Daniel Treharne Leigh

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Mary Leigh Talbot reminisced about the family of Daniel Treharne Leigh.

I hardly know where to start with my grandfather’s family. It was a large family, eleven children. The parents were both deceased several years before I was born. I was quite young, when some of the older siblings died, so I don’t remember much about them.

I will start with the oldest. Francell Corry died when I was only about eleven years old. I remember a prim, white haired lady, with her hair pulled gently back from her face in a bun. Very proper in a high necked dress with a brooch. She was a widow and lived alone in an adobe home somewhere on the east side of town. Dad regularly visited all of his siblings, so I was taken to her house fairly often as a child, however I don’t remember much about the inside of the house. The porch was directly next to the sidewalk, so the house had no front yard. I’m not sure about the sides and rear of the house. Francell had several grandsons that were about my age, two of them were in my same grade in school. They neither one made much of an impression. One of them took his own life when he was only in his thirties.

Next was Mary Jane Wade. Another prim, lovely lady who was also a widow. She lived in an apartment over in the cross street. She was a very friendly and pleasant woman; I remember her attending church services, as she was in the same ward as myself. Mary Jane always strove to look her best, indeed, on the day she died she managed to get her face made up. One of her sons, Leigh Wade, lived directly across the street from us so I got to know more of the Wades than some of the other families. And the association continued even after we moved to Sunnyvale.

There was a couple that moved into our ward named Allen who lived up on Wolfe Road. Not long after moving here, Mr. Allen died. Mary Grace Allen was an active woman who did a fair amount of traveling after her husband died. One day she waltzed into Relief Society with a big diamond ring on her finger and announced that she was engaged to get married. To a man she had known for two weeks! I about had a heart attack. I told my family that she have lost her mind and I figured that she was old enough to know better. One evening a few weeks later Kenneth went off to a bishopric, or some other meeting at the chapel. While he was there Mrs. Allen and her intended came to talk to the bishop. Kenneth talked to them and discovered that the suitor was none other than Dan Wade, Mary Jane’s son. I had heard of Dan, but I had never met him, as he had lived and worked in California most of his life. And of course, he was quite a bit older than I am. Kenneth called me and I went directly over to the church. When I walked through the door he looked at me and said that I looked like my mother. It was exciting to get to know a first cousin, and we kept in touch for the remainder of his life.

Samuel Leigh, or Uncle Bud as he was known, lived in a house on the edge of town that was across the street from the Leigh Hill (site of the folks first home). He was a stake patriarch and I received my patriarchal blessing at his hand. It is not many that are privileged to receive this blessing from a blood relative. He wrote a pamphlet about the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, and he had it published. It detailed their apostasy from the church, their continued defense of the Book of Mormon and Angel Moroni, and their eventual return to activity. I did not know any of his children when I was growing up.

There is something about the Sunnyvale LDS chapel that invites my relatives. One Sunday when we had not lived here only a few months Kenneth found me in the cultural hall; he had a little man in tow. He asked me: Mary, do you know this man? I said no, but if I had taken a closer look I would have realized he was a Leigh. Indeed he was Uncle Bud’s son Jack. He and his wife were managing an apartment house in our ward. Again, a man I had heard of but never met, as he had lived away from Cedar for most of his adult life. He retired and went back to Washington, Utah, where, incidentally, Dan Wade was living. We would visit both of them when we were in the area.

Aunt Abigail, or Abby, as she was known, outlived two husbands. Mr. Webster was the last one and he died sometime before I was old enough to remember. She lived in a home on the north end of town and when I was young, Uncle Leon lived with her. (This always confused me as a child.) I remember her having a piano in her home and I got into trouble for playing with it. (Mom couldn’t stand the plink plink of my messing about with the keys. ) Dad used to pick Aunt Abby up and bring her over to spend a part of a day with us. Upon arrival she would immediately remove her shoes. She would spend the day visiting with the folks and have dinner with us. When it was time to go home she had to go looking for her shoes. Abby was the first to die. At her funeral they gathered the remaining siblings together and the local photographer, Mr. Jones, took a family picture. A space was left empty on one end of the back row. A few weeks prior to her death Abby had been downtown at some function and Mr. Jones had taken her picture. He put that image of her in the family photo and you would never know that she wasn’t in the photo with the rest of the family. I suppose that it was the only photo ever made of all of them at one time.

Abby lived next door to her daughter, Alice Knight. Alice had two sons, one just older and the other just younger than me. The younger one, Jordan, was killed in a freak accident when we were in Jr. High School. It happened on a hayride. He slipped off the hay and was run over by a wheel of the hay wagon. It was a terrible tragedy, and he was such a nice young fellow.

Peter, or Uncle Pete as he was known, was next. I did not know much about Pete and his family. He did have some grandsons that were about my age. I remember one, Kenneth, who was a nice young fellow. Another one, Garry, was a year or two older. Sometime during high school for some reason or other he ended up in the same grade as me. We showed up on the rolls as Garry Leigh followed by Mary Leigh so most of the teachers assumed that we were siblings. We didn’t even know each other. In many classes we sat one behind the other. Garry wasn’t exactly a scholar but he was a good artist. He spent most of his time in school drawing. All kinds of things, animals, plants, people. I don’t know what happened to him; I always hoped that he found something to use his skill as an artist. I can remember a teacher approaching me and asking if I would draw some posters for the class. I told him that I could not draw, but to ask Garry. The teacher hadn’t taken enough notice of him to even know that he was artistic. And Garry spent all of his time in class drawing!

As a youngster Dad was sent on the mountain during the summers to work with his older brother, Pete, who had a herd of goats. Dad first learned the shearing trade by shearing the goats. He said that the sheep were easy after trying to shear goats.

I don’t remember much about Dan. He lived in a tiny house on south second west and we did the regular visiting. He was a diminutive individual. His wife, Aunt Edith, I remember more. She was a rather large lady and she didn’t get around very much. She was a skilled needle worker and spent much of her time crocheting. I think that she did other types of needlework, but it is the lovely crochet table coverings and antimascars that I remember the most. Dan and Edith had a Granddaughter, Rosalin that I knew fairly well. Rosalin went on a mission for the LDS church. I do not know what became of her after that.

Uncle Trehorne and Aunt Catherine lived in a brick home just east of main street. Uncle Trehorne had met Catherine while he was serving an LDS mission somewhere in the midwest, I believe. She came to Cedar and married him but she never joined his church. She faithfully attended the Catholic church and so did the children. He had a large yard and always called Mom when his gooseberries were ready. Treharne sometimes worked at the local slaughterhouse and was able to get brains and sweetbreads, items that do not keep and usually are not kept for sale. Once in a while he would show up at our house with a white package containing one or the other. This thrilled me as I loved both brains and sweetbreads. Mom would slice them, