CLARISSA JOSEPHINE LEAVITT

Biography of Clarissa Josephine Leavitt Platt Chidester, by George Alma Platt

Clarissa Josephine Leavitt was born in Gunlock, Utah, June 19, 1889, the ninth (9) of fifteen children born to Jeremiah and Mary Ellen Huntsman Leavitt. She spent her early years in Gunlock and took her formal education in a little one-room stone school house on the hill above town which served for all eight grades. Her first teacher was Zerry Terry and another who taught her was Ella Jarvis. She finished seventh grade before leaving home to work.

The one experience of these early years which she enjoyed telling most was about getting bitten by a rattlesnake. I will let her tell the story.

When I was about ten years of age and living with my parents at Gunlock, father had a ranch about a mile and a half above town on the [Santa] Clara Creek where we lived in the summertime and a home in town where we spent the winter. About six miles above the ranch on the Megatsa Creek he had another ranch where he raised a few crops. This fall father was leaving for Parowan on a peddeling [sic] and buying trip to be gone for a couple of weeks and left my sister Ethyl [sic] and me to water the beans at the upper ranch.

We rode a horse up and as we entered the bean patch we took off our shoes, which were new and we didn't want to get wet, and proceeded to take care of the water. As I was walking through the beans I stepped into a clearing caused by an ant hill and as I did a big rattler, coiled in the sun, struck me on the big toe. I got sic right away but neither of us knew what to do so we sat down under a tree until we see [sic] my leg was starting to swell and realized we had to do something. We got on the horse and rode the six miles to the summer home where mother met us. Not knowing what to do she took the reigns [sic] of the horse and went as fast as she could run to town. No one in town seemed to know what to do so in final desperation she knelt before the Lord and asked for help. She saisd she heard a voice as plain as day say: "Go home and poultice her leg with raw onions." Still on the horse she took me the mile and a half back to the ranch and did as she was instructed.

Taking a big round smelting pot and a metal ball with a handle on it she crushed the onions and placed them on my leg. Shortly she would remove them and they were as black as coal. She took great care to distroy the poisoned onions and not to touch them herself but after a short time she too started swelling in the arms and had to hire a woman from town to care for both of us.

By the time father returned I was well on the road to recovery. He was several miles from home when he met a man who told him of my plight and he loped his horses all the way home to see how I was.

During this time there was a band of Indians traveling through the country and they stopped, as they always did, at the ranch. Seeing my condition they seemed deeply upset and concerned since it was of certainty to them that I should die. Father was their great friend and what concerned him concerned them. They would say: "White papoose no live." "Indian get bit with rattlesnake, he all time die." Some weeks later as they returned from picking pinenuts they stopped by to see if I had died. Finding me quite well they marveled at my recovery and thereafter after called me snake-a-bite.

When she was about sixteen (16) mother went to work for a family in Shem, Utah doing housework. Shem was a little town on the Santa Clara about seven miles south of Gunlock and a couple of miles up stream from the Shivwit Indian Reservation. Shem's only excuse for existence was milling ore from the Apex Copper Mine which was located some distance to the west. Here they milled the ore into bullion cubes and hauled it by wagon to the railroad at Modena some forty or fifty miles to the north. Mother's job in Shem lasted about two weeks. She got so homesick that she had to return home some seven miles away.

After she returned to Gunlock she went to work for her Uncle Josiah Leavitt for a dollar and a half ($1.50) a week. She spent most of the summer in his employ. After this she went to work for a couple of months at the Catholic Church at the Shivwit Reservation below Shem. Here she was impressed that they read a verse from the Scriptures every meal.

From the Reservation she went to work at Terry's Ranch. She describes this place as being twelve miles southwest of Enterprise. Here she spent a year or more taking care of a sick woman and making hundreds of pounds of cheese and butter. Here wages were two dollars and fifty cents ($2.50) a week. After terminating this employment she had a return engagement of short duration but could not remember just where it fit into her other activities.

