Susan Cox Wilson
Susan Cox Autobiographycompiled in 1959 and revised in 1962 Church and Community
Sister Stansworth invited me to go with her to Relief Society. I have been an active member and Relief Society teacher six years later. I have been a member for 47 years. I felt that I could teach my children better by not missing any meetings. Cleesa Hinton, Pearl Stratton, Jessie Gibson, and Brenda Jepson, neighbors and mothers, sort of took turns with me watching each other’s children while the others went to meeting.
Nola was born 29 February 1922, in leap year. Then Julia came 7 May, 1926, making seven children that we were blessed with.
In 1930, my father called all of his family together. His wife Charlotte had died and some of the children. I think his posterity at the time was 123. A pageant of his life was given by descendants, and many of the things he had made for people in the Order were exhibited on the stage.
The summer of 1932 we invited the Wilsons and Johnsons, and Mexico and Orderville people in this area to a program and a fruit festival. The program and pictures are in the Family Record Book.
We had garden vegetables and grapes for sale. Our children would peddle them in town on a little wagon. Ruth was very good at it.
I attended my father’s funeral in Manti in 1932, and in 1936 my mother’s funeral in Manti. Also in 1936, my sister Amy’s funeral in Sterling.
Rose and Julia got a prize for not being late or absent for a year in Sunday School. Both wards had been meeting in the Elementary school house. The Relief Society women of Hurricane had earned money to put up the building with their Sunday Eggs and other projects such as gleaning wheat. The building now used for D.U.P. Relic Hall, was once the Relief Society building and also the Sunday School before the Ward was divided. I supervised a nursery class for 9 years and my first helpers were Joan Webb and LaWana Durfee. Julia was about 8 years old. I was set apart to teach in the Sunday School. First to help Brother Roundy with a class of girls 7-8 years old, then with a mixed group 11-12 years old with Bell Campbell. When the Sunday School needed a nursery and kindergarten teacher for children up to 4 years old the job was given to me which position I held until called on a mission. I was again called to take it when I returned. When they need a school librarian I got it started for 2 years.
In the Crisis of 1933, I headed a quilt-making group, started by trading vegetables for wool. Some of the women washed wool, come corded it into balls, others put in material. About 7 women quilted. Some of the quilts were sold for cash but most of them earned to keep for themselves. We made fourteen. My family earned nine for trading vegetables for wool, washing and cording the wool. Each group member got either a quilt, corded bats, or quilt tops.
About 1933 or 1934 I was appointed to act in genealogical Committee as chairman of Family Organization. To help get started in cottage meetings I wrote a little skit with Ama Hall and Bera Hinton Eager as main actors. It was quite successful. I managed the editing of a little ward genealogy paper called “Family Chronicle in 1935 and 1936. In our Ward Genealogy teaching we found but little interest among the families of the ward. I decided we might accomplish more by interesting the children, so I wrote a story of a little girl who made a picture Record Book and called it “Baby’s First Lessons”, later called “In the Steps of Jesus.” My grandchildren and nursery children made picture books.
Children getting marriedWhen the first parent and teachers meeting was held in Hurricane, I said I wanted to know if the school was up to par when my children were old enough to attend. Of course I was only joking. Ruth was a baby then. My sister Amy had spent the summer before with us. Carlyle got off to work without graduating from school but he studied quite hard. Ruth also left school to work. We had a struggle to keep them in practical clothes. Vere was slow and could hardly make his grades. Rose, Nola, and Julia all graduated from Seminary and high school. In the summer of 1934, Vere hauled fruit to Marysvale. Easter Frazier helped him sell it. Ben’s sister Mary Lund lived there. I had written to the Relief Society at Marysvale as they bought bits of Hurricane fruit. One summer we set up a fruit stand in Orderville and then one on the highway in Hurricane. Vere’s best school was Church work. He was called to the mission field in 1936 to the Southern States. Carlyle was working in the C.C. Camp and service and helped furnish the money for the mission. When Vere returned he met Lola Manwaring after writing to her on his mission and they were married the next September.
Rose worked one summer in Salt Lake City, then got married to Newell Frazier and lived in Marysvale about 4 years, then moved to Hurricane. Newell was a painter of houses but they have made quite a successful fruit and novelty shop.
Ruth met Anthony Ragozzine from Connecticut while working in California. They were married in Connecticut in 1946.
David worked in the CC Camp a year then got a job in California where Vere was, but was drafted in the Navy where he became a barber.
Nola worked in Salt Lake and when the War broke out she and Julia got war plant jobs in California where we visited them from our Northern California mission just before World War II closed.
Carlyle was released and he got married to Ether Revill in March. Julia married Alma Thomas, a sailor in the marines, in March.
Nola was married in July to David Reusch from Hurricane.
David married Roxey Cheney in December of the same year.
In December, after we returned from our mission in August, David was on a furlough. He came and got us to go with he and Roxey to get married in the Mesa Temple. Her folks went too. It was a nice trip but on the way home from Los Angeles a car tire blew out and turned the car over and I spilled out over the top. That was when I was glad to feel the ground. No one was hurt very badly but the car was demolished. David was soon released from the service. The next summer the children all came home and for the first time the family was all together to get their picture taken.
Most of my travels have been with my children to Vernal, California, Midvale and Sandy, to my brothers’ homes in Idaho; Charles, Orville, and Leonard, my sister Clarrissa in Hinkley, and Ben’s sisters in Mesa; also some relatives in Orderville, Kanab, and St. George.
I wrote a few articles which were published in the Deseret News, County News, and Hurricane Hill, entitled “Education in the Home” and “Conversation in the Home”. Al and Julia helped get the exhibit in the fair that year. There was a $20.00 third place prize for the best family display. Al and Julia sold their home in Hurricane and moved to Salt Lake. Ruth was in Salt Lake Also. I was still active in the nursery and the genealogy committee. I began improving the little book, “Baby’s First Lessons.” And the next trip I took was to Salt Lake to get the Deseret News Press to print it, which was accomplished in 1949. It cost a little over $200.00. I earned some of the money selling grapes, etc. and sold some of the books.
Ruth moved to Hurricane from Salt Lake and bought Rose’s home in 1951. Rose’s family moved in their new home where they had set up a fruit stand called “Hillcrest Stand”, later changed to “The Wheel”.
In 1952 I wrote a poem “Mormon’s Plea for Repentance.” The Tabernacle Choir leader had asked for more Church songs and accepted this one to put on file when needed. I have used in “A Way of Peace With the Indians”.
The Patriarchal Blessing of Susan Cox Wilson
by Hyrum G. Smith, Church Patriarch
Sister Wilson, according to thy desire and as the spirit of the Lord shall direct me, I pronounce a patriarchal blessing upon thee which shall be a comfort and a guide unto thee thru life. Thou art of Ephraim, and an heir to the blessings promised unto the faithful. Thy name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and shall be had in honorable remembrance among the Saints of God. As a mother in Israel thou shalt be honored and respected, and receive great joy and satisfaction in teaching the plan of life and salvation, not only to thine own but to those with whom thou shalt be associated. It is thy privilege to live and fill up the full measure of thy creation; and in as much as thou art faithful, thou shalt not lack for the comforts of this life. In answer to thy prayers, thy duties shall be made known unto thee, and thou shalt be prompted and guarded by the voice of thy guardian angel; and no power in the earth shall prevent thee from accomplishing thy mission, providing thou art faithful and continue unto the end. The Lord has accepted thy labors, therefore acknowledge His hand in all things and all will be well with thee.
This blessing I seal upon thee in the name of Jesus Christ, and I seal thee up to come forth at the day of redemption with thy kindred and friends, even so, Amen