History of Jessie Web Eagar

 

 

 

History of Jessie Webb Eagar

Compiled by Walter Duane Eagar

Edited by Mary Jane

Jessie was born to Ephraim Jarvis Webb and Emma Lovina Berry on November 5, 1908, in St. George, Utah. It was then a small pioneer city in what was referred to as “Utah’s Dixie”. She was the third child in a family of seven. Although younger, she was the one to run and greet her father when he returned from work each night and always showed affection and concern for her “Papa”. He did make a fuss over her buying ribbons for her hair and enjoying her happy, thoughtful ways. She loved to be close to her mother a well and would play with her doll while her mother hung out the clothes. She grew up in St. George and felt secure in the bosom of her family, which extended several generations of uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents and great grandparents, making her a relative in one way or another to almost everyone in town: the Cottons, Bakers, Miles, Snows, Woodburys, Jarvis’s, Webbs, and Milnes, to mention a few.

Jessie often went to visit or stay with her grandmother Lovinia Sylvester Berry, a grand old pioneer who had lost her husband in her early thirties and raised her five children alone. William Shanks Berry had been shot and killed by a mob while serving his mission in Tennesse. She learned many of her lifelong attitudes and values from her grandmother Berry. Some summers she spent with her up in Kanarraville, where her grandmother still had a home and property left to her by her husband. She had chores to do such as milking cows, churning butter, and all of the work that was necessary in those days to put up fruit and to make preserves, etc. We can picture her out feeding the chickens or gathering eggs, feeding the cattle and horses or taking them to pasture.

                  Lovinia Nicholson Sylvester Berry          William Shanks Berry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark                Jessie   Amelia             Phyllis              Helen            Delilah      Max

Children of Ephraim and Emma Webb

 

 

 

Ephraim Jarvis Webb                                       Emma Lovina Berry Webb

 

Jessie’s father, Eph’ Webb, as he was affectionately called. Even by Walter, was a many-faceted man. He was a good athlete in his youth and especially excelled in track and field events. I am told he won several first-place honors then. He was a good student and in later life was very well-read in such subjects as geology, where he followed his father’s interest in mining and prospecting. He also studied horticulture and cultivated a beautiful rose garden and fruit trees of all kinds (even persimmons and jujubes), hybrid walnuts, pecans, almonds, and many varieties of grapes. During the building of the Hoover dam, he worked on that project with his son, Jessie’s brother, Mark. Ephraim worked on building the forms for the concrete, sometimes working from a suspended bucket high above the raging waters of the Colorado, Mark was expert in splicing cables and you might say that the steel threads he mended saved many lives according to what he later told me. Ephraim was full of good humor and always had a twinkle in his eye. He and Mark were very close and shared the hardships of the arduous task of dam building along with the times to relax and speculate about mining, land development, and the events which were leading towards the World War (II). Ephraim’s sweet character can also be judged from his patience in the care of his mother-in-law (Grandma Berry) for some forty years or more. Eph was a good carpenter, skilled in both rough and finish work. He was especially expert in cutting the rafter for hip and gabled roofs. Walter called on him to help him when he built the new house for Jessie. Eph stayed in Leeds for a week or more until that project was completed.

One amusing story Jessie tells of early childhood is the one about her making a doll out of a twenty-dollar bill not realizing it was anything but an interesting piece of paper. This caused her parents no little anxiety as that was a lot of money in those days and was set aside to make the house payment. When discovered, all was well as the bill was intact and Jessie learned a valuable lesson about money. She learned it so well that she was the one instructed to deliver the house payment each month. She retained the knowledge of how to make this type of doll even up into her eighties. (see the one attached to this history.)

At about the age of twelve, her father moved his little family to hurricane in a small (three-room) pioneer adobe house. It was from here that he was called to serve a mission to the eastern states. He had to borrow money to finance this call and served faithfully for two and one-half years while his little family survived as best they could, going into debt to E.J. Graff and others (Ben Blake) for the next few years. When her father came home, he worked on various federal projects such as the Hoover Dam and Zion’s National Park. He also built extensive turkey and chicken houses for E.J. Graff to repay his debt.

Jessie also worked for E.J. Graff in his mercantile store in Hurricane. Here she learned valuable skills which she later put to good use when she tackled store keeping on her own, leasing from Graff a store in Leeds, and later as she worked as postmistress in Leeds.

I will here copy from Jessie’s journal to give her own story of these early years:

When I was about two years old, my Mama had a strange dream. In the dream, she and papa were sitting on the edge of a cliff up Cedar Breaks and she was holding me on her lap. She had just made me a little, new dress with a ruffle around the bottom and I was wearing the dress in her dream. She said that in her dream I started to fall over the cliff but she reached out and barely caught me by the ruffled of the dress. At that point, she called out, “Oh! I have got her back!”

Papa was wondering why mother was talking in her sleep and asked her what the matter was. Then she told him about the dream and they both wondered what it could mean. She had taken me to bed with her because I was so sick with congestion and high fever. She said she wanted to keep me warm and watch over me during the night.

The next day I was still very sick so they sent for Dr. Woodbury to come to see what could be done for me. He told them I had pneumonia and a very bad case of it. In those days we didn’t have hospitals or cars so the doctors made house calls to bring medicine and treat the sick. Both Dr. Woodbury and Dr. McGregor did all they could for me but they told Mama that if I lived it would be up to the Lord.

Mother said I rolled my head back and forth and it worried them as they wondered if I had the dreaded spinal meningitis. They were about to give up and tell the Lord to take me because they didn’t want me to be crippled or have mental problems due to the disease. Papa and Mama had great faith in the Priesthood so they called upon a good friend by the name of George Worthen to help my father to give me a blessing. All through my life, I knew if papa gave me a blessing I would get better. Brother Worthen had to come from out of town so he stayed all night with us. Mama told him of her dream and asked his opinion as to what it could mean. He told her it probably meant my life would be spared and I would be narrowly snatched back from death.