When she left Terry's Ranch she went to work for John Day at Enterprise. He ran a store, a hotel, the post office and telephone office. Mother's job was at the hotel. She was the cook, made beds, cleaned house and did the dishes. Mrs. Day was quite careless with mhoney and left it around where anyone might pick it up. Mother asked her not to leave it around as she felt some responsibility for it and could not be held accountable for it. Mrs. Day persisted, so one day mother moved a twenty dollar bill that had been left in the cupboard into a dish in another place in the same cupboard. When it was missed she said she knew nothing of it and let it go until Mrs. Day was pretty well worked up about it. Then taking her to the cupboard, she produced the bill. It accomplished its purpose - she was broken of the habit.

While working at the hotel she met a young man named Sam Lay from Cedar City. The way to a man's heart, she knew, was through his stomach and it didn't take her long to make it. He proposed to her and I take it she accepted, because she said that in the next few years they got engaged and broke up a half dozen times.

From Day's Hotel she went to work for LaMond Woods in Nevada who had just lost his wife [and] who left ten children from two years and up. Sam Lay courted her at this place. When Spring came she got sick and had to return to Gunlock where she stayed for several months. For the next several years she worked in and out of Enterprise in short stretches. It is likely that at this time she went back to the Terry's Ranch.

A girlfriend from Enterprise got her a job at the Newcastle Hotel out in the desert. Mrs. Cooper (who ran it) after a few weeks asked her if she could get another girl as good as she was and she told her about her sister Eathel. Mrs. Cooper laid off the girlfriend and hired mother's sister. After working the summer she got sick and had to quit her job. Hot stoves and too hard a work were more than she could stand. Mrs. Cooper told her she had never had such competent help as she and her sister had been.

Sometime about 1910 or 1911 she went to the Mountain Meadows to work for Jode Burgess, George and Joe Platt. Their place was a stop-over place for all travelers in the area and was about mid-way between St. George and Modena, a good day's haul in either direction, and about the same distance East to Cedar City. She worked only a short time then returned to Gunlock. Some months later she was called back to the Meadows to take over the cooking and housekeeping. In November of that year she got word that her fiancé was seriously ill in Cedar City with typhoid fever. Her mother advised her by telephone not to go to him for fear of the fever. Later when she got word that he was worse her mother advised her to go to him. They sent a buggy from Cedar to get her but she had no disposition to wait for it. Joe Platt took her on horseback to meet the buggy. They met it somewhere East of Pinto on the Iron Mountain Road and there was a cold North wind blowing. Before she got to Cedar it started snowing and when they arrived they had to carry her from the buggy to the house she was so cold. Her fiancé was in a coma from which he never recovered enough to recognize her. She stayed in Cedar about three weeks after the funeral then was driven home by one of his brothers..

After several months at home she returned to the Meadows to take up her duties there as cook and housekeeper. On the cold ride to Cedar she had been told by Joe Platt that if anything happened to her feller he wanted a chance to show her his love and affection. There is little doubt that in these long months alone she had had occasion to think about it and weigh the possibilities of facing life with a man more than twenty years her senior. This trip back to the Meadows was of little doubt to be the testing time to prove to herself how deep the love for this man ran beneath her breast. She stayed on at the Meadows until she had fully made her mind up and was released from her job there on the condition that she would go home and get ready to be married.

They kept their engagement a secret and that fall Joe came to Gunlock and hired her sister Eathel to put up his fruit for the winter. When mother told her what and how much to put up she replied I am not putting this up for you. When she later found out that she was exactly the one she was putting it up for she was sure peeved. The first announcement of their impending marriage was when Joe's brother, Robert, made his proposal to mother. She answered: "I would be glad to marry you but I am engaged to marry your brother Joe." When he asked her for her hand in marriage, her father said: "If you will promise me two things....take her to the temple and be good to her."

I am certain that he kept that promise. He married her in the St. George Temple on December 23, 1913. To the day he died, being July 10, 1933, just five months and three days short of twenty years, he was never heard to speak a cross word to her or a disparaging thought about her.

On December 26th they had a wedding dance in Gunlock which was a time always to be remembered by the bride. Music was by Dan Barney of New Harmony. About a year and a half previous she had been visiting in New Harmony and had worked for Dan for a week cleaning house. When she left he hold her if she ever got married he would play for her dance, [because] he was so please with her work. [He said] it didn't matter where it was. Dan was the best of the old-time fiddlers, a real musician. And he played as he had never played before. The sweat just rolled down his face as he fiddled out "The Turkey in the Straw," "Listen to the Mocking Bird," and many other old favorites.

