Who Do You Think You Are? The Rose's

Aug 8th 2010 is a pretty auspicious day.  100 years ago Katherine Roberts came into the world on that day in Logan, UT.  Her parents were Hugh Roberts and Maggie May Terry.   Katherine married Alton P. Rose on Dec 31 1931 in Salt Lake City.  So that is the "dry stuff"  lets see if we can have some of the fun stuff.

This is Katherine about age 19.  She moved to Salt Lake at about age 18 and lived in the Beehive house while it was a boarding house for "young ladies".  I have heard other women of her generation talk about living there while they either went to school or worked in the "big city".

Katherine did not have an easy life but I have been re-reading her little autobiography written about 1969 for the Farmington Ladies Literary Club.  She called it My Book.   Her mother died when she was only 8 years old and her father was a difficult man.  He had sever mood swings and probably had what we now know as bipolar disorder but in those days it was just a "difficult personality".  After his wife's death he went into severe depression from which he never really recovered.  While Hugh was struggling with his wife's death he farmed the girls out to various family members and Katherine spent several years with her uncle David Roberts and his wife Phene.  It was difficult for her because this family already had 8 children when she joined them and though David was a successful lawyer and Judge the affection and cuddling she had received from her mother was not available in this home.
Hugh eventually remarried but the "sister's" Susan, Eda Mae (Aunt Bettie) Katherine and Dora never really liked or got along with their new mother.  Susan was well into her teenage years by the time of the new marriage and she may have resented her role as "mother" being taken over, especially with her sisters.

Hugh tore down the home in Logan where he and Maggie May lived and built a new one for his new wife.  He finished most of it but this was to prove a pattern in his life.  Not too long after he saw a new opportunity to dry farm in Idaho and sold the Logan home and moved to Idaho in the fall where the family lived in a tent for the winter.  In the spring he began a new home and tried to farm at the same time.  The weather was bad and the house was never finished before the farm failed and they moved on again.

As soon as they could each of the children left home and either married or got jobs.  Katherine had a wonderful sense of humor and her book is filled with the fun times they had even though her life was difficult.

Pretty dapper guy, don't you think?  Alton was very careful about his appearance and it rubbed of on his children.  He would press his own pants daily and shine all his shoes weekly.  I know there must have been more hours in the day back then.

Katherine married Alton P. Rose from Farmington on New Years Eve 1931.   I would love to know that story.  They were married at the home of her sister Susan and Elliot J. Roberts, by Bishop Harold Stewart.    Edda Mae Bredee and Mabel P. Rose where the witnesses (Katherine's sister and Alton's mother).  It was one of those workplace romances.  Katherine had come to Salt Lake to go to school at Henigars business school (it must have been "the" place for young ladies because my own mother went there about 10 years later).   She eventually got a job at Utah Power and Light where a young man, Alton Rose, was working his way up the corporate ladder.  They married and move to Farmington eventually building a house across the street from the Farmington cemetery on property owned by the original pioneer, Abraham Rose.

Alton and Katherine had 5 boys; Robert Warren, Ronald Hugh (who died at about 8 months), Phillip Terry, (who died April 1960 two weeks before his 20th birthday)  David Nicholas, Allyn Patrick.

Things the sisters told me about Katherine and things Pat has told me about his mom.

• She loved writing and would write plays for she and her sisters to perform,  the ward shows, and a column for the Weekly Reflex (later the Davis Co. Clipper).  She was the Farmington Correspondent and told about the weddings and engagements, who was visiting who and from where, baby births and many other things that newspapers of small areas used to fill their papers with about the people in the town.  Her little Autobiography is witness to her clever words and wonderful way of seeing the best in life.
• She was the President of the Utah Municipal League Wives Association for several years.  Katherine impressed Mrs. J. Bracken Lee, wife of Gov. J. Bracken Lee ( Gov. of UT 1949-1957).  Mrs. Lee took Katherine under her wing and groomed her for the position of president.
• She was the YW president, taught Primary and Sunday School
• She worked in the PTA
• She was the wife of the mayor of Farmington and bravely saw him through many a spring when he was "just going to burn rubbish" and things got out of hand the the town volunteer Fire Department descended on the property and the Mayor had to be admonished about burning.
• The sisters and their families came yearly to pick and can fruit from Alton's trees and spend the summer together.  The children would put on plays in the basement.  I have heard the cousins say that Aunt Katherine's and Uncle Alton's place was the best to come and visit at when they were going to BYU and their parents were far away.
• She loved going to Salt Lake with Alene Jones, one of her best friends.  She and Alene would go and have lunch at the ZCMI Tiffin Room and I inherited  some of the lovely things she bought on those shopping trips.  She and Alene had a pact that who ever survived would go right in and clean the deceased's bathrooms so that no one would know that they had a dirty bathroom.
• She like to go fishing with her family and the family of Dan and Barbara Gregory.  They spent many hours together while their son's and husbands fished and hunted. 

She and Alton raised great sons.  And I am looking forward to meeting her and thanking her.

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