The next morning the doctor again came to examine me and found that my eardrums had broken and that my ears were draining out the infection. My lungs were also clearing out the congestion and I was getting better. The after-effects of my sickness left me with boils all over my body and some of them had to be lanced which left scars for many years. I also lost all my hair so mother kept a hood on my head until it grew back. She said I also had to learn to walk all over again. I was so weak, later in life when I received my patriarchal blessing under the hands of brother Worthen, he told me my life had been spared so I could complete my mission in life and that I had great things to do here.

 

 

Jessie Age 7

 

When I was still very little (about age seven), Papa was called on a mission. My brother, Max, was the baby then that made five children, and my mother really had her hands full. I learned to milk the cow and did the milking most of the time my father was away on his mission. I didn’t mind this so much, however, because then I didn’t have to do the dishes.

“I had a happy childhood in many ways and my parents were always good to me. I remember watching every noon and evening for my father walking home from work. I loved to run to meet him and hold his hand as we walked on home. I loved to be close to my mother also and would play with my doll while she hung out the clothes. I can remember how white and clean the sheets and all the clothes looked as she hung them on the clothesline. She was a wonderful mother and a good housekeeper also. Even though we didn’t have much money, we always enjoyed good meals and clean clothes to wear. We kept one nice change of clothes and our best shoes for wearing on Sunday.

“When I was very little, I liked to make and play with dolls. I made them from hollyhock flowers.  They made real cute little dolls with eyes, ears, and silk tassels hanging down for hair. Papa would find just the right ones on his way home from work and bring them home for me. So, I always had my eyes open for things to make dolls out of such as pretty cloth or paper. My mother said I even made a doll out of a twenty-dollar bill. My father had been paid for some work he had done and this twenty dollars represented a treasure in those days. Mother had put the bill on the dresser and when it came up missing, everyone was really upset. No one seemed to know anything about it so it was a mystery. About three weeks later, my mother was hanging the clothes on the line when she knocked over one of my little playhouses. Imagine her surprise when she spotted one of my dolls made from a twenty-dollar bill. I had fixed arms and legs with toothpicks and ribbons so she didn’t immediately see what it was, but when she picked it up, out rolled the twenty-dollar bill. She never scolded me for this childish trick, but I got teased by all the family over it many times after that.

When my father got ahead a little, he built us a better house and then my grandmother Berry came to live with us for a while. She had been a temple worker in St. George for many years and had a small home there. She took a couple of bad falls off a wagon and broke both wrists. They never healed properly, so she was more or less crippled for the rest of her life. It was after her wrists were broken that she came to live with us. She did all she was able to do in helping us at home and always sang songs to us and told us stories.

                  Lovinia Nicholson Sylvester Berry          William Shanks Berry

 

In those days we didn’t have electricity in our homes yet, just coal and wood stoves and coal oil lamps.  I took my turn to clean the stoves, fill and trim the lamps and wash the lamp chimneys. We made all our bread and churned our butter from the cream of our jersey cow. In those days most of the people in Hurricane had very little money, so Papa traded carpenter work for hay, wood, and other things we needed.

“I had a crowd of nice girlfriends. We did many things together such as birthday parties; suppers and nights spent helping each other with our homework from school. We called our group “Just Us Girls”. Some of them I remember were Hazel Spendlove, Mable Campbell, Lucinda Hastings, Camella Hinton, and Venera Spendlove. About this time, I met Walter. He was the brother of Ella Eagar, who was one of my friends. She arranged for me to meet him and after we were going together, she went with us a lot of the time.

 

                                              Jessie (In black)

 

Walter and I both played in the school band. He was learning the violin and saxophone and I was taking piano lessons from Christina Barber Bradshaw. I paid for my lessons by tending her baby and helping with housework. We played for many open-air dances together out at the ‘Y’, up at Springdale as well as in Hurricane. Our high school band and orchestra played in the performance of many operettas under the direction of Karl Larson. Walter and Ella both boarded with my aunt Emma Bradshaw just across the street from my house. Walter would work herding sheep in the summertime and then went to Dixie College in the winter. He came to Hurricane after that to work for Mr. Graff, so we were both working for him for some time until our marriage. We went together for about five years and were married on September 6, 1928.

Soon after our marriage, we moved to Leeds.  As we had both worked for Mr. Graff, he offered to set up a little store in Leeds and give us the opportunity of operating it for him.

 

 

Walter and Jessie

 The Silver Reef mines were still in operation then and he thought a store might do well there. So, we came to Leeds and ran the store quite successfully until the mines closed and a number of people moved away. It was hard times for everybody as the “depression” came on. We were thinking of moving back to Hurricane, but our first child was still little and we had to find a place to live. Our friends in Leeds didn’t want us to move so we made a temporary arrangement to stay in Aunt Mary Sullivan’s old house (the title of “Aunt” was used as a term of endearment for many in those days and didn’t denote any family relationship). About this time the Postmistress of Leeds (Mrs. Olsen) died and with the change of government to the Democratic Party, the postmaster position was to be filled by a Democrat who qualified for the position. Our Leeds friends encouraged Walter to apply for the position by taking the Civil Service examination. He scored high on the test and was appointed Postmaster. We heard that Aunt Becky Angel had a house and lot on the corner from the church which was for sale.

So, Walter went and talked to her about it and Aunt Becky told him to go to the Courthouse in St. George and see about the taxes. When he did so, he learned that the taxes had not been paid for five years. Walter paid the back taxes and received title to the property as it had fallen back to the county when taxes were not paid. Walter insisted that they put the property back in Aunt Becky’s name and paid her little by little, some $500.00. She never knew she had lost the property and Walter never told her. There was no regular wages paid for the Postmaster at that time, only a percentage of cancellation (stamps or postage paid). In such a small town this wasn’t very much.”

 

Another version of Walter and Jesse meeting -

 

Jesse learned to read music and to play the piano more or less on her own (without lessons) listening in on her older sister’s lessons and borrowing her music to practice when her sister wasn’t at home. She later had an opportunity to do babysitting for lessons from Christina Bradshaw, a school teacher who came to Hurricane. By the time she was in high school, she played well enough to accompany performances and to play in the Hurricane High’s dance band. It was here that she met her future husband, Walter Clinton Eagar. He was at the time boarding with Jessie’s Aunt Emma Bradshaw, who lived just across the road from Jessie. He was a good musician and a most handsome young man with black hair and dark eyes. He had a gift for storytelling and always had a funny story or joke to liven things up. To make a long story short, he began courting Jessie (against the wishes and advice of her father) and their love blossomed against all odds and objections, even over the offers of several young men whom her father would prefer her to marry.