They had a short honeymoon in Gunlock and on New Year's day went to Pinto to spend the holiday with his folks, then back to the Meadows. It was too cold to honeymoon in the desert and the comfort of home held a beckoning hand to the newlyweds. They lived at the Old Place for a little more than a year when he had the new home ready which had been started before the marriage. This home was located about a mile south and up the valley from the old place and was comprised of everything modern even to the telephone, though there was no automobile parked out front.

The Old Place referred to is the title given by them to the Old Townsite of Hamblin which was now [then] owned by the partnership of Platt, Burgess, and Platt and which contained the only buildings existant upon the ranch which comprised three homstead properties taken out by the three partners. Hamblin was located in the extreme northern entrance to the valley known in Utah History as The Mountain Meadows and took its name from the first inhabitant of the meadow, Jacob Hamblin, who pastured his sheep and cattle here [there] when the grass in the meadow reached as high as a horse's belly and waved in the mountain breezes as tall grain.

There were only three buildings left standing in Hamblin; all were abode. They were located on a single L-shaped street which entered town from the west and left on the north and headed down the canyon which opened on the desert some six or seven miles below [north] of town. Their home faced the street to the west and was composed of a living room, kitchen, and one bedroom. Across the street stood another adobe structure with two rooms. These were fixed up for bedrooms and were used for tourists or travelers who always found a place to sleep and food to eat for themselves and stock. Running in front of this house was a ditch of water which found its head in a spring in the hillside to the east of town. From this ditch they carried their water and it was the custom of the new groom to fill a barrel each morning before into the field to work. The barrel was placed to the side of the kitchen door in easy reach of his new bride. North from the home about a block stood another adobe house which served as a grainery and for many years before the bride's arrival at the Meadows. [It] had been the home of an old man by the name of Whipple who had come to Joe wanting a place to live and something to do to earn his keep. Here he had lived until his death and had taken his meals at the Platt table and taken care of the garden. He had been an excellent gardner and was a kindly old man. He never wanted any money. [He] always seemed to have what he wanted. Some thought he had a cash of it somewhere but if he did his secret died with him. He was buried in the Hamblin Cemetery by the Platt brothers.

The new home up the valley was a more commodious place and was built without consideration of the woman who would turn this house into a home. Some time before the wedding Joe had asked her to take a ride up into the field with him. There she was shown the foundation and footings of the new home and was asked how she wanted it built. I don't suppose she was much help planning it but it was planned with convenience to its tenant in mind. The main floor comprised four rooms. On the north with the door facing east was the kitchen and a single step down made it easily accessible from the rear. To the west of the kitchen was the dining room and off this to the south and facing west was the living room which was entered from a high porch with steps leading down to the ground which fell away from the house toward the creek some two hundred yards down the hill. To the side of the front door on the wall hung the telephone which needed only to be cranked and it would say hello. To the east of this room was the master bedroom. Each room had a door leading outside and connected with each adjoining room. Leading off the living room through a door was the stairway which was in an L-shape and led to five varying-sized bedrooms on the upper floor. To facilitate these rooms and give light the roof was variously gabled and vallied. Leading down from the kitchen was another stairway to the cellar or basement room which provided a cool storage place for butter, cheese, and milk and ample storage for fruit and vegetables bottled for storage each year.

Behind the house at the side of the path was a well about thirty feet deep which provided all the cool mountain spring water needed to supply the house. Between the house and the creek was the garden and surrounding about was a fence which kept livestock out and I guess was supposed to keep [the] children in - but it didn't. In the corner of the lot to the west stood an old wooden cheese press. On this the new bride and mother would make more hundreds of pounds of cheese for home use and to sell. On the hillside above the house to the east stood a granary, a harness shed, a chicken coop, a barn and two great stockade corrals with a large yard for stacking hay.

