In Memoriam

My paternal grandmother, Marian Pratt Nielson died last week (just before Pres. Hinckley). I went to her funeral instead of his. My dad did an absolutely wonderful job speaking about her life--here is what he said:

Life History of Marian Pratt

Marian was born to Marian Charlotte Hurley and Nephi Pratt on July 28, 1913 in Salt Lake City. She was their 5^th child. An older brother was stillborn, then sister Effie. A set of twin girls died soon after being born 18 months before her. A younger sister and brother still survive.

Her father was the surviving child of a set of twin boys born to her Pratt grandparents, Annie Eliza Mead and Teancum, one of the 10 sons of Apostle Parley P. Pratt. Her daughter Ruth had twin girls. Her grand-daughters Heather and June have had twins. June’s were born this month.

As I understand it, Marian was born near the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon at an abandoned shack where the family lived at the time. Her father was trained in mining and was employed at what is now Kennecott.

Her father went where he could get work as far away as Nevada, Idaho and Colorado and left his family alone. When Marian was 5, they moved to Lehi to another shack where she and her sister Effie played at a stump along a nearby irrigation ditch they called “the Post Office. It had slots in it like the pigeon hole slots where their mother got mail.

Their father was in Nevada and requested their mother to send his gun. He neglected to say that it was loaded. As she prepared to wrap it, it fired. The bullet ricocheted off the wall and ceiling into the back of her mother’s head.

Neighbors found the 2 little girls with their unconscious mother. Relatives in Salt Lake City were contacted who took the mother and girls with them back to Salt Lake. The mother was near death for most of a year with double pneumonia. The aftermath was the loss of 1 lung. A Dr.’s recommendation was moving to a warm dry climate resulting in their move to Mesa, AZ.

The father was away at work and it’s unclear if he was even aware of the condition of his wife. Their children were being cared for by her parents and siblings in Salt Lake.

She was about 7 years old when they moved to Mesa. Mesa was a fast-growing community and they had schools which she attended. She was a bright student and was finished with grade school by age 11. She finished high school at age 15 as Valedictorian. She was finished with college at ASU by age 19 again as Valedictorian, majoring in art, minoring in physical education with a degree in teaching.

At age 18 she had typhoid fever and lost all of her hair. She was bald while recovering and wore a “bloke hat.” While walking to visit her friend Zola Stradling, she spied Zola coming toward her and backed around a corner wall thinking to scare Zola as she came up. As she heard the steps coming close, she jumped around the corner and said, “Boo”.

Unbeknownst to her there was a tree limb hanging close over the wall that reached down and lifted the hat off her head as she jumped up to say, “Boo”.

She was mortified that it was not Zola she had said Boo to, rather a man who was not pleased at being said Boo to by a bald young woman.

When she finished college in 1934 it was deep in the Great Depression and jobs were scarce. She was not able to get a teaching job, only one as a nanny. She went to live with a family in Phoenix where the mother was having a baby and there were children for her to care for as the mother recovered.

Her first teaching job that fall was in Mocassin, AZ. 10 miles East of Short Creek and 12 miles West of Fredonia in a one room school for the children of the ranch owners.

Unbeknownst to both her and her father, they were living only 10 miles apart. He did not know she was there and she did not know where her father was.

She was very happy when she was able to sign on for a job teaching in the Mesa Schools for the following year. Her younger sister had married. Her older sister was already teaching. Her brother was still in high school.

At this point her mother decided to make a Family History Research trip to England, leaving the brother in the care of his 2 sisters at home. In March of 1936 her friend, Mabel Petersen arranged a blind date with one of her cousins from Bluewater, NM, Joseph F. Nielson Jr. who was visiting in Mesa.

They went to a Spanish Members Area Conference held in Mesa one evening. The following evening they went to a dance at the Mezona on a double date with Mabel and her date. That weekend they attended church together. She agreed to correspond with Joseph.