So, she married this motherless, aspiring young man who had nothing to give her but his promise of undying love. They were married in September of 1928. Her first child (Walter Duane Eagar) was born a little less than a year later, August 17, 1929.

After trying unsuccessfully to make an adequate living in the Hurricane area, the young couple decided to take a plunge and lease the Leeds Mercantile from E.J. Graff. So it was the Leeds became their home they were to raise all of their children there. When the depression days came in the early thirties, they lost the store as most of the small businesses folded with the crash of the market.

The next few years were a struggle to survive, but with the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, destiny stepped in to change their lives. They had been able to purchase an old board and batten house (which had originally been up in silver reef) with a lot from Aunt Becky Angel and this afforded them a base to apply for and receive the appointment of Postmaster for Leeds. With the spoils system still in use, all government offices went to the winning side. Walter, being a registered Democrat was eligible to take the Civil Service exam to thus apply for the appointment. This he did scoring higher than several Leeds ladies who never forgave him for depriving them of this job, as they perceived, even though it paid so little in those days.

 

The Post office was the hub of town activity, even more so than the church or school. It was the distribution point for all the relief goods provided by the government, such as meat and flour, etc. It was the gathering place to listen to Walter’s home assembled radio to hear the prize fights and elections etc. Walter was the only barber in town. Also, he and Jessie were the only musicians. This made for plenty of public activity and service as the years went by. Jessie taught many Leeds girls to play the piano and this legacy lives on in their grandchildren. During these years, three more children were born: Wendle Roland, July 18, 1931; Ross, June 18, 1933, and Emma Idonna, November 30, 1934. They were all born in Hurricane at their Grandmother Webb’s old adobe house, with Doctor Mackintyre attending.

Life was very busy and full for Jessie in those depression years of struggle with so many little kids, the Post Office, and Walter to look after, not to mention music lessons and church callings (playing music for all church and school functions).

During this period, the Roosevelt administration began the CCC or Civilian Conservation Corps. A large camp was established in Leeds and added to the economy as well as to the recreation activities of that small town. It was at this time that Walter was able to procure enough materials (much of it from the CCC camp) to build a new house. This was completed in the forties during the Second World War. The old house was dismantled and the Post Office moved into the new one.

From Jessie’s writings, she gives this tribute to Aunt Etta: “I want to tell you a little about Aunt Etta Marriger because our Daughters of the Utah Pioneers (D.U.P.) camp is named in her honor. She was also our good neighbor. When Idonna, Wendle, and Ross were going to school in St. George from Jr. High through Jr. College, they needed help with their lessons quite often. They would go down to Aunt Ett’s and she would be delighted to help them, as she had been a school teacher and had many good books. When Idonna was working to earn a scholarship for college, Aunt Etta helped her a lot by introducing her to good literature and providing reference material to help her complete her assignments. Aunt Etta loved to have them come down and play checkers or cards with her and Vivian. They also enjoyed her talking parrot and spent many happy times there.

“One more thing about Aunt Etta is when she was very ill at the last. Walter and I helped with her care until her brother Karl was able to come over from Hurricane and after some time, it was decided she must go to the hospital and she soon died there. She was a great lady and her book, The Saga of Three Towns represents so much research to preserve the memory of Leeds, the Silver Reef, and Harrisburg in their pioneer beginnings.”

World events moved with increasing rapidity towards the Great War and with the bombing of Pearl Harbor we were involved on both fronts. The CCC camps were closed and the boys enrolled in the army. The old highway #91 was busy both night and day with army goods and convoys of men and materials to be sent to the Pacific war effort. Many of the Leeds boys went on their way with Jessie and Walter’s dance music at the send-off parties for them. Walter worked in Las Vegas in construction during this period, coming home on weekends. This was a period of trial for their marriage, but they weathered the storm and again grew closer through their music and their growing family. During those war years, two more children were born: Lee Webb, June 11, 1941, and Michael Paul, May 27, 1943.

It seems that music was the force that brought Jessie and Walter together and became increasingly the stabilizing influence keeping them together. Their “Eagar Beaver” dance band became well-known all-over Sothern Utah and adjacent Nevada towns for providing good music for weddings, open-air dance pavilions, church dances, and Senior Citizen (Old-Time) dance requests. Walter, Jessie, Duane, Wendle, and Ross were on the road almost every week providing music somewhere. It didn’t pay very much, but it was a great experience and built good memories.

The children were growing up with Duane going on a mission, then into the army during the Korean conflict. Wendle also served in the Navy during this time. Both were soon married and began their families. Duane graduated from B.Y.U. and began a teaching career. Wendle settled in Orem, Utah, and began a long tenure with Geneva Steel Company. Idonna attended Dixie College and then a business college in Salt Lake City. There she met and married Edward Snow of St. George. Edward made many contributions to the developing electronics industry and eventually held a high management position for E.G.&G. Idonna was his partner in business and they became very successful financially as well as having a wonderful marriage and family.

During the last epidemic of Polio, before the Salk Vaccine was developed, tragedy struck the Eagar family as Ross, our beloved Ross, who was so dynamic, personable, and loved by everyone. He was so charismatic, possessed such charm, and was about to graduate from Dixie College, where he served as Commissioner of Amusements.  Polio struck him down though his life was spared; he was left crippled and confined to a rocking bed to help him breathe. Jessie and Walter spared no expense to seek some way to have him healed. Jessie called upon every man who held the priesthood of high and low degree to come and give Ross a blessing. However, his mission had been decided and his course set as he spent the rest of his life (ten years) struggling to live with his affliction. Unknown to him and beyond his imagination awaited his guardian angel (Zelda Fish) who came into his life quite miraculously and married him despite his handicap. Together they developed a successful insurance business (Farmers Group) and had two lovely daughters. He died on February 3, 1962.

