The Daniel Barton Family History as told by Joseph Barton(1914-2000)

Life was very good for the Barton Family in Greenville, Utah.  Mom and Dad and 7 children lived in a small home with one bedroom and a kitchen and living room.  Joe and brother West slept in a pull out couch in the living room and the kids and parents slept in the bedroom.

                                   Dan and Alice Barton and Family

There wasn't much money but there was a lot of love in their home.  There was a cook stove in the kitchen and a little heater in the bedroom and the living room.  There was no running water in the home and no bathroom facilities in the early days.  Water was carried from the Artesian well at the school house.  There was an outhouse in the back yard. 

Dan and Alice M Barton Home.  In the left corner you can see the back of the pink rock school house where they would have to walk to get their water from. This is also where Dan was the custodian.

Some of Little Joe's early morning chores were to chop wood and take it into the house, build a fire and feed stock and milk the cows before school.  He walked to the school which wasn't far.  It was a 2 room school house.  First through fourth grades were in one room and fifth through eighth grades were in the other.  He walked home for lunch.  School teachers were tough in those days.  They made the kids study and toe the line.  If they had to punish you, your parents would punish you again when you got home.  After 8th grade, the kids rode the bus to Beaver High.  Joe couldn't play sports because the bus wouldn't wait for him and Joe had afternoon chores to do before.  Those chores were chopping wood and taking it into the home again.  Milking cows and feeding the stock once more.  Every day there was work to do.

                      Joe Barton

Each meal at the Barton home was a hearty meal.  Meat and potatoes.  After the evening meal the family would often seat around and eat parched corn and apples.  Neal Morris, Uncle Jode's son, spent a lot of the evening nights around the stove shooting the breeze.

When Mother did the washing, it was on a wash board and the clothes were hung out to dry.  People often said that the Barton kids looked like they came out of a band box.  Even if their clothes were old and patched.  Mother kept the children clean and neat. 

There were about 200 people who lived in Greenville.  Most everyone was a Mormon but not everyone attended church. 

Greenville Church now owned by Ron Chesley

 



The church was located in the middle of town and was one big room.  Classes were gathered into different corners in parts of the room and divided by benches and curtains.  Sunday School was Sunday morning and folks would go home for lunch and return for Sacrament Meeting.  In those days the children were to be seen and not heard.  Children didn't participate in the meetings.  As he recalls there were usually 3 speakers, DJ Williams was the Bishop, Joe was once a councelor in the MIA which met every Tuesday night and only a few people went.  Nola and Joe remembers participating in a road show and the Gold and Green Ball.

Back in the good old days, kids made their own fun.  In the winter they loved to go sleigh riding on the south side.  Joe would get on his horse Darkie and pull the other kids around on sleighs.  In the summer time the young folks made up games like Run Sheep run and Kick the Can.  They also enjoyed tossing potatoes in the bon fire and then eating them.  On the 4th of July Joe might get 25 cents for the day.  There were foot races and candied popcorn with a balloon on it.  There were the fireworks but 2 or 3 men were appointed to shoot off some dynamite before sun up.  Greenville was noted for setting them off first in the surrounding area. 

In the late summer Uncle Zeal and others would hook some horses up to a covered wagon and head to Kanosh where they would spend a day picking peaches and pears.  They would take a day to travel there and a day to travel back.

Joe's first girl was Elma Williams.  Some of his close friends were Ormond Morris, Mark Barton, Glen Barton, Eddie Barton.

     Greenville Utah Pink Rock School House Class 1933-34 Joe Barton on the back row.

When Joe was older he put up and hauled hay in North Creek.  He also hunted deer and rode the range for their Cattle.

One night when it snowed, a foot of snow, there was a "cheraree" in town for Louise Calvert and Frank Fackrell.  This is a common custom for newlyweds.  It was on this night that Joe first saw a pretty young girl, Nola Hess.  He took a liking to her and walked her home in the snow and met her father Henry Hess.  After he met Nola, Joe got on his horse and picked up Nola and the Williams girls and gave them a sleigh ride.  He especially liked turning his horse sharply which caused the girls to turn over in the snow.