In their writing, Joseph invited her to visit his family in Bluewater after school was out. She accepted. She met his only sister, Elizabeth and his only brother Allen who later married her friend Luella Russell. She met his father and mother. She was very impressed with his blind father. His mother had grown up in Mesa and knew how to turn on the charm. They were the ones courting her as Joseph was busy delivering milk daylight till after dark. She did finally ride one day with him on the milk route and they talked seriously of marriage.

In those days there was always a 4^th of July rodeo in Grants. His family were amused when on asking what she enjoyed at the rodeo, she replied, “The wild steer milking.” As she metamorphosed from a city girl into a country wife in Bluewater, she was again mortified to realize that you don’t get milk from steers.

Before leaving for Mesa, she had committed to marrying Joseph. By correspondence it was arranged for her to meet him in Flagstaff on August 19^th where they would travel to SLC to be sealed there. Air conditioning was non-existant in 1936 and the Mesa Temple was closed for summer vacation.

She was tested in her committment to this marriage with her mother absent in England and being responsible for her brother. She did not meet Joseph in Flagstaff. He came to Mesa to pressure her into going forward and he succeeded.

They started for SLC. She had driven little. She however did agree to relieve Joseph sometime during the night. In the early hours of the following day they hit a cow and calf on the road. It killed the animals. They were not injured, but the truck was seriously damaged. They were towed into Fredonia where temporary repairs were made so they could continue to SLC.

In SLC they stayed with her Uncle Charles & Aunt Lottie Lambert until they could be sealed on August 24^th. Repairs on the truck delayed their return to Bluewater.

Their first place of residence was in the F.G. Nielson homestead where I was born 9 months later. They were still there when Ruth was born an additional 12 months later. We then moved to Gallup where Joseph was assigned to work for the Dairy. She pushed a baby buggy with Ruth and sometimes me in it up and down the hills of Gallup for the 6 months we were there.

The next residence was in the lobby of the Rainbow Hotel building in Bluewater, which had been converted to a dairy plant.

When that space was needed for dairy operations, they moved to “the library” which was the house her father-in-law built at the ranch and later moved to the corner by the store. This was their residence for about 8 years. Lois was born at sister McNeill’s just when water was struck at the new dairy well.

Douglas was born in Grants at Dr. Cornelius’s. Ruby, John and Carol were born in “the library” attended by sister McNeill.

Marian was able to finally get the consent from her in-laws to use the old dairy building for a home and we moved there in 1948. It needed lots of remodeling to be a home. She did much of the work of getting it ready to be lived in. With a little help from me, she built another chicken coop at the new home.

Margaret was born in Grants at Dr. Fjord’s while we lived in the new home. Marian left at 6 a.m. and was home by 9:30 a.m. with Margaret in her arms. She was a tireless worker improving the home, working in the garden, in the field and caring for a large family. She hostessed an “Open House” for a celebration of the new home, probably one of the most functional in the village at the time.

She has always had an interest in art and during this period had obtained a kiln for baking pottery which she shaped and molded. On April 18, 1950, about 10 a.m. this newly remodeled home burned to the ground. Carol never got out of the fire and died that day, the first death of a child in the family.

Her in-laws were kind again and the family moved back to the library but with rights to the store building. The devastation of the fire seems to have been a catalyst to more diligent effort in the community and home. The store was re-opened and a thriving business begun. The Branch Chapel was being renovated and prepared for dedication. Farming efforts were re-doubled. Newer automobiles were purchased.

Joyce was born 2 years later in the library. She died 18 months later of croup on Christmas Eve. Marian had discovered a new way of feeding her family with the store business. Having a store meant that salesmen came to her. She ordered what she needed with a little extra to be for sale in the store and obtained it at a wholesale price. AND she didn’t have to go shopping because the salesmen came to her.

Her mother in Mesa was in perilous health. Marian moved to Mesa for a year to take care of her mother. Her children still in school went with her. Joseph had a good job at Anaconda which he hated to give up. He was so lonely in Bluewater that he quit and went to Mesa. He never found satisfactory employment in Mesa and brought John with him back to Bluewater. Peter was born in 1955 and being young spent the year in Mesa with her. After a year in Mesa without her husband, Marian returned to Bluewater.