I will here enclose the story as Jessie tells it in her journal:

“When we bought the property from Aunt Becky, we borrowed the money to pay her and pay the back taxes, so we were very hard-pressed for money to live on for a while.  I decided to try to give piano lessons because of the good training I had received from some excellent piano teachers while I was in high school. Some of them were: May Linder, Love Snow, and Christy Bradshaw. I gave lessons to Sherill McMullin, Relva McMullin, Coleen Sterling, Laurel McMullin, Carol Sterling, Karma Sullivan, Charlene, Tana, and Sherlie Sterling along with quite a few others I have forgotten. I also gave a few lessons to Duane and Idonna.

“In 1935 the CCC camp was started in Leeds. They did a lot of work for the town and helped increase the Post Office business with so many more letters to post and all. They improved the road from Leeds to Oak Grove and the campground. They made ditches and fences and man conservation projects. In six more years, I had two more babies: Lee Webb Eagar and Michael Paul Eagar. This made five boys and one precious little girl.

“When Ross contracted Polio, my life changed a lot. These were the hardest years for me, as he was so sick and suffered so much. I shed a lot of tears during those years, going and coming on the bus to take care of him. I had to leave Walter as well as Lee and Mike (they were still young boys at home then) and traveled to Salt Lake to the old General Hospital where Ross was first taken for treatment. He was in an out to the iron lung or on the rocking bed. He suffered from pneumonia and kidney stones. When he was operated on to remove the stones, he suffered horribly due to not having any anesthesia (this was too dangerous because of his breathing problems). I stayed by him to comfort him and help with his feeding and everything I could for his care. It was hard to leave Walter and the boys, but I would come home about every two weeks to cook, clean, wash clothes, etc. Idonna was going to business college in Salt Lake then. Wendle and Duane were both in the service (Korean War) then, so I was about the only one who could help with Ross. When the Polio Foundation took over, Ross was sent to Rancho del Los amigos in California. There he learned “frog breathing,” a technique that would enable him to breathe without a machine for a few minutes, but was very tiring. After they had done all they could for him, he was brought back to Leeds and we again took care of him as best we could.

“The first family who came to see Ross after he came home was the Fish family from Pintura. They brought Zelda who wanted to see him. After that, she kept coming almost every day. She wanted so much to be able to help him and to do everything she could for him. She would even climb up on his rocking bed to comb his hair and rub his aching arms and legs. Walter and I got worried about this because Ross was getting so attached to her and she was such a comfort to him. Eventually, we told Sister Fish how close they were getting and asked her what she wanted to do about it. Her answer was surprising as she said, ‘I am not going to do anything about it. It is what Zelda wants to do more than anything else in the world.’

Zelda relates the following: “One day Bessie and Howard Fish, a cousin of mine went down to see Ross. Ross told them at that time that if he ever got well, I was the one that he would want to marry but that he would never ask a girl to marry him as long as he was in the physical condition he was then. Bessie told me about this and I was disappointed, as I had grown to love Ross in the eleven months that he had been home and we had spent many happy hours together. Two weeks later, after Bessie told me this, I was down visiting Ross. He had no intention of asking me to marry him but all of a sudden the words were put into his mouth and he asked me to be his wife. I jumped up on his bed by him and said, ‘I know that you are going to get well and get up from this bed of affliction, but even if you never did, I would marry you anyway.’ Ross was surprised when he asked me to marry him as he had no intention of doing so but the words were just put into his mouth.”

    It seems that Ross had been prepared for her coming into his life, as he had the same dream three nights in a row soon after the onset of his polio. In the dream, a beautiful, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl came to him bringing him cool water and comforting his aching body by her touch. This was very perplexing to Ross, as he was engaged to a girl with a very different complexion (blond and blue eyes). However, after the heartbreak of her breaking off the engagement, almost a year later he learned the meaning of the dream when Zelda came into his life, as she became the dream come true! As to how they were married in the temple and their life together, see the wonderful history that Zelda compiled.

One incident concerning Ross which was related to me by Mom was the story of the White Cat. It seems that Mom had a beautiful white Persian cat which she loved very much. She was a great comfort to Mom, so affectionate and soft. Sometime after Ross’s death, the cat came up missing. Mom called and called her but she didn’t return. Then, while searching the back-ditch area, she found her beloved cat lying there dead. She had been killed by a vicious tomcat that prowled the neighborhood. As you can imagine, mom was devastated and grieved for days over her loss. Then one night when she woke up feeling so bad about the cat, Ross appeared at the foot of her bed and in his arms was a beautiful white cat. She spoke to Ross but he vanished and she was left again in the darkened room. However, after this, she was comforted about both of her losses, her dear Ross and her beloved white cat.

“Sometime after this, we had the opportunity to go to California to care for Jim Griner, an old friend that Walter had taken up in the hills deer hunting for many years. We tried this new life for the best part of a year but could see it was not the life for us, so we came back to our home in Leeds. We had given up the Post Office after 33 years of service and now we were ready for another assignment. It was not long in coming, as we were called to serve a mission in Florida. Ross was now in Heaven and all the other children were on their own; so, we accepted the call. We had to sell our farm to help keep us on the mission, but we were blessed in so many ways and made wonderful friends and choice memories.  We were assigned to the Panama City Branch where we helped in any way we could, playing music, teaching classes, or helping with baptisms, visiting the members who were in the hospital, etc. We loved the Southern people and enjoyed their food and customs. Walter served as First Counselor to President Brock and 38 people there (14 children and 24 new converts). He did the baptizing in the ocean, as the branch had no baptismal font. The people were wonderful to us and some have kept in touch or visited us from time to time when they came through our country.

“Before we came home, Dr. Arnold called us several times and wanted us to buy his home in Leeds (the old Stanley Fuller home). We told him we would see about it when we returned from our mission. He was anxious to sell due to a bad experience with the renters who had done a lot of damage and left owing him some $4,000.00 in back rent. He had just recently suffered a heart attack, so his wife, Hazel, was anxious for him to be relieved of this worry. After praying about it, we decided it was the thing to do even though the house needed so much repair and all. We ended up having to rebuild much of the house, especially the kitchen and living room, along with new floor coverings and a new roof. It was not long after we bought the house that the Arnolds both died, but we had been able to finish paying for the place before they passed away. We enjoyed living there but it was a constant job of trying to repair and make the old house livable. We were glad to be neighbors to Wayne Hafen and his family because they had been our good friends for many years.

