|
|
||
|
|
|
|
 |
|||
|
|
.. A
selection of book photos FORGET ME NOT AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF Betty, 1940 Click photos for large image
My feelings about my darling husband are explained in the
writings of Duff Cooper, "You have set a crown of roses on my youth, and
fortified me against the disaster of our days. Your courageous gaiety has
inspired me with joy. Your tender faithfulness has been a rock of security and
comfort. I have felt all kinds of love for you at once. I have asked much of you
and you have never failed me. You have intensified all colours, heightened all
beauty, and deepened all delight..." Duff Cooper, 1918. See page for Google, Yahoo, MSN
This book, when I am dead, will be I do not write it to survive "This book, when I am dead, will be Edna St.Vincent Millay
The Early Years
In the year 1910, Carl Burton asked Ella Christopherson to marry him. When she answered that she would, he immediately started building a red brick home on the 2200 block of South State Street in Salt Lake City. This is the home in which I was born on June 16, in the year 1916. Taylor, my older brother, and my younger sister Jane were also born in this home which was located across the street from Grandma and Grandpa Willard Burton’s on State Street just below 21st South Street. Robert Taylor Burton, my great-grandfather, and an important leader in pioneer Utah, gave property to many family members so that all would live in the Burton Ward. Great-grandpa, Robert, and his first wife, Maria, lived on the Burton farm where there was some fine unused land that he had given to the Church. A chapel was built on this land on Burton Avenue west of State Street, and is still in use today, but has been renovated, and is still known as the Burton Ward. Next to Grandma and Grandpa Burton’s home lived Aunt Ella and Uncle Lafe (Lafayette Burton, Grandpa Burton’s half-brother), with their family who were very close to us, and their daughters often served as our baby sitters. Melvin was the oldest and only son and there were four daughters, Dorothy, Linda, Clara, and Edith. They often fixed my hair, and dressed me up. I loved playing on their swing. They often tended my newborn sister Jane, who was born in l920. Grandmother Burton’s name was Mary Jane Eliza Gardner Burton and Grandpa was Willard Cushing Burton, named Cushing because his mother, Susan Ellen McBride, had been sealed to a deceased man named Hosea Cushing on the day she married Robert Taylor Burton. My father Carl was also given the middle name of Cushing because of this sealing that gave Willard and his posterity to Hosea Cushing, a missionary to the Southern States, who died during his mission. The purpose of this sealing was for posterity to be raised up to Brother Cushing. An interesting problem that always bothered me was the fact that the day my great-grandma married Robert, her father, Samuel McBride, married the widow of Brother Cushing. Was she her own stepmother? Knowing Susan was sealed to Hosea and that our family was to follow his lineage, I was unhappy about doing research on the Burton line until my cousin, Theodore Burton, in charge of the Church Genealogy Department at that time, called me and told me that the Church had a new policy. Now a woman could be sealed to more than one man, and the woman could make a choice after her death. For this, I was greatly relieved. In response to this policy change, the family determined to seal Susan Ellen McBride to Robert Taylor Burton. In a temple ceremony in 1991, my first cousin, Robert Taylor Burton stood in for Robert, and I stood in for Susan Ellen McBride. Many of my cousins and some of our children and their spouses attended this ceremony. Grandmother Jennet (or Janet, as she is shown on different records) Ledingham and Grandpa Martin Christopherson lived north of us in the next block, in a large red brick two-story house where the County Complex now stands on 21st South and State Street. I remember Mama pulling Taylor and me to Grandma’s house in a cute little box sled that Daddy had made and painted white. The thing I remember about Grandma Chris’s home was the purple glass window on the stair landing and two plaster busts (which I now own) sitting in the windowsill. Strange what one remembers. We have recently found out that our Great Grandfather Alexander Morris Ledingham’s grave is in Newton, Utah. He was Grandma Chris’ father who brought his family across the plains after his young wife died in Scotland. In Grandma Burton’s home there were leather portieres hanging in the entrance to the living room and a big closet in another room in which was kept a large boy doll named Jack with which I could play. I also remember watching Grandma Burton kneading bread in a big kitchen. Often she would let me make a pan of biscuits for Uncle Al who was a young teen-age boy at that time. How I loved Uncle Al (Alma Gardner Burton). He had an old car, a Ford coupe, and would put me in it and drive around to visit his friends. Often he would come to our house, lie on the sofa, and let me comb his hair and powder his face. When he left for his mission, I was a sad little girl. He brought back a small pearl to me, and other trinkets that I kept for many years. At Grandma Burton’s house I served as a flower girl at the wedding reception of my Aunt Hazel and Uncle Stin (Clarence Horne Tingey). I wore a lavender organdy dress my mother made for me. I also took part in the wedding of Uncle Alma and Aunt Vera Taylor. One Easter, when I was four years old, still stands out in my memory. I took my Easter basket into the front yard with Taylor before dinner and I ate all five hard-boiled eggs in my basket. Mother was so angry with "Tade" for letting me do this that she gave him a spanking instead of me. He has held that against me all my life, saying he has taken punishment for my sins, and I have never cared for hard-boiled eggs since. Many changes have taken place in that neighborhood. Our home was torn down and replaced by a bowling alley. Grandpa Burton’s house just across the street was used by Hayes Buick and has now been torn down. The Christopherson home was torn down for the County Offices. Mother often told of watching their first home burn down when she was a first grader in the old Farmer’s Ward School, and kicking her teacher because she would not let her run home. She told us stories of climbing on Grandpa Chris’s greenhouse and falling through the glass roof. She also would tell of her experiences living next to the Orphans’ Home and of the sadness she felt when the kids were mistreated. One time the mistress was whipping one of the kids with a leather belt. Grandpa was enraged and jumped over the fence, threatened to whip the woman, and threw the belt in the fire. |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
||||