The store business had gotten slower and her children were older. She applied in 1957 for a teaching job in the Bluewater school where she taught till 1968.

In the course of her teaching she was required to take additional college classes to maintain her teaching certificate. She used this as an opportunity to increase her artistic talents and has done quite a few nice paintings.

Ruth, Frederick, then Lois were married by 1962. On Thanksgiving of 1961, her youngest son, Peter died very un-expectedly. This was another great loss to her. Of this loss she quoted from scripture...... “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away...., Blessed be the name of the Lord....”

By 1968, Douglas, Ruby and John were married. In 1969 her son Douglas was diagnosed with stomach cancer and died that year. She saw to it that his body was brought to Bluewater for burial, close to where her husband and other 3 children are buried.

In 1975 she accepted a call as an ordinance worker in the Mesa Temple with her husband where they served until filling a mission to Mexico in 1984/1985. They maintained a house in Mesa for use during temple work until her husband died 10 years ago.

She had a musical talent that was amazing. She was in charge of the music for the dedication of the Bluewater Ward Chapel in 1951. She sang with a group of women called “The Singing Mothers”. She gave piano lessons to all her children and quite a few others. The girls all did well.

She had reached the 8^th grade level of piano before marriage. I’ve been in church meeting with her at the organ and watched while she transposed the current song being sung from the key in which it was written, to a more comfortable key for the congregation. This was done on the spot, in her head and in her hands with no visible change to anyone but a person with a trained musical ear.

These things normally are done with much effort and time invested in looking, checking and writing the correct notes on the page. She did it all on the spot in her head and hands.

The past 10 years she has lived independently and alone here in her own home which she and her husband completed in 1964. Most of these years, she has faithfully driven herself to and from her work in the stake center family history library.

I wish to publicly read a few of the complimentary things said of her recently:

“Thank you you very much for the report on your mother.
She is a sweet lady.” A nephew.

“FRED, THANKS FOR KEEPING US POSTED. WE PRAY FOR HER DAILY. KNOW YOUR MOM WILL BE BLESSED. DAN”

A lifelong friend.

“She cherished the time you spent with her.” A son.

“If your mother is able to hear a message, please tell her that we send our love and great respect to an Elite Lady.” A lifelong friend.

“PLEASE LET HER KNOW WE THINK OF HER & SHE IS IN OUR PRAYERS. SHE IS CERTAINLY PART OF ALL THE FOND MEMORIES IN MY LIFE.” A friend.

She has visited a doctor when Douglas, Margaret and Peter were born, for cataract removal 4 months ago and 2 weeks ago for diagnosis of the problems leading to her demise now. The Dr. had been asking over and over who her Dr. was. She said bragging to this last doctor that she had been active and athletic, “you are now my Dr. and will sign my death certificate”.

She lived the Word of Wisdom and all Gospel commandments to the best of her ability. I am impressed that she lived this long and in relatively robust health for a person her age.

I wish to comment on the privation of her early years. Her parents separated when she was about 6 years old. She only had 2 letters and 1 visit from her father before he died. Then she became an orphan for a year soon after when her mother laid on death’s doorstep for a year. Her Mother was ever frail from that time on.

As a little girl it became her practice to go and hide when visitors came for fear of them coming to take her away from her Mother. Children feel deeply the sufferings and insecurity of their parents. Not yet being adults, they lack the ability to understand and communicate their fears until after they reach adulthood. Some even in adulthood cannot recognize, articulate and communicate their fears and the basis for them.

These childhood insecurities have a huge bearing on their future behavior. Sometimes, the behavior is anti-social or even worse – violent and destructive. She has lived a good life despite her privations.

I thank her for my birth, healthy endowments and especially the connection to a Latter-day Apostle of the Lord. I honor her and him as well as our Lord and Saviour, even Jesus Christ for this blessed heritage in His name, Jesus Christ. Amen.