“Ed and Idonna had been looking for some property to buy in Leeds and they offered to let us go half interest in buying a beautiful house over next to the East Mountain. We sold the Dr. Arnold's place and then were able to have a much better living situation. We had several acres with good water rights and lots of fruit trees. It was very peaceful and private up against the hill there. It also had a guest house which came in handy when our friends from the mission field or our children came to visit. When Alene Allen lost their home to fire, we let them live there rent-free for several months until they could get on their feet again. Later on, we rented it to Phillip and Laura Piney, a nice newly married couple who became like family and were a big help and comfort to us. They had their first two children while we lived there.

“Our lives have been rich and full with many wonderful experiences with our dear family. We now have fifty grandchildren and almost 100 great-grandchildren. We have had many hard times and our share of sorrow, but we also shared many good times while playing our music as a family together and serving in the church. Walter served as counselor to Edward McMullin five years and Ross Savage five years. He served as Bishop also for five years. He was 30 years a scoutmaster and Postmaster for 30 years. I was Assistant Postmaster along with him during that time. Walter served as President of the M.I.A. and of the Sunday School for several years, and I taught primary and was organist for years. I also taught Sunday school and the Bee Hive class in the M.I.A. (Mutual Improvement Association) In Relief Society I gave the Spiritual living lessons and went visiting teaching. Walter and I did sealings in the temple after our return from our mission. We also served at the Visitor Center there.

“I want to bear testimony that I know that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ. I know that He hears and answers our prayers, not in the way we want sometimes, but He always knows what is best for us. I love my dear Walter and my precious children and grandchildren. I have a testimony of the spirituality and wisdom of our patriarch. They are close to the Lord and through the spirit they give us our blessings.  I was told special things in my blessings when only fifteen years of age which no one could have known and things which later came to pass as were promised. For instance, I was told that my husband would be a prince among the people. I think of Walter working with the boy Scouts, helping our neighbors, cutting hair, providing music, helping the widows, taking care of the dead, as well as his service in the church for so many years. He was indeed a prince among the people.

“My life hasn’t been easy but I have had lots of blessings. In closing this brief history, I want to say that I know I have had a lot to learn and have made many mistakes along the way, but I have tried to live right and help people. 

 

Memories of Jessie Web, from her kids

 

          Duane, Wendle, Zelda, Idonna, Lee, and Mike

 

 

Memories from the Youngest Son of Jessie and Walter Eagar

 

I, Michael Paul Eagar, am the youngest of six children that were born to Walter and Jessie. I have a lot of fond, loving memories of Mom and our life in Leeds and will try to highlight this part of the history.

Picking up from where Mom finished talking about their wonderful Southern states mission in Florida, I would like to mention that her family has a great heritage in missionary service to the southern states beginning with her grandfather, William Berry, thereby signing his testimony with his blood similar to what happened to Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Also, I served a mission throughout Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, and had a tremendous outpouring of success while serving there. My son, Clinton C. Eagar, Jessie’s grandson, is serving a successful mission at this time, 1997-1998, in Georgia. There have already been many great converts there will be many more from these missionary efforts.

While I am talking about the later years of Mom and Dad in Leeds, I will reflect on many pleasant memories. Jessie and Walter became very well known for their music, which they willingly shared with the town and the church and other communities. During their later years, they formed a dance band called the Eagar Merrymakers and they played for senior citizens dances as well as community and church. Mom spent her whole life serving the church and her community with her music and her sweet charm.

In the little town of Leeds, we had to generate our own entertainment and at the forefront of this was always Walter and Jessie providing the great dance music.  Walter and Jessie’s lives were intertwined with their music and they composed several beautiful songs and melodies together. I was always so proud of our family’s music and it meant a great deal to me growing up in a happy, cheerful home accompanied by great family provided music.

I am going to go back in time now to my childhood and teenage years and weave in some of the events and memories. I remember how busy our family was when I was a little boy with the farm work, the Post Office, our mining claims, the family dance band, and church and community activities. In spite of all this, I managed to get into my share of mischief, but fortunately, Mom had forgotten all of this and thinks that I am her little angel.

She has teased me a lot over the years about how hard it was to get me to school. I was very much a free spirit and didn’t want to be contained in the Leeds one-room schoolhouse, so I would go to the bathroom and crawl out the window and either go home or over the hill to one of my favorite hideouts.

One of my favorite memories is our family tradition of traveling up the nine-mile dirt road to Oak Grove at the base of Pine Valley Mountain. We would travel up there most every Sunday afternoon after church throughout the summer months and have a picnic. From living on the farm, we had access to wonderful homegrown fruits, vegetables and melons, chickens, turkeys, and other produce. Everyone will remember how good the food always tasted in Oak Grove and the fun times around these trips. Many times we were in the back of an old pickup or riding on the fenders of the good old cars of those days just enjoying the great outdoors and each other. Along this same road runs a stream of water called Quail Creek, which has several smaller streams that join it. There is Pic Creek, Spirit Creek, and Columbine Spring. There was good trout fishing up and down this stream, and so our meals at home and in Oak Grove many times consisted of fresh trout. Leeds was a great area for hunting and fishing in those days and it was with great anticipation each year to await the opening day of fishing season and hunting season. You could feel the excitement of these events in the air. In those good old days, Lee and I would walk from Leeds a few miles up the creek most any summer day and could catch our limit of fish. Mom was always proud of our catch would gladly cook them for us.

