Person:Alphonzo McMullin (2)

HISTORY OF ALPHONZO "L" MCMULLIN by his wife Elizabeth Munns McMullin October, 1966

He was born in Heber City on the other side of the mountains at Provo. You drive up through Provo Canyon a few miles. His father was Alphonzo McMullin and his mother was Witt. There were four daughters in the family when he was born and of course he was greatly loved and pampered. The family lived on the farm in the summer and moved to town in the fall. He didn't get much formal schooling as he had to help his father get the crops planted in the spring and harvested in the fall. The children went to a small school which had a round stove that burned one side of them while the other side froze.

Everything was done the hard way in those days. None of the wonderful farm machinery that is necessary now. When the time came to move to town, his mother used to go down to town every day for about a week and white wash all through the house and wash the wood work and windows. To white wash means to slack some lime and put it on with a brush like paint. It looked and smelled so clean. The next was to take the carpets up and beat the dust out and clean spots and tack it down again over a thick layer of clean straw hauled from the farm. They used heavy ticks filled with straw for mattresses, so they all had to be emptied and washed. Pillows and comforters were made from the chicken and geese feathers. How clean the house looked but the first time the ashes were emptied or the floor swept dust was everywhere and the smoke from the wood burning cook stove did its share.

Fonzo, as they called him, used to go hunting for rabbits and pheasants and swim in the irrigation ditches but his father would never let him hunt or fish on Sunday. One of his young friends who was a widow's son went swimming on Sunday when his mother had told him not to and was drowned. That made a lasting impression on him.

One day he and his young sister Sarah, next older, went on their pony to bring the cows home from the pasture. When they came to the bottom of a little gully where clean sand had been washed down, they saw three men standing there with sandals on their feet and biblical clothing. When the horse saw them, he gave a snort and ran for the barn at breakneck speed. The children managed to hang on. Their father saw them coming and hurried out to meet them. And when they told him what they had seen he went out there and could see the foot prints, but the people were gone. They never knew why they came or where they went.

He was born June 28, 1882, and was baptized August 14, 1892. He came to Canada with his family in the spring of 1902 and went right to work for the Knight sugar company. Perhaps you will get a picture of him if I tell you he was a very nice looking young man, five feet seven in fair skin, blue eyes and pale gold hair with a little wave, and he had good health. When he was older, he weighed 165 pounds. He was a wonderful dancer.

We were married September 27, 1904, in the beautiful, new home of Raymond Knight by his brother J. William Knight. He was our dear, good bishop at that time. He (Papa) went to work in the sugar factory for the first beet processing. The 27th of June our first child was born and named Nina for his little girl friend Nina Willes who died when she was nine. About that time we filed on a homestead near Taber, Alberta, and for four years we worked on the farm in the summer and in the sugar factory in the winter.

He was not very religious when we were married but he became interested. Later he was a faithful ward teacher and was the means of getting at least one young couple back on the right track. He was a faithful tithe payer and paid a little more tithing each month than we owed to pay for the times when we were not too honest with the Lord. Our bishop had us on the stand one Sunday to tell the ward how we managed to pay as much as we did considering we were poor people. I said I left the tithing to my husband and it was far easier to do that than it was to stand there and tell about it. They thought that was funny but it was not intended to be. He was a high priest when he died.

When the Knight factory was moved away, we went to Burley, Idaho, and he worked in the new factory as a mechanic in 1914 and 1915. Our son, Wayne, was born there in 1915. As he was the Yank in the family, we used to tell him he would be the president of the .U.S. if he studied hard enough. When the new factory was built, we returned to Raymond and Papa worked there until he had a severe heart attack and had to retire.

When our son, Dean, returned from overseas after the war, we sold our home in Raymond and moved to Lethbridge. Papa's health was poor but he lived four more years. He died 30 March 1951* and lies in the Temple Hill cemetery. He was buried April second, which was Rowena's birthday and a beautiful day.

Dean read this and said that I should say he was a good provider and a very hospitable man in his home. Also that he was a kind husband and father. Also, the other children which are the two little girls who lie beside him and Pearl, Arthur, Edythe, and Doris.

I loved him when we were married and I love him still.

• He died in 1952.

Note: This is the bulk of a letter she wrote to me in response to a request for Grandpa's history. I have her original letter in my possession. je

1.   1998 Ancestral File.
2.   Internet IGI (Jan 2004) - nil.