Many hardships were experienced in this new country – food and clothing were difficult to obtain. Often did rations consist of nothing more than thistle tops and segos. The family lived in a log hut with a dirt floor. The Indians were dangerous, and in order to avoid trouble, it was necessary to give them what they demanded. Daddy recalls many times when his mother took her children away from the house to allow the Indians to do what they pleased with it. Daddy’s school life was meager and limited. School was held in some convenient public building, and instructors were not learned and experienced, but were men who knew little of reading, writing and spelling to teach it to the children. They would teach in the winter and do their farm work in the summer. When he was not in school he would be busy working on the farm.

When Daddy was a boy gold dust was used for change between the years of ’64 and ’68, or while the gold rush was on to Montana and California. Paper money was of small denominations of 5-10-15-25 and 50˘ was used extensively. Daddy remembers very well the great grasshopper war, about which we study and read in Church History. He took part in driving the hoppers into trenches or onto straw, where they might be covered or burned. In 1872 all the family belongings were packed into a wagon behind a pair of ponies, and moved to Ogden, where grandfather was employed as Manager of the Ogden Junction, a newspaper which later became the Ogden Standard.

In 1876, when Daddy was about 10 years old he worked as office boy in the office of Nathan Tanner, Jr. for $3.60 per week – the first remuneration he ever had received for any work which he had done. During the summer months when he was out of school, he canvassed for newspapers. He also worked with a hide and wool concern in Ogden, where he bought thousands of Indian-tanned buckskins, Buffalo robes, and furs of all kinds from the Indians who would come from Fort Hall to trade. It is interesting to know that the trading was done by the squaws. In 1888 Daddy was elected Treasurer of the Weber County on the People’s Ticket, and served in that capacity for four years. His church activities commenced when he was 15 years old, as Secretary of the Sunday School for several years. Later he was Superintendent of the Sunday School.

Mother, Roseltha Ballantyne Stratford, was born March 10, 1862, in Ogden, Utah, on the corner where now stands the First National Bank Building, which originally was the old Ogden House Hotel. This corner later became the property of Richard Ballantyne. Mother’s schooling was also very limited. School was held for five days a week, and her first school room was in an old blacksmith shop, one-half block from her home. She was taught reading, writing, and spelling. In order to be able to attend school, it was necessary of her and her sisters to get up around 3 o’clock in the morning at least two days a week to get the washing and ironing done before school time at nine. At a later time school was held upstairs in the old City Hall.

Mother remembers one person connected with that old building, other than the instructor, L.F. Moench, and that was a person occupying a portion of the jail downstairs – a colored person named Bingo. Before school, or at recess time, the children would flock to Bingo’s window and persuade him to draw pictures for them. When school was held at Hadlock Hall, at a later period, reading, writing, spelling, geography, arithmetic and grammar were taught. Richard Ballantyne, Mother’s father, also managed the Ogden Junction for a number of years and was contractor for building railroads during the early days of railroading. He was a devout Christian man, and organized the first L.D.S. Sunday School.

Mother was active in Church life. She taught Sunday School for several years, and was organist too. She was a member of the first mutual organization of Ogden, and a member of the tabernacle and fourth ward choir in Ogden. Reform movements were prevalent then, as now, in the young folk’s organization. Mother recalls a vote which was held in Mutual one time – in an effort to rid the Mutual dances of that supposedly wicked round dancing. Mother said that she would not vote against round dancing because she was afraid she couldn’t stop dancing that way. I asked Mother what she used to do for amusement when she was a girl. She wouldn’t commit herself, but confessed that her younger sisters were in the habit of climbing trees in the front of the house and from there would whistle down at the fellows who would be passing by. I am glad too, that the fellows do the whistling these days! 

Daddy met Mother at school when they were about 16 and 17 years old. Daddy courted Mother for four or five years, which meant that Daddy used to take Mother to the dances, dance until midnight, take her out to eat, come back and dance until daylight. I’ll guess that he kept pretty good watch over her at these corn huskings, candy pulls, and peach cuttings. Mother and her friends before leaving choir practice, would go out and gather gooseberries to eat during singing school, as they called it. I’ll bet those gooseberries were more annoying to the music leader than gum would be in this day and age. Daddy would take Mother to practice, but would have a nap on one of the benches until the practice would be over. Daddy asked Mother if she remembered the time her father caught them upstairs on a Sunday night playing cards, but Mother said no, she could not remember. I wonder – or maybe she didn’t care to remember.

Mother and Daddy were married November 23, 1882, in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. The wedding was a double one – Mother’s younger sister, Annabelle, married Louis A. West. The couples were married by D. H. Wells, grandfather of Richard Wells. The night before they were married they occupied President Taylor’s box in the Salt Lake Theater, probably due to the fact that Mother was a niece of President Taylor’s wife. The evening of the wedding reception in Ogden, the Ogden L.D.S. Fourth Ward brass band serenaded the folks. Probably there is but one person living today outside of the families, who attended the wedding-Parley T. Wright, who is now living in California. The two couples lived in a double house on 23rd street in Ogden for about two years.

At this time Daddy was in the furniture business with his father and brothers, and continued in that work until 1900, at which time the business was sold, and he moved to Logan, where he was employed as traveling salesman for Dinwoody Furniture Co. until about 1908. Jess George Jr., first child of the folks, was born in Ogden in November, 1883, also in Ogden were born the twins, Ina and Iva, Pearl, Rae, Ruby, and Clyde and Vera. Ralph and Dick were born in Logan, and Reba in Pocatello.

Daddy was president and part owner in the Pocatello Hardware and Furniture Company, which owned the building now occupied by the Hub Store. The panic of 1894 took everything he had. The difference, he says, in that panic and the one today, is that work was plentiful then, but money was scarce. In connection with Church activities here, Daddy was Assistant Stake Superintendent of Sunday Schools and member of the High Council for 21 years. It used to be that he would travel by team, but later by train. He used to go to Inkom on an early train before daylight, and then would walk up the canyon and back to Church. In the same manner would he go to American Falls and walk to Neeley to Church. 

Daddy and Mother were able to send half of their living children away on missions, three sons and two daughters. Daddy and Mother were interested at one time in horses, and always enjoyed entering one in the races. They were interested, also, in the out-of-doors, and were the first to spend vacations camping in Ogden Canyon. Daddy always has been a lover of fishing and hunting, which hobbies he has passed on to all of his boys while Mother was interested in keeping away the cobwebs and dust and baking pies for Sunday. From this marriage union, there are eleven children, ten living, twenty-seven grand children, and seven great-grandchildren. And they are, this day, paying tribute to their father and mother, their grandfather and grandmother, their great grandfather and great grandmother, who through their lives of purity and sacrifice have given us many things, the greatest of which is life itself.

by Rae Percy Stratford