She was a great mom in so many ways. One of which was that she would always send us off with food to take along on our excursions. We worked hard and we played hard, Mom and Dad made sure that our lives were full of good, wholesome work and fun. Mom loved to have a great garden for vegetables and flowers and would spend many hours tending them. She also loved chickens and they loved her and provided the family with farm fresh eggs. We usually had some Jersey cows in those years when I was growing up and I milked thousands of gallons of rich milk which would be utilized in the family diet. The Jersey milk was very rich in cream and Mom was a master at making butter, cottage cheese, and all kinds of delicious pastries using the rich produce from our farm animals. Our family-owned farm ground in the Connley field area of Leeds and another area called Corny Town where we also owned a spring. We owned some farmland up in the Silver Reef area. And we leased farmland in Harrisburg and up above Pintura. I remember working with Dad and Mom and our family on all of these farms. I feel bad that these farms were not retained by our family, but at least we have the memories and the heritage of great parents and a great upbringing.

A few of the summers during my teenage years, my brother Lee and I worked at the Grand Canyon National Park. We were following Ross’s tradition from when he worked for the national parks. By this time in my life, my older brothers and sister were married and Ross and Zelda were living in Cedar City. It was fun becoming an uncle many times, as my older siblings started to bring their babies back home. There were quite a few years in my life when Mom and Dad were very busy with Ross and the other family members were very busy with their lives. I became very independent during those years and spent a lot of time discovering automobiles and girls. Life was a little more relaxed in those days and we started driving around the farm when we were about ten years old. Mom always told us to be extra careful (little did she know).

Woven through the threads of every part of my memory is Mom sitting at her piano practicing the wonderful music which she loves so much. To know our mother is to love her. She is the personification of service, love, and a positive, appreciative attitude. I can remember all of the good things that Mom and Dad shared with everyone. From their music to their food to their compassion, they were a shining example.

Lee’s teenage years were happy. H was popular in school and had a lot of friends. H had a close call earlier in his life at the occasion of the bad fire out at the Grape Vine Springs where the Millett family lived. Joe Millett was a house painter and his house and shed caught fire. We were all out there trying to put out the fire. Lee was spraying water on some hot tins of paint and they blew up, throwing the scalding paint up in the air and as it came down it scorched his hair, face, and hands. Everyone thought he would be badly scarred, as the burned skin soon stared rolling off from him, but miraculously he healed without any scarring. Lee loved cars about as much as I did, and so we worked on cars a lot together and built a few fun hotrods and jeeps. As I recall, Lee got married at age 19 and moved to Cedar City where he worked for J.C. Penny Company. He later got a job in Las Vegas and moved his family there and has been there since that time.

In my later teenage years, I joined the Utah National Guard and served six months of basic training in Fort Ord, California. I also finished high school and started Dixie College and worked at a service station in St. George to earn my own money. I then took a sabbatical two years leave from the National Guard and served a mission to the Southern States. When I came home, I finished at Dixie College, was active in the student body, and was the Homecoming President one year. I had an opportunity to work part-time for the Utah State Parks and Recreation helping to restore the Jacob Hamblin home and the Brigham Young winter home and then helping with the maintenance to take care of these homes. I had an opportunity one summer to go to Jackson Lake Lodge at the base of the Teton Mountains in Wyoming and was in charge of installing the landscaping at Jackson Lake Lodge National Park. This was a very fun summer, and I love to go back and see how much the trees and shrubbery that I planted have grown.

While I was on my mission in the South and having grown up in Leeds where the town was famous for Sorghum production, I got the idea to build our sorghum processing plant in Leeds. Dad was very good at cooking the sorghum, having worked in this capacity for the church and some of the farmers in Leeds. Since sorghum was grown in the South also, I was intrigued to visit some of the plants and to get some ideas towards updating our production in Leeds. Most of the younger generation doesn’t even know what sorghum is, but in telling the history of Walter and Jessie, it would not be complete without mentioning the sorghum syrup industry, Sorghum is the pure product of the cane stock, it similar to honey in texture and was used in Mom’s cooking extensively. I think we can all remember the sorghum candy, peanut brittle, taffy, cornbread, and sorghum, biscuits and sorghum, hotcakes, etc. I miss it! Dad and I constructed a modern, new sorghum plant in Leeds and were successful in growing some new varieties and making some delicious products for several years. Producing sorghum was a labor-intensive product with not much profit margin. Someday when I retire, I would like to engineer a sorghum production facility and keep a dying industry alive along with the sweet memories of Mom and Dad skimming and bottling the sorghum and Mom’s delicious recipes.

When I was a lad growing up in Leeds, Highway 91 was our Main Street and it was interesting to see the automobiles of those days traveling through our town. To capitalize on this, our family had a fruit stand each summer on the highway and Mom and Dad and all of us would work at the fruit stand keeping the fruit and vegetables displayed nicely and greeting the tourists and gladly taking their money, Most of what we sold was produced on our orchards and farms. If we would have realized back in those days how fantastic Mom’s pies were, we could have started an Eagar Enterprises Pie Factory that would outshine Marie Callenders.

We lived across the lane from the church, and behind the church was ball fields and area of huge shade trees and lawn. It was the city park. I have fond memories of all the holidays, like the 4^th of July, when the town would have a great celebration. There would be dances most every night with the Walter and Jessie band. There were ball games, barbeques, and good times. Walter and Jessie were great to keep the spirit of our county alive with music and attitude. Christmas time was always very special. I can remember the feelings in the air at our home, in our town, and at church. It’s much different today because everything is so much commercialized. Our family didn’t have much money to spend, but our gifts were always very special and from the heart, and Mom and Dad made sure that it was a special time for us.

A lot has transpired with each of our lives since I was a teenager in Leeds, and it would be good if we each write our histories as we progress on towards our mature years. Mom’s life changed dramatically when she lost our father, and she will no doubt always feel alone until she joins with him again. Mom is living at the Meadows Retirement Center in St. George now where she can get the extra care that she needs. She has her piano and xylophone and kitty with her, and some of us see her almost every day. She is very appreciative of anyone who comes to see her. She still rocks on the piano and her memory is sharp because of her lifetime with music. I would encourage all of the family members and especially the grandchildren, to show honor to this sweet lady by visiting her and we will all be blessed for doing so. We always need to remember how much our parents and grandparents have sacrificed and served us, and never get so busy and caught up in our own lives that we don’t take the time and opportunity to serve the oldest members of our family in their senior years of need. Mom feels terribly alone a lot of the time, and it helps her greatly to have any of us visit. It’s great when any of the family can bring their musical instruments and play along with Mom. Her memory and personality are brilliant at these times. For almost ninety years Mom has served and blessed each our lives. It would be good for each of us to bless her life with a little of our time while she is still with us. She loves to even get a phone call to brighten her day (435) 656-1100.