In this beautiful new home Joseph Platt moved his bride just prior to the birth of their first child, a son, born November 13, 1914. They named him Joseph Eugene. One year and three months later there was another son, they name him Roland Evlyn, and less than thirteen months later still a third son they called George Alma. Roland was born February 3, 1816 and George Alna (Alma they called him) on February 27, 1917. Finally a little girl came to bless their home on June 23, 1918. She was named Josephine. Their fourth son and fifth child arrived on Pioneer Day, July 24, 1920 [and] he was called Gordon Leavitt. All of these children were born at the Meadows with the exception of Roland, who was born in Gunlock. All were delivered by a mid-wife.

These were happy years for the young bride and mother, but all true happiness must have its sprinkling of sorrow and anxieties. She had her moments. There were anxious ones, with fevered brows, aching ears and sleepless nights when bodies writhing in pain of raw eczema refused to take comfort. There were moments when frantic parents searched for children lost in hills or fallen asleep in willow thickets did not hear the calls. There were many trips down the well in frantic anticipation of what might have been. There were Sundays in town with friends and relatives - attending church and community dances, just sitting in the cool shade whiling away the long summer evenings, visiting. There were quilting bees and parties, picnics and all the things that go to make up the full life of a man and woman on the farm. There were visits home to mother where fruit ripened sweet under Utah's Dixie sun found place in bottles and the storeroom at the Platt home on the Meadows. There were wagonloads of spuds and grain hauled to market in exchange for clothing or a bolt of cloth or for grist (flour). There were summertimes when life was rich and full, there were wintertimes when all was bleak and cold and dead outside. There were lonesome times and happy times when people came in rich profusion to spend a day or a week with the Platts at the Meadows. There were war years when every home felt the touch of its grim finger, and there were peacetimes when all was love and serenity.

One story from these years that depicts the rugged life of this pioneer woman and gives one a glimpse into the privations of ranch life away from the conveniences of society and medical assistance I would like to include in the narration. But I will let her tell the story. She was there and can remember the details. I was there too, but at the tender age of three, I was not equipped to remember the details. This is her story.

In November of 1920 when Gordon was just a baby, Joe had taken a load of commodities to St. George to exchange for supplies and grist and to buy the children's Christmas. I was alone at the ranch with the children and Uncle George, when I took with an attack of appendicitis. George went on horseback to Enterprise to see if he could get me some help, leaving me alone with the five children. Outside it had started to snow. All night the baby cried with eczema which almost completely covered his little body with raw sores. I was so sick that I couldn't have helped that baby if his life had depended on it. Eugene, then only six, walked the floor all night with the baby in his buggy trying to pacify him and help him get some sleep. Only for brief intervals through the night would the baby stop crying and go to sleep. At times Eugene got so sleepy that he could hardly stay awake and he would ask: "Mommy, can't I lay down for just a minute?" He seemed to realize, however, that everything depended on him to give the baby any comfort and attention and he stuck to it through the night.

Uncle George, in Enterprise, had been able to secure the help of Aunt Lottie (his brother Jim's wife) and Sarah Day, and an automobile to bring them to the Meadows and take me on to St. George to a doctor. But the snow had piled up so deep that the automobile was useless and George broke trail all the way to the ranch with the horse so the auto could go. They confirmed the diagnosis of my trouble and it was decided that the only thing to do was get me to St. George as soon as possible. A phone call to Central, Utah brought John Chadburn scurrying with his team and wagon to meet us and alerted Joe in St. George to get the doctor and come to meet us. We wrestled with the car trying to get out to the highway, having only a saddle borse to help it along. John Chadburn met us on the Meadows and took me with my three babies, in an open wagon to his home in Central. By the time we got there we had nearly run out of snow but I was in so much pain I couldn't go any further. The doctor and Joe arrived in Central by auto shortly after we did and my pain had stopped. After a quick examination the doctor stepped back and shook his head. Upon Joe's inquiry he said "It is a slim chance but the only one we have." Taking the phone he (Dr. McGregger) called Dr. Woodberry in St. George and alerted him to have everything in readiness at the hospital to operate the moment they arrived. Then putting me in his car he drove like the wind (I am convinced this must have been all of twenty miles an hour) to Dixie. When they cut me open they found my appendix still intact but the doctor was sure it had already burst. A lady in St. George took my baby and nursed him for me, having more milk than her baby would take. Alma and Josephine were sent to Gunlock to my folks and Roland and Eugene I had left on the Meadows for George to take to Enterprise and put on the mail for Newcastle to stay with Rob and Eathel. We later found that he had put them on the mail (an open buggy) with only a thin blanket to keep them warm and they were nearly frozen when they arrived in Newcastle. They were so cold that they couldn't even talk. It was some time before they thawed out enough to tell the folks that I was sick and had to be taken to St. George. When I was better Joe went to Newcastle and brought them to Gunlock where we fixed up the old schoolhouse for a home until I got well enough to take care of myself again.

