- Born 23 Nov 1892 Paradise, Cache, Utah
- Died 30 Jan 1985 Pleasant Grove, Utah, Utah
- Parents: Thomas Joseph Pearce (Sr.) and Mary Alice Davenport
- Spouse: Arland Lorenzo Davidson (md. 8 Mar 1918 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah)
- Children: Blanche Elizabeth Davidson, Alvin Lorenzo Davidson, Hyrum Davidson, Anna Vernessa Davidson, Thelma Pearce Davidson, Myrl Wesley Davidson, Ethel Davidson
My Life History by Sarah Elizabeth Pearce Davidson
"I, Sarah Elizabeth Pearce, was born 23 November, 1892 at Paradise, Cache Co., Utah, the daughter of Thomas Joseph Pearce, Sr. and Mary Alice Davenport. I have six brothers: Thomas Joseph, William Edwin, Edward, James Albert, Warren, and Marcus and three sisters: Mary Agnes, Clarissa, and Eudora. All my brothers and sisters have their endowments but Marcus, he died when he was 20 days old. My brother Edward died as a young man and never had his endowments before he died, but we had it done after.
I was blessed by Elder John Welch. I was baptized by John J. James and confirmed by John P. James.
"My health as a growing child was good. I had the chicken pox, mumps and I had the whooping cough when I was about 15 years old. The only I had as a young happened when I was sleigh riding on the ice. I got dumped off and hit my knee on the sharp bit of ice.
All mother’s children before me had the typhoid fever and she nursed them all back to health without a doctor. We did not have many doctors in those days. My brother, William, we called him Will, was out with my father and brother Joseph. Father was cutting his wheat with what they called a cradle. Will got in the way. When Father swung the cradle around, the knife blade hit Will in the leg. Father tore his shirt and made a tourniquet around his leg to stop the bleeding. Will had a few narrow escapes from in his life.
"In the summer of my school years, I used to help Mother with the work around the house and at threshing time I would have to run errands. One of them was to go to the dairy and get some butter and cheese. The dairy was about a mile from home and I did not like to go in the place where I had to get the butter because I had to pass an engine with a shaft that ran the equipment. I thought it would hit me. I saw how butter was churned and washed and made into pounds.
"The threshing was run by the power of six teams of horses (called horse power machines) and the grain came out and was put in a sack. The men would carry the grain to the granary and dump it in the bins. The wheat shocks were stacked in the yard, so we had a lot of men to cook for. Instead of the separator machine cutting the band of the bound wheat shock, one man would cut the band with a knife and the other one would shove it into the machine. Before the binder came to cut and bind the grain, my father had to cut the grain by hand with an old-time cradle and bind it by hand with some stalks of grain. The binder came and the steam engine came to thresh the wheat and oats. They had a cookshack wagon with them so we did not have to cook for the men and crew.
"I have seen and helped by father grind apples in an old apple grinder and press and make cider and vinegar.
"I started school in Paradise grade school when I was nearly seven years old in the fall of 1901. My first teacher was Isabelle Obray; second grade teacher: George S. Obray; third grade: Miss Hansen; fourth and fifth: Oscar Dunn; sixth: Cecille Shipley; seventh and eighth: D. M. Bickmore.
I graduated from the eighth grade May 27, 1910. When I graduated from the eighth grade it was the largest graduating class in the school up to that time. There were ten graduating that year. They were: Howard McMurdie, Florence McMurdie, Pear McMurdie, Flora James, Loretta James, Anne Miles, Jennie Oldham, Wilford Obray, Lizzie Norris (Richmond), Lizzie Pearce (Davidson), Annie Hansen, and Lily Olsen.
"I went to high school about four years after I graduated from grade school, in the years 1914-15 and 1915-16. My parents never had much money, so I went and earned some. I helped my sister Clarissa Holmes and her husband with the chores and housework. Sometimes I would go and help my neighbor with her housework because she had a new baby. The wages were not very high. I got $2.50 a week. I worked in 2 or 3 homes. The high school fees were not very high then, so I made enough to go to high school. The fee was $5.00 a year for 9 months of school. I went 2 years. The first year I took cooking and sewing, $1.00 for each; second year I took cooking and sewing and art, $1.00 each. I also took Algebra, English and History.
"Our mode of travel to and from Hyrum High School, a distance of five miles, was covered-wagon drawn by horses. The driver was George Sam Obray. There were 10 of us riding most of the time. On a particular morning there were 16 of us riding and the horses’ tug came undone while going down hill and frightened the team. The driver lost the right rein. When we came to a crossroad in the city, he pulled on the left rein and guided the horses uphill around the corner, causing the wagon box to fall off while the horses were going at full speed. Luckily none of the 16 youngsters were seriously hurt, but it was quite a mix-up and a scramble.