What we are all blessed with are the cherished memories of our lives together with a sweet mom and dad who loved us and despite hard times gave us a great life and heritage. We can be proud of healthy bloodlines and pioneer heritage, and Duane has even traced our genealogy back to a direct link with Charlemagne and the Kings and Queens of Ireland and England. I have the happy feeling of gratitude that each of my five children and some of their children has directly known Walter and Jessie Eagar.

 

 

 

I Remember Mama (Childhood Scenes)

By Duane Eagar

 

There was a cold spring wind whistling around the old house, but inside it was warm and cozy. I smell the aroma of Mom’s bread coming from the oven; I am curled up by our black kitty cat who has taken his favorite place in the corner back of the old coal heater. His purr is comforting and I have a happy, sleepy feeling that everything is OK.

I know Dad is out hunting ducks, which have been stopping on our irrigation ponds on their way up north. I am too little to tag along but I know how good the duck will taste when Mama cooks it. She calls me to help her churn the butter, so I go in the kitchen and turn the crank of the churn around and around. It seems endless but at last little bits of butter appear and I take the churn to Mama to finish. She works out the buttermilk, which I am waiting for, and pats the butter into a wooden, one-pound mold. This butter will be sent with me to the store to trade to Mrs. Allen for sugar, salt, or something else she needs. Right now, I have my mind on the delicious bread she is taking out of the oven. I will enjoy a slice with apricot jam and fresh buttermilk.

 

(###)

 

It has been a lazy summer afternoon in Leeds. The shadows are getting longer now and the sun is slipping out of sight behind the Pine Valley Mountains. I’m coming home from getting our milk cow from Uncle Don Fuller’s pasture. As I run down the lane by the chapel (I am always running), I wonder what Mama is doing. Now I see her working in her flower garden by our porch. She is proud of her four o’clock, daisies, pinks, and petunias. At this time, the four o’clocks and petunias are in full, open bloom and the air is heavy with their perfume.  The thing that interests me most is the sphinx moths that love these flowers. It tickles me to watch their long, curled-up tongues as they try to reach inside the flowers. The hummingbirds are also interesting, so I stay in the twilight by Mom and just enjoy this time. Daddy came home with a load of fragrant juniper wood he has gathered up near the Danish Ranch. I got to help unload it and he tells me about seeing a mountain lion. I am scared when he tells me about hearing it scream. Then we all go up on the porch to watch the sunset sky and the cool darkness of our summer night. Wendle and Ross join us, coming home from their play across the street. It is time to listen to Amos and Andy on our radio while Mama prepares some bread and milk for us along with fresh peaches and of course, onions that Daddy likes. After Amos and Andy, we hear “The Shadow” and then another scary one, “Inner Sanctum”. Now it’s time for bed and us boys are all in one big double bed outdoors. As we lay there waiting for sleep, we look up at the stars and wonder out loud to each other about a lot of things as we trace the big and little dipper and point out the way to find the North star. The crickets are making their music tonight, and so we are lulled off to a peaceful sleep with scarcely a dream to remember. The new day starts early in the summer, especially when you are sleeping outdoors. I look forward to going over the hill to our little farm in Cornytown. I will watch the cows, but I also go swimming. What a great life!

 

***

 

     It was one of those rainy days when everything seems cold and wet. Mama had a good fire burning in the woodstove, so the kitchen was cozy. It is still cold, so Mama has our long, white underwear warming on the oven so we can jump right into them after Mama scrubs us. “h! How good it feels to put on warm things and then get comfy cozy by the stove while our Mama fries some scones from dough she has left over from her baking, They taste so good with butter, honey and a big glass of milk, Now it is time for bed, so we hurry into our cold bedroom and quickly get under the covers, Mama tucks us (Duane, Wendle, and Ross) in and we are asleep.

 

 

 

 

Memories of Mom
By Lee W. Eagar

 

I remember many things about Mom while growing up. She was always doing things for everyone else. Her whole life has been dedicated to helping others, especially us kids. I remember when I was in grade school; if I needed a present for a teacher or someone else, she would go to the old cedar chest in the bedroom and get out something that had been given to her, as a gift. And help me wrap it up to give to someone else. She never said anything about the fact that it was hers.

I remember that she would always have some kind of food to give to some of the old people, or Vernon Joos, a bachelor who lived in Leeds. She would make up little jobs for him to do to make him feel like he earned the meal.
Whenever anyone came to our house, she always tried to get them to eat something or take some farm produce home with them. She always spent hours canning and bottling food so that we would have something in the winter. She would never let things go to waste. I remember many school mornings of her bringing up a bottle of peaches or other fruit from the fruit cellar and having that and some hot bread for breakfast. We would come in from milking the cows and the other morning chores and Mom would always have the table set for us. My Dad always said that she was the only one he knew that could go to an “empty” cupboard and fix a great, satisfying meal, I remember there were times when money was very short, but she would make “bread and milk and onions” for supper, and we thought it was something special” because of the way she talked about it. I remember many winter evenings of her helping us learn to “pull taffy” or play “Rook” a card game, She loves to play “Chinese Checkers” with us.

I remember every winter if we got a chest cold; she would make up a horrible smelling “mustard plaster” and make sure we kept it on our chest until the cold was “burned” out of us. She always liked to give us cod liver oil to help our nutrition. In the spring she made up some “lemon cream of tartar” mix for us to drink. This was to “cleanse our system”. It tasted horrible, but I guess it did the job.

She played the piano very well and gave lessons to many of the kids growing up in Leeds. Many times, their parents could not afford to pay or they would pay with a dozen eggs or some cream or other produce. She and Dad and some of the older kids in the family and other musicians played for dances all around the county. The “Eagar Band” was famous for their wonderful dance music. She played the music for the church every week for many, many years. I don’t think anyone ever gave it a thought. She was just “always” there.