Their second daughter and sixth child was born in Enterprise on August 23, 1922. They named her Mary Ellen after her maternal grandmother.

Changes were being made in the partnership at the Meadows during these years. Jode Burgess had sold out his interests there to the Platt brothers several years after the arrival of the new bride. And now after several occasions of difficulty with each other, Joe determined that the only profitable solution was to split up. After a winter in which they lost some seven hundred head of cattle on the desert because George insisted on taking them there instead of to their winter range at Tooele, Joe sat down and divided everything in two portions and told George to take his choice of them, the ranch on the one hand and the cattle on the other. George chose to take the cattle and that left us the sole owners of the property at the Meadows.

The children were now going to school [and] this necessitated our living in town in the winter. For six winters we rented in Enterprise traveling back and forth from the ranch as we needed to care for the stock and plant and harvest crops. The seventh winter we lived in Newcastle at which time mother went to St. George to have her seventh child, a boy whom they named Darwin K. He was born on December 5, 1926.

In the spring of 1927 they sold the Meadows to Thomas Forsyth of Newcastle and buying their first car moved to Richfield, in Sevier County, Utah. Mother went in the car, an open-topped Star, with all of the younger children and dad and the three older boys came behind by wagon and team bringing all of their world possessions in two wagons and a buggy. The fellow from whom they purchased the car agreed to deliver it with mother and the three children to Richfield. He left them at her sister Olive's house there to await the arrival of her husband and sons.

Renting a home in the southwest part of town, they started to make new friends and get re-established in the new community. She lived here for about a year then moved into two different houses in the northern part of town, spending another winter. As spring broke they bought an old grist mill which had been converted to living quarters in the northwest corner of town. Here she finished raising her family and saw them all leave to build their own homes and make their own lives.

Here on May 23, 1929, just shortly after moving in, mother gave birth to her sixth son, and eighth and final child. They called him Denzil A.

It is interesting here to note that mother bore all of her children without the assistance of hospital facilities and only two of them (the younger ones) were attended by a physician. At the time of this writing she has been in a hospital but three [times] in her life for personal comfort and assistance. Once was for her appendectomy and another was for the removal of her poison goiter which I will mention at a later point in her history, and [the last was for the] removal of gallstones.

The next two years of her life would see a chain of events which would not only affect but change the life of this good woman until it was almost completely different from what it had been.

The first event was the increasing physical discomfort of her husband which was due to a cancer on his lower lip and [which] would yet lead to much misery and terminate in his death.

The second event was the financial depression which struck the nation and made paupers of millionaires overnight and closed banks on every hand, consuming the funds and life savings of millions of people. The effect of this depression on the Platt family was one of tightening the cinch. The buyer at the Meadows found it impossible to meet his payments and dad's leniency with him only prolonged the agony and increased the worry involved for mother until the final day of reckoning.

Third, in order of occurance, and not importance, was the chain of sorrows and anxieties that beset her. In the spring of 1931 her oldest son Eugene, broke his eardrum while swimming at the city natatorium. It infected and was draining inwardly and though he was under the doctor's care his condition grew gradually worse. Then on July 27th of that year, with two sons away on a scout hike for a couple of weeks, she got word of the passing of her father. Leaving Eugene to care for the children, she and dad went to attend the funeral and on the way home had car trouble which delayed them for nearly a day. This caused her much concern for she felt she should be with her children. Upon arriving home they found Eugene walking the floor in severe pain himself, trying to comfort his little brother who was not well. For the next few days she concerned herself with her baby and gave such comfort as was required to her oldest son, not dreaming that within a short few days he would be snuffed away from her and leave her in such sorrow as she had never dreamed of.

