after leaving The News that I broke my leg. Mom was forced to go to work and secured a position with the Auerbach company selling women’s shoes. She was soon a favorite in the store. I have been so proud of her all my life.

After the boys left for the service we moved to a place on Harmony Court, between Seventh and Eighth East Streets and facing South Temple Street.

It was while here that I secured a job with the Salt Lake Tribune. Because of the man power shortage during the war I did double duty. Often I worked 70 to 80 hours a week on the Tribune and Telegram. This was much the same pace until after the end of the war.

During 1949 I assisted in organizing the Salt Lake Newspaper Guild. Several previous attempts had failed. It was a bitter struggle but we were successful in forcing the company to jack up wages as much as 30 per cent. This also forced The News to raise salaries. But it also led to my undoing. When The Deseret News bought The Telegram and scrapped the latter, some 35 were separated from their jobs. This was in October 1952. Failing to get a steady job I took off for California in March 1953. While there I stayed with Cal and his wife Christel, whom he married while on leave from the Coast Guard.…

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, as I was able to get two or three good jobs on the San Francisco Examiner and was given permanent work on the Oakland Tribune when we received word that Mom had fallen down some steps while helping Helen and had pretty well broken herself up. I quit my job and went home.

Nicholas G. Morgan, Harold's half-brother.

The rest of that year I did publicity for the Utah State Fair and other odd jobs. We were having a tough time. In the winter of 54 I went to work for my brother, Nicholas G. Morgan. [For various reasons, the sequence of the events above may not be accurate.]

For the next two years or more I sold printing, worked in the print shop, helped Harry Miller put out a weekly newspaper and was associated with Horace Shurtliff in publication of a business daily. We were doing very well with the latter when certain officers of the Utah State Press Association decided we were doing too good and threatened to take us to court unless we desisted from soliciting advertising. Shurtliff decided not to fight so I was left without a job. I then secured a job with Salt Lake City. It was while working for the city that I received a phone call from an old friend, Lincoln Thomson in Pasadena, Calif. offering me a job on the Pasadena Independent. In the next day or two I was on my way to California.


To be continued...

Morgan 2: Harold Morgan, Part VII

In the summer of that year I was invited to join the staff of the Salt Lake City Herald. Jessie and the babies went back to St. Johns and I went to Salt Lake City, the place I had been aiming for during the previous two years. On arrival I found the Herald had merged with the Salt Lake Telegram and the Herald was scrubbed. The town was full of reporters, copy readers and sales people out of work. The publisher offered me a job in Anaconda, Mont., but I wanted to stay in Salt Lake, so sought a job on the Deseret News. The Col. John Q. Cannon, editor of the paper listened sympathetically to my tale of woe and on the first opening at the start of the vacation season, gave me a job. I was overjoyed.

My first assignment was the City and County building, which housed most of the city and county offices as well as the adjacent county jail.

After about two weeks of feeling my way around I sent for Jessie and the babies. I rented a house on south Main Street. I knew the day they would arrive but not the hour. As I rode the street car to the Union Pacific station, I spotted them coming south from the place I lodged on West Temple Street. Grabbing the stop cord I nearly created a riot getting to the front to stop the motorman. I raced to my little family and we were soon having lunch at a nearby café. How happy I was to see them.

Alta, Helen, and Cal.

We stayed in the Main Street house for about a year and then moved to the 300 block on Quince Street. Here our wonderful son, Paul was born… After a few hectic months on Quince St. we moved into the 1100 block on Windsor St. It lay between 8th and 9th east and south of 9th South. We were near Liberty Park and often went there during the summer. We attended church in the 31st Ward.

Helen, Maxine, and Alta.

Helen was now of school age but we kept her home until Alta could attend kindergarten. Fearing the school was too far away for our darlings we moved to a house on West Sixth South, almost in the back yard of the Grant School. Joe Christensen, Jessie’s brother came to stay with us and complete his high school. The house was not too comfortable and Paul contracted bronchial asthma. The following year on the doctor’s advice we moved to the 500 block on 11th East. It was a 5 room duplex so we were very comfortable. The following year we were overjoyed when our little Calvin was born the following September. What a sweet little fellow he was.

Alta, Maxine, Helen, Joan, Paul, and Calvin.

During the spring of 1924 we purchased a home at 1536 East 13th South St. Joe was still with us but by this time was attending the University of Utah. It was a nice neighborhood, close to schools and church. We were in the Wasatch Ward. Here we spent 14 or 15 happy years, in spite of low wages and many calls on our meager funds. This was the birthplace of three of our other children. What wonderful little souls they were and are. Maxine, personality plus girl, was born…

Joan.