"In 1916 I came to Idaho to visit my brothers, Edward, Bert and Will, and kept house for them at their homestead at Dehlin. I was about ready to go to Parker to take care of my sister, Agnes, and help her, but Mr. Davidson came and asked me to cook for his threshers. Then I went to help Aunt Agnes, then to Ammon to help Uncle Joseph and Aunt Amanda, then back to the dry farm at Dehlin. Mr. Davidson came and asked me to cook for his hay men. I stayed in a tent near Idaho Falls or Ririe. In December Aunt Agnes had Ralph. Arland and I had our first date about this time.
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| Arland and Sarah - date unknown |
"We were married 8 March 1918 in the Salt Lake Temple by Joseph Fielding Smith. As soon as we were married we moved to Dehlin and lived in a Joe Olsen house. Papa fed hogs and did chores for Olsen. Then we lived with his sister Mary Housely, but slept in a tent—in winter time, too. However, a while before Blanche was born (8 Feb. 1919), we lived in Aunt Mary’s house in Iona and stayed there until May when we went back to Dehlin again to Bulls’ Fork to the dry farm. There we lived till moving to Parker in 1925. However, before Alvin Lorenzo was born, November 27, 1920, I stayed with Aunt Agnes in Iona. After his birth, I went back to Dehlin. I stayed at a lady’s place in Idaho Falls until after Hyrum was born on September 28, 1922.
Hyrum lived only 18 days. He was buried in the Iona cemetery. In the winter of 1924 I stayed with my sister Agnes in Iona. Our fourth child, Anna Vernessa, was born on December 14, 1924, at the Idaho Falls hospital. I stayed with Aunt Agnes until February of 1925, when we moved to Parker, Idaho, to live with Arland’s mother, who was very ill, and I helped to care for her until her , March 9, 1925. We were at her bedside at her .
"Papa was Presiding Elder of the Dehlin Branch for a time, and served as a counselor to Bishop Schwieder also.
"We had lost the dry farm at Dehlin. Because of the depression, the country suffered during this time. Prices were very poor. We lived in the old Davidson home in Parker, where Arland farmed part of the old home place. While living here Blanche and Alvin started school. They got the measles here. At one time the clothes closet caught fire. Uncle Nathaniel was just coming in from the barns from milking. He threw the milk on the fire to put it out. It was in this house that Anna started to walk.
"Thelma Pearce was born here on February 24, 1926. Just before Myrl was born we moved to the little house to the north. Myrl was born here on September 20, 1927. ethel was born two years later on December 25, 1929. when she was quite small, I got poisoned on fish.
"Because of the depression, we lost this farm in Parker. We moved to Egin, Idaho, in the spring of 1932, where we rented a farm for two years (the Kimball place). While living here, Ethel had pneumonia. We then moved to the Hargis place, where we rented for twenty years. Here our children grew up and helped on the farm. In 1950 we bought a 40-acre farm in Egin.
"In Dehlin I was a Sunday School teacher and second counselor in the Relief Society Presidency. This was the Bonneville Stake. In Egin Ward I have been a visiting teacher in Relief Society since 1932, except for two terms as Relief Society Secretary-Treasurer. I was 5 years as secretary in Egin Ward and 5 years as secretary in the Egin Bench Ward.
"President Edward Wood called on my to speak in the chapel session, which was a very thrilling, yet frightening experience. I am very happy that all of my children have been worthy of a temple marriage and are all active in the Church. Three have served missions: Alvin went to the Western States mission, Myrl to the Spanish-American Mission and Thelma to the Netherlands Mission.
"I like to crochet doilies. I make homemade soap for laundering. I like to make quilt tops and quilt them. I have made baby quilts for all my grandchildren and quilt for each of them also."
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Sarah Elizabeth Pearce Davidson
"Sarah Elizabeth Pearce was born November 23, 1892 at Paradise, Utah. She was the third daughter, and seventh child of Thomas Joseph and Mary Alice Pearce.
She was taught the value of work early in life, helping her care for the family, cooking, house cleaning, and gardening. She remembered as a young , baking bread and giving it to the Indians that came to the door on many occasions needing food. She recalled that they never sent anyone away hungry.
"At school she enjoyed playing baseball. One day a thrown bat knocked out her front teeth.