On August 8, 1931, she saw him get up in the morning to dress himself, then ask his father to go with him to the corral (as yet she was accustomed only to the conveniences of outside plumbing). He felt so weak that he couldn't attempt it alone. It was necessary to help him to the house and a littler later the doctor was called to relieve the pain which was severe. At four o'clock that afternoon he passed away. They called it spinal meningitis. The tremendous shock of losing her father and son within two weeks was amost more than she could stand. I have often felt that had she not had dad to comfort and strengthen her in this hour it may have proven more than she was able to bare.

Most of the next two years were spent in nursing and caring for dad. He was bedridden most of that time and the stench of rotten flesh was never absent from her home during that time. The patience and mercy in her heart were manifest in all that she did. And when death came on July 10, 1933, she was much more prepared to face its reality and sweetness than she had been two years before. Though her sorrow was deep and her loss great, death's angel had brought peace and a relief from pain to the one she loved so dearly and it had a sweetness that she had never before felt.

From here on the going in her life got rougher before it got better. Next to demand her attention and concern was her youngest daughter Ellen. She had had a heart condition for several years which had waited until now to show how vicious it could be. For two years death's angel had hovered over her but mother was not prepared to let her go. Repeatedly she had called for the Elders to administer to her and the doctor had fairly lived in her home, giving attention to her and trying to keep her little heart beating. At one point he declared he had exhausted his knowledge and now could only wait for her to stop quivering to pronounce her dead. Again the Elders came and he who sealed the annointing promised this little girl that she should live to become a mother in Israel and complete her mission on the earth. From this mother took heart and consented to let her go to St. George to live in the home of her father's sister Mary for a couple of years. She had become so depleted in body that in my youth I was able to carry her without effort to the car when she left. She grew in body and in strength under the Dixie sun until she was ready to return home and persue a normal life after two years. She lived to fulfill the promise of the servant of the Lord and at this writing is aiding a missionary husband to complete a mission at the same time she is involved in constant service in the Church and caring for her three fine sons.

Satan had not here given up the fight to subdue this great woman, servant of the Lord. Next he was to attack her own person. This was in the form of a poison goiter, which was gradually choking the life out of her. But for her faith and the efforts of a faithful doctor, she may never have made it.

I think it would be unfair to mother if I did not here pause long enough to express her thanks for the faithful service of her doctor, David B. Gottfredson. For surely no man ever served more faithfully or had less to hope for in earthly reward or reimbursement for his time and effort.

During the entirety of Ellen's sickness, Dr. Gottfredson came as many as four and five times a day, without call, to administer his services and try and bring comfort to her. When this trouble was past he surveyed mother's condition and knowing her financial status offered himself free of obligation to operate on her. After securing the help of two other doctors he told her if she could pay for the use of the hospital they would not stand by and watch her die, orphaning seven small children, when all she needed was a little of their time. She went into surgery and it was later told me that when the other two doctors gave her up for dead, Dr. Gottfredson worked, sweating like a butcher, to hold on to hthe thin thread of life that was still there. He brought her through successfully.

When later mother got her affairs straightened up and had a little money from the resale of the ranch at the Meadows, she went in to see Dr. Gottfredson knowing he held a bill for at least $84.00 for services he had rendered. When she asked him about it he said he did not know what it was, but upon her insistence that he look it up he went over to the desk and rummaged around a bit then turned and told her it was $42.00. She said "Doctor, I know it is more than that and I know also of many, many calls and services that you have rendered which you never billed me for - but this bill I want to pay. I told you I would when I incurred it and now I want to pay it. I can and I will." The doctor said to her "Your bill is $42.00." And forty-two dollars is all he would receive: payment in full for the untold hours of his time and un-numbered sleepless nights when he stood by to render said as though her problems were his own.