Dances in Greenville were held in the school house.  Joe's Dad Dan Barton was the custodian so Joe would get a ticket by helping his father get the school ready for the dances.

1969 Pink Rock School House Grades 1-4 on the right and 5-8 on the left. The room in the back of the school was used for recreation, plays and dances.

 



  Often a 3 piece band played the music.  Dances were once or twice a month.  Beaver had dances too. 
At 19, Joe went to Milford to work on the railroad for several months.  He then returned to Greenville and rode the range and helped on the farm.

 Nola and Joe were married in Greenville on May 14th, 1935.  Some of their friends were Ormond and Nola Morris, Agnes and Vyron Baker.   Fern Hunter was a good friend too.  They loved to go to Beaver on Horseback to shows or in the winter go bob sledding with these couples.

Every summer after Nola and Joe moved to California in 1936, they returned to Greenville for a vacation.  Their son Gary spent all his summers in Greenville.  He stayed with his Grandmother Alice and Grandfather Dan Barton and had a most wonderful time.  West Barton would come up with his mother and loved to go fishing with Grandpa Hess.  The brothers always said everything is always free in Greenville.

Roy Chesley, Joe and West Barton

 

Lois Margaret Morris Dean 1924-2011 Morris Reunion Aug 8th, 1987

Lois Morris Dean:

I am Lois Morris Dean.  My dad was Frank Morris.  I don't remember anything about my Grandfather, very little about my Grandmother.  She was Mary Easton Morris.  The thing I remember about her was she came to live with us when our sister Helen was just a baby.  When I think of Grandma I think of 2 black eyes, they just look like coal and her hair was pulled back in a severe bun and on the nap of her neck I remember that those were the two colors of small flowers in the material and they came to the floor.  We had a rocking chair that squeaked and she always sat in that rocker.  Her feet would hit the floor and give the momentum to go back again.  She would hold Helen and make a sort of kind of nest and sit and sing to her in that Welch dialect.  That's what I think of when I think of her. 

Mary Easton Morris

Looking around the group today I see a few faces that will remember the Holidays that we had in Greenville.  Some of you younger kids might be interested in what we used to do.  There was never a door locked that I ever remember in Greenville.

 Uncle Percy Williams lived about a block up from us and on Christmas mornings he would try to beat us in yelling "Christmas Gift", and if we beat him we would go to his door and say that.  All the kids would get up and they could take one toy and that was about all you got, you could take that with you and then we would just keep picking people up all around town singing Christmas Carols.  At times, in my dreams, I can hear the snow crunch and squeak and it would be so cold in the mornings.  You would be so cold that your nose would stick together when you went to sing because of the frost.  The air would come out in big puffs of white.  We went around to every door yelling "Christmas Gift", picking up the kids and then go on to the next one.  Remember King?  He said "Oh not too much".   Oh, you were older than me but that was the way Christmas Morning started. 

We always had a program for Christmas Eve and every kid took part.  We had people coming from Beaver, Milford, Minersville and North Creek to help us take part to celebrate Christmas Eve. 

Now I am going to tell on Roy, Joe, King and Ferrel and every teenage boy in our town.  The fourth of July would come, they had been partying all night, none of them had ever been home.  They used to nip a little or a lot (Oh now...) Anyway (Donna Morris said "maybe that's why they can't remember").  Anyway, early in the morning, before anyone else was awake you could hear thunder and it was the kids setting dynamite off and you never knew for sure because none of them were really on course, they were a wee bit off plumb but then after the dynamite you could look up to the church and there would be the flag.  King would come home and tell us how he and Roy used to shimmy up that tiny flag pole.  I remember how concerned mother used to be, she would walk to the gate and back and forth because she was concerned about the boys, until she would see the flag on the flag pole and know the kids were all okay.  Then she came back to the house. 