She started school at the age of seven, and graduated from the eighth grade in 1910. She earned money to attend high school by working for neighbors, and helping her sister, and her sister’s husband in the summer. In addition to tending the children, and helping with the housework, she milked seven cows, separated the milk, and took the cows to and from the pasture.
"When Arland and Elizabeth met, because of the lack of transportation as we know it today, their courtship was necessarily different. The following letters, written many years ago, express the sincerity of their parents, and are priceless memoirs to the children and their families.
"Arland wrote as follows:
'I hope you will not think me forward or unmanly but I would much rather have your real company than correspondence. But I would ask you to solemnly consider this for yourself. I desire the company of a true virtuous one of the opposite . I do not care for anything less than a true Latter Day Saint in precept as well as in word. Perhaps Elizabeth you will think me rude, or forward, but owing to the fact that we have kept company and corresponded for sometime, I felt that such as I have written ought to be understood. I am not a believer in shallow conversation or correspondence, but that everything we do in life should be done with real and pure intent. I believe this is a duty that I owe to you, to myself, to my parents, and to my God. Trusting this will meet with your approval and with kindest regards.
Arland'
"Elizabeth wrote back:
'Well, Arland I wrote Mother a letter and asked her what she thought about us getting married. I told her I intended to get married this winter and she wrote back and said she did not have any objection to us getting married. She though I was old enough to choose for myself, but she guessed that you would write and ask for me before we were married.
Elizabeth'
"They were married March 8, 1918 in the Salt Lake temple by Joseph Fielding Smith. Following their marriage they farmed Delhin, East of Idaho Falls until 1925. They moved to Parker, Idaho to farm until 1932, when they moved to Egin and farmed the Kimball place where Ellen Weatherstone now lives. Grandma often spoke of the many kindnesses shown them by Alvin and Reta Orgill while living as neighbors and the many experiences the two families had.
After two years they moved to the Harges farm near the sand hills where they farmed for twenty-six years before buying their own farm.
"During this time they had three children serve on missions, Alvin to the Western States, Thelma to Holland, and Myrl to California. Myrl and Thelma were on missions at the same time and their parents had a strong conviction that they were exceedingly blessed by the Lord at this time as they not only supported two children on missions, but were able to buy their own home where they resided until failing health made it necessary to move to Utah.
"Elizabeth loved working in the church. She enjoyed Relief Society and was secretary for many years. She was dedicated to her callings in the church and walked from her home on the Harges farm to the Egin church many times.
"She always served in the church whenever asked. She was a Relief Society Visiting Teacher for most of her life. She loved temple work. All of her children have been to the temple. Her sons and sons-in-law are High Priests. She has had nine grandchildren serve on missions.
"She said that the way her children could repay her for what she had done for them was to raise families of their own and teach them the gospel. She was a loving mother and grandmother. The family remembers many enjoyable times as a family, picking choke cherries, fishing the Snake River, picnics and outing to the sand hills, working as a family unit on the farm.
"Her hobbies were quilting, needlework, and gardening. She gave each of her children a quilt on their eighteenth birthday, and again when they were married. Each grandchild received a baby quilt, and a larger quilt later on. She always had a large vegetable garden, canning much of the produce for her family. Mother loved flowers, and in addition to a garden, she had many house plants.
"Her husband and companion, Arland, passed away in 1979 after sixty-one years of marriage. She passed away on January 30, 1985 in Pleasant Grove, Utah, at the age of ninety-two.
She is survived by the following sons, and daughters, Blanche Christensen of Murray, Utah; Alving Davidson of Egin, Idaho; Anna Adams of American Fork, Utah; Thelma White of Logan, Utah; Myrl Davidson and Ethel Lords of Aberdeen, Idaho.
"She was preceded in by her husband Arland, an infant son Hyrum, one great-granddaughter, and one great grandson.
"Sarah Elizabeth Pearce Davidson was a choice daughter of our Father in Heaven. She lived a full life, was a loving wife and mother, and left a wonderful heritage for her posterity.
"The following poem was written in memory of Sarah Davidson by Fern C. Humpfries:
'Gone from this life into eternity
Another of our true Pioneers
Who labored so hard through mortal life
Knew feelings of joy and times of tears
Working for family and making a home
Through many long hours everyday
With faith and patience, service and love
Departed now, and gone along her way.'"
Written by Darrell Lords (son-in-law) and Ethel Lords (daughter)
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| Sarah's obituary from the Idaho Falls Post Register |
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| Arland and Sarah's gravestone in the Parker (Idaho) Cemetery |
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