In 1934 she allowed her oldest son Roland to enter the Civilian Conservation Corps in order to obtain funds to operate a home and keep bread in the mouths of her seven remaining children. The others helped as they could around the place, working out wherever and whenever they could find a job. Josephine took a job at the hospital as charwoman and Alma ran the farm, which consisted of several city lots which were rented and planted to saleable crops, hauled wood from the mountains for use and for sale; anything that could be bought or sold or traded to provide food and clothing, even accepting with gratitude some assistance from the federal government in line of food stuffs and clothing. These days were depression days. Work was hard to find and more especially for boys and girls in their early teens. But she would not allow her family to expect something for nothing as was the trend among so many. She insisted on them returning in the wintertime and finishing their schooling. Roland graduated from high school in the spring of 1935 and he with Alma, who because of a hayfever condition had to give up farm work, went back into the C.C.C. where they stayed for the next four years, sending her $25 of the $30 dollars they received for their labors each month.

It was in 1937 that mother was finally able to reclaim the property at the Meadows, the agreement on which had been defaulted. It was a sorry day for her when she returned and saw the depleted condition the Meadows were in. Corrals and fences were torn town; out buildings were destroyed and range cattle [were] running loose in the once bounteous fields which were now stripped of their beauty and forage. So great was the change that it no longer held any interest for her; to be rid of it was all she could wish for. So it was that she re-sold it and took a cash settlement far below it's original value and was through with it for good. The Meadows has never returned to the station of grandeur and beauty that was once her proud possession in the days that mother and dad held the reigns there.

Night is always the blackest just before the dawn. So it was in the life of Clarissa Josephine Leavitt Platt. With these troubles behind her it was now time for a new day to dawn in her life. And it did. With two sons and one daughter self-supporting and only four children left at home she decided to find something to do, so she re-married, taking up with a man who had lived neighbors to her from the time she had lived in Richfield and who had lost his wife about the same time she had become widowed. He had six children, the oldest of which was married. They came to live in her home.

On the 4th day of August 1937 mother became the wife of David LeRoy Chidester in the Salt Lake Temple [for time]. Together they set out to finish raising their families, those remaining at home.

There were many adjustments to be made some of which they never quite got made but they were able to find a companionship together that helped to lighten the burden for both and give them some enjoyment together along the way. Before her marriage she had seen her three oldest children through high school and self-sustaining in their own work. In fact each contributed to the support of the family for at least a couple of years after the wedding. Three of her other four completed high school and two of them went on to higher learning through college, though Gordon, who stood in the middle of her brood with two brothers and and a sister older and two brothers and a sister younger, was the only one to receive his degree from college. When he graduated he had been through a war and had a wife and four sons.

Mother was able to send two of her sons on missions for the Church. It is interesting to note that her second oldest and second youngest were the only ones to have this privilege.

All of her children except the two youngest have been married in the temple. Darwin has not married to date but is active in temple and other Church work. Three of her five sons have filled stake missions, representing about ten years of service for the Church.

The last of her children left home in about 1949. Since that time they have busied themselves in Church service and with their several hobbies which are arrayed in profusion. Mother is a proficient seamstress and loves to sew, knit, and crochet. Her array of quilts, crocheting, pillows and knick-knacks is seldom equalled - never surpassed.

In May of 1954 she was given honorable mention in the 2nd Ward Relief Society for having served longer as a block teacher than anyone in the ward. She had served for twenty-six years. She served as chairwoman of the Ward Genealogical Committee for many years and about eighteen years as Work and Business leader and Relief Society Work Director in conjunction with the Ward Welfare Committee. She also served in the Ward primary. Her accomplishments in temple service has been uncounted but she has spent a lot of time in the temple in the service of others and has developed a genealogical record book that might well be coveted.

When she was called to work in the Indian Branch Relief Society in 1960 her husband was serving as counselor in the Sunday School, so they had their records transferred to the Branch. Like her father and grandfather before her she found great joy and satisfaction in working with these deprived but interesting and humble people.

As she looks to her seventy-second birthday with a full life of service behind her and a faith in the opportunities of the future ahead, she is plagued only with frequent intervals of pain and distress from an unruly gallbladder and liver which feed from a nervous nature to tear at her soul. As she totters about on unsteady feet, scarcely able to hear what goes on about her, she is still quite able to wash more dishes, cook more - and better - food, keep a more tidy house and get over more work than most women one-half her age and with twice her means. [Original in Platt Family Records Center, Document 157]