We always had a parade on the July 4th and the children dances.  If you didn't have a reason to dance one would be made up.  My Mom and Dad used to do the music for the dances.  Everyone in Greenville used to do their bit and participate.  There wasn't any old middle aged or young.  We were all just one big happy family.  It was a really Happy Valley.

Lula Morris Atkin(1915-2005) at Morris Reunion August 8th, 1987

Lulu Morris Atkin:
(Tells about Mary Ellen Easton Morris and she is Frank's daughter and Mary Ellen's Granddaughter)

Mary Easton Morris

What I am going to talk about today is Grandma Morris.  She wasn't a very big woman as I remember her maybe 5'2 or 4 tall.  Most of her life she wasn't very heavy but she wore a lot of petty coats so her skirts made her look  bigger than she really was.  She was quiet, gentle, and a sweet person and I don't ever remember her getting angry or ornery or even raising her voice to any of us and she had a sense of humor that wouldn't quit.  We spent a lot of time at grandmas house especially until I was about 9.  Then we moved to town, with our house over on the hill across the Beaver River. 

Frank A. Morris

 Zealand Morris                      

Dad and Uncle Zeal jointly owned the farm and worked it together.  Our livestock was all kept together and the milking was done at Grandma's corral.  I remember that many a night, Barbara and I would be so sleepy before all the milking, separating and chores were done, that we just about get sleeping really soundly when our parents would call finish and we would have to get up and walk home.  I remember feeling I'd rather die than get up, but Grandma with her sweet gentleness was always there to help us up and get going.  She made the best cookies, they would be so huge it seemed to me, about 3-4 inches wide and 3/4 inch thick.  They were flavored with nutmeg and had raisins in them.  If anyone here has that recipe I wish you'd give it to me.  Nobody could fry cabbage like she could either.  I remember one time I ate so much I got sick and Mother and Grandma had to take care of me that night.  I remember those good meals for the hay hands and threshing crew and Grandma and Mother and others in the family cooked pies and cakes and piles of food that was so good.  This was almost as good as family reunions with all the local relatives that were besides the threshing crew.

I was sick a lot for the first 8 years of my life.  Always my dear Grandma's both of them, came to help nurse me through the very serious illnesses I had, and when Nola was talking about Castor Oil, Yeah!  I remember that stuff and there were many a times we had to take it, sometimes it was with orange juice or a little coffee and it never tasted good with anything. 

When I was old enough to know that Grandma was a person of her own right, and not just a Grandma that gave us cookies, rocked us in her lap and did nice things for us, she was in her late 60's or early 70's but she never really seemed that old to me until the last 6 years of her life.  Before she died in 1930 at nearly 80 years of age, she walked to town to visit her families there and she was still quite active in her home.  At this time I had good opportunities to visit Grandma all by myself.  It was my chore to go to her house every day and clean and wash the separator discs and the utensils used for milking.  So I had a chance to visit with Grandma but like all the kids 12 years of age, I didn't really appreciate it then.   Let me tell you for a minute about cleaning the cream separator.  Have any of you ever seen a separator or the workings of it?  Well if you have never washed one you have missed a lot.  Along with a lot of other parts there was a contraption called the discs.  This consisted of about 52 cups that fit one into another and were put on a big metal safety pin.  Everyone of those cups had to be washed and scalded with boiling water, dried, inserted into each other and back into the pin.  The purpose of this supposedly, was to separate cream from the milk and it had to be fixed just so.  I guess it did do that but you couldn't prove it by me.  I only knew I cleaned that thing a million times or so it seemed.  I just hated those discs and I think everyone hated to clean them too, even Grandma.