Sweet, lovable Joan was born three years… What a darling, she was. So healthy looking and so active. Then like a bolt of lightning out of the blue, she was stricken. The doctor pronounced it leukemia and we rushed her to the hospital shortly before her fourth birthday. A few days later after the doctors had done everything possible for her she succumbed to this dread disease. What a tragedy for our little family.

The month Joan died. From Harold or Jessie Morgan's papers.

Jessie was almost inconsolable. For almost a year she made daily trips to the little grave in the City cemetery. It was most heart rendering. Then almost five years later … our darling Anne was born. As if in answer to prayer she was almost the express image of our little Joan. What a wonderful experience.

Anne, Maxine, Helen, and Alta.

Two or three months after Anne was born and our darling Francis Alta was married to Russel Shurtliff, son of our neighbors, we left our little home and moved to a large house in the 1100 block on Third Avenue. This was really a sad day.

To be continued...


Photo of Salt Lake City and County Building from wikipedia.

Morgan 2: Harold Morgan, Part VI

After struggling for two years and learning that championing the cause of the ‘Peepul’ is not always in the best self interest we decided to sell the paper. We received a few hundred dollars but that went mostly for debts. It was not long after this we moved to an apartment in a building formerly used to house students attending the stake academy. We had a fine garden on the lot but the principal of the Academy claimed it although we had planted it. We got a few buckets of peas and beans. During the summer I worked on construction of a bridge over the Rio Puerco river near Navajo.

Maxine, Jessie, Helen, and Alta (L to R).

On July 12 of this year our lovely daughter Alta was born. Again Jessie was at the home of Mother Christensen. [Francis Ann Thomas Christensen.]

During the summer I passed the county school teachers’ examination and received a teaching certificate. In the fall I took a school at Cedro about twenty miles northeast of St. Johns. All the pupils were Mexican and I boarded with a fine Mexican family.

The next year I lived with a Garcia family, also fine folk. The food was good but hot. The Mexican women would take the dry red chili pods, sprinkle with water and put them in the oven. When the pods were soft they were put through a food chopper and then made into a gravy like dish. This they would scoop up with a tortilla. The first year I was at Cedro I rode a horse to St. Johns on week ends. The next year I bought a fine bicycle and would ride the 20 miles in about an hour and one-half. Long stretches of sand made the going rough. It was during this year that I bought a lot in St. Johns and during the summer made enough adobes to start building. We completed the house before I began teaching the fifth and sixth grades in the St. Johns district 11. The pay was low and the hours long.

Our house was only two rooms but to us it was a palace. We had a Jersey cow so the children had plenty of milk. We were happy and the babies were healthy.

Jessie on left in center row. Linton Morgan in center back.

After school was out I passed a federal examination in Flagstaff, Ariz. The tests included shorthand and typewriting and I thought of getting a clerk appointment in Washington, where my brother Lin was studying law and going to school. My mother was also living there. On my return I stopped in Holbrook and was offered a job on the Holbrook Tribune. It was published by the Bryan brothers, who were expert printers and writers. In a few weeks I brought Jessie and the babies to Holbrook. Looking for greater opportunities in the newspaper field I took a job late in the fall with the Gallup, N.M. Independent.

Before the first of the year I had a job with the Albuquerque Morning Journal, my first daily newspaper experience. This was the year of a bad flu epidemic. [Probably 1918] We all had attacks except Jessie. What a wonderful job she did nursing the babies through that awful period. People were dying like flies. After the children recovered we moved to a house on the bench at the end of the street car line.

We were surrounded on every side with tubercular patients. But the air was dry and cleansed by the sand which blew almost constantly. As I worked on a morning paper, it was often 1 am and more before I could start home. Street cars had quit running so I would walk over a railroad viaduct. We had many good times in Albuquerque and we did pretty well financially. We had been there about a year when the paper was purchased by Carl Magee, an Oklahoman. He had soon stirred up a real battle with the Republican bosses who had long ruled New Mexico. It was a very exciting time. Magee was a real crusader. At one time he was charged with murder in the accidental death of a highway patrolman in Las Vegas, N.M. They fixed his bail at $250,000 in cash. This was furnished by Bronson Cutting, Santa Fe publisher and afterwards United States senator.

To be continued...


Photo of Jersey cow from flickr.com/photos/jdickert/539733173/
Photo of chiles from flickr.com/photos/katinalynn/3173108974/