I remember that she had a way with plants and flowers. She would get things to grow like no one else. She “loved” them into growing. She “talked” to them and seemed to know just what kind of food they each needed or when to move them to the sunlight and then back. She always loved to have a few chickens and a rooster and wanted to see them scratching around the yard and garden for bugs, worms, etc. She had a habit of putting out “hummingbird” feeders, just so that we could watch the little birds and marvel at their ability to fly. She taught us many things just by the way she lived her life and the way she treated others. My Dad was the Post Master in Leeds for many years. Part of the front of the house was made into the Post Office. Mom always was there to help make sure everyone got served, even at times when she was too sick to be on her feet. I remember many times when people would order baby chickens through the mail. The boxes of chicks would be delivered by the big mail truck that went through town, but many times the people would not be in town for a few days. She would open the boxes, check each little “biddie” and make sure they had food and water so that they would stay alive until the people could come for them.

I only remember Mom saying something bad about someone once or twice in my whole life. She always tried to see the “good” in people. Some of them surely didn’t deserve it, but they were blessed by her anyway.

Mom had a good sense of humor and enjoyed having a good time with us kids and when she was playing for dances. People loved to talk to her because she was easy to be around, and was always trying to make others feel good about themselves.

In summary, I believe Mom was a “Model” Mother. Many people’s lives have been enhanced by her love, and her talents and her teachings. Mom sacrificed much more than I ever realized for the others around her. Her happiness was to see us be happy.

I love you, Mom, for all that you are and all that you have done and all that you have helped me become.

 

 

My Memories of Mom
by Wendle R. Eagar

 

She had a beautiful, long hair always fixed nice. She smiled at me and had a sparkle in her eyes. Mom would let us kids raid the fridge or cookie jar any time. We had freshly baked bread when we got home from school with sorghum or honey. I loved helping bottle fruit. I would pick berries and then help make jams and jellies. My favorite was whole peach preserves.

I liked wash days.
The beat or rhythm of the washer was a fascination for me. Mom would let me put the bluing pellets in the rinse water.

Mom would spend all the time I wanted or needed helping me with music.

My mom always smelled good to me and she wanted us to clean clothes every day for school.

Mom saved me from the razor strap several times. She understood me and I would talk to her and get advice.

I am positive that our mom is the kindest and the most gentle mother.
There may be other moms like her, but none any better!

 

My Mom, Jessie
By Idonna Eagar Snow

 

My mom, Jessie, has been a continual source of inspiration for me – a guide on how one should live their life day by day.

My mom was never unkind to anyone. The unemployed and the needy received the same warm welcome, with the offer of something to eat, such as homemade bread, at her door, as the most respected citizen in town.

My mom loves animals. She would feed and tame every stray in the neighborhood and soon they would be loved into family members.

My mom loved flowers. Her gardens of roses, her show of lilacs in the spring, and her sunny rows of zinnias will always linger in my mind.
My mom loved to cook. The wonderful smells one would encounter upon entering her home certainly made one feel at home and consider moving in. Her pies and hot rolls were absolutely irresistible.

My mom loved music. When perched on her piano bench playing for dances, her show of energy, her style, and rhythm on the piano made it impossible to sit still. You had to join in some way. When she played her Chopin Waltzes and church hymns it made you want to lay back, shut your eyes, and just listen.

My mom loved to sew. She especially enjoyed making quilts for her children and grandchildren. These quilts are very special to my children as they make them feel they will always have a part of their grandmother with them.

My mom seemed to have infinite time to do all the things she loved. She was never too busy or too tired to help anyone at any time. I suspect that my mom was given a day as long as she needed with never-ending energy because she was always making other people happy.

What a wonderful example I had!

I love my mom.

 

 

 

My remembrances of Walter and Jessie Eagar (Grandpa and Granma)

By Grant Eagar

 

I remember going with grandpa to work on his mining claims we would pull the claim out of an old tobacco canister and mark that the work had been done on the claim. Grandpa would take his Geiger counter out and test samples of uranium. He shot a rattlesnake with his 22 birdshot. I remember his old jeep that would crawl along the dirt roads.

I remember going out to his west fields early in the morning at 6:30 am and weed watermelons and thin sorghum. We would work until 9:00 and we would climb in the jeep and have a can of pop and a snack Grandma had prepared.  Then around 12:00 when it started getting hot, we would go back home and Grandma would have lunch for us and Grandpa and Grandma would take a siesta nap in the heat of the day with the old swamp cooler running to keep us cool.

I remember when we would go to the drive-in at St. George and have a hamburger, I got a queen burger, a root beer, and an ice-cream cone. Grandma and Grandpa would tell us about life and encourage us to make something of ourselves.  The food was good but it came with a fair amount of preaching and counseling.

I remember Grandpa on the violin and saxophone and Grandma on the piano and xylophone. They would entertain us; this was something I wanted for my children so even though I’m tone deaf I enrolled most of them in band.

One summer my brother David and I got on a Greyhound bus in Salt Lake and the bus dropped us off at the exit ramp to Leeds, Utah, it was about ten o’clock at night. I was eleven and David was ten. I wonder what the bus driver was thinking. As we walked into town, we felt like we had died and gone to heaven. I could smell the honeysuckles and flowers and we walked up to Grandpa and Grandma’s house. They were so excited to see us.

I loved to walk through Gramma's flower garden, it was wonderous. I have tried to recreate the oasis in my own yard. I remember the lunches she served with a little bit of this and that, Pickles and jellies that she put up herself. My grandfather would tell stories and make jokes and make us all laugh. 

I remember later as a teenager when I was faced with poor choices, I asked myself, what would grandma and grandpa say if they knew I had done this? 

They were not perfect, but they were wonderfully close. I'm proud of the lives they lived and their determination to do what is right and the sacrifices they made for others.  Over the years they offered many prayers for their children as well as shedding many tears. I feel sorrow for the tears they shed in my behalf. I aspire to be the kind of a man my grandfather was, down to the sunspots on my arms and the bald head. All I need is some land, an old jeep, and a ratty old hat.