Joseph Smith Morris and Mary Easton Morris early family photo

Grandma had a busy active life raising her family sometimes being alone with her children for months, as Grandpa served a 2 year mission during this time, also as a cattle buyer which took him from home a lot.  I have heard Grandma often tell us when her children were quite young she and the children took the milk cows over the river for the summer where the feed was lush and thick. Here they milked the cows and made butter and cheese.  Now, I don't know exactly where over on the river is, but it was over towards. Paragonah somewhere (could it have been up that canyon?)

She said during the time she lived in a little cabin that had a door with no latch and the door was held closed with just a big rock. When I think of it now just how she told about it then, I marvel about it, how courageous and brave she was to stay there alone, just with her children without even a safe place to live in. There must surely have been wandering Indians and other men out there and also wild animals.  It must have been her keen sense of humor that brought her through the hard times in her life she lost to children,  John in infancy and Lula at age 8 and her husband when he was only 54. She had grief and adversity and a lot of  hard work but she endured them all.  Her sense of humor was the most amazing thing about grandma. She was always saying something funny in her quaint Scottish dialect or some little Scottish sayings that I wish I could remember now.  Many times I could see her laughing over some ordinary incidence that tickled her. Like one time when King was 5 or 6 years old he, Barbara and I had gone over at Thanksgiving time and it was pretty nippy so we wore our coats and caps. King had on a red stocking cap and a dark colored coat. Grandma had a flock of about 40 turkeys that were about ready for market and they caught sight of King. They must have thought he was a strange turkey invading there territory because the whole flock started after him. King ran for the house as fast as his little legs could go and with all those turkeys right behind him. Their necks sticking right out, boy they were going to get him. King reached grandma who picked him up and brought him safely home and she was laughing so hard that she could hardly talk.

 She spent a lot of time of her last few years staying for months at a time.  She was still cheerful and gentle and as alert as she could be and her sense of humor was as keen as ever.  She still sang her cute little songs and her cute little Scottish sayings. We had a record on our phonograph about a Scotsman who "liked to have me breakfast in bed in the Sunday morning." Grandma loved this song and she would have us play it for here and as she listened she would chuckle to herself all the time the record played. she was a lovely lady, or grandma. She was gentle, kind and had a lot of courage and was humble and faithful always. She told me her two favorite hymns were, " We thank the oh God for a prophet and How firm a foundation".  I thought that maybe you would like to know this. She was sweet to us all and judging from her personality in her last years time, people are generally cross and hard to live with but still she had kept her sense of humor and her easy going nature. I'm sure she never did or said anything harmful to anyone in her whole life she was a wonderful person.  A Grandma to be proud of. I loved her then and I love her now and I'm thankful for the heritage she gave me and the memories I have of her.

A Harvesting Memories Book 1 by Nola Baker Morris

I found a book that Nola Baker Morris had given my Grandma Violet Morris Blackett.  I have been wanting to add more personal histories but had not received any more connections to do so.  It was such a blessing to open this Memory book and find a group of histories mostly collected at a Morris Reunion in August of 1987. The personal histories and stories found in this book will also have the HMB in the title.  I have loved reading all the stories of our ancestors.  We just got back from attending the 2014 July 4th Celebrations in Greenville with the Barton/Chesley family that have homes there.  What an amazing blessing to read about my ancestors doing some of the same things that I still get to do with my children today.  The early morning Canon booming all of us awake, the patriotic songs and the children's parade going around the block as all the parents race to all sides of the block to cheer on everyone as they circle the Chesley Home/Pink Rock relief society building.  It feels like we all stepped back 100 years.  I am so grateful to my husband Stan and his friendship with my Cousins as he introduced me to my own family that I had lost touch with.  Every year we cherish our time on July 4th and Labor Day to celebrate with all of our Greenville Utah Cousins.  I am grateful for my daughter Alexis who has helped me in typing the stories for this blog.  There are a lot more of you out there so write me with your stories.   If anyone reading this has anything to correct or enter or has photos to add to the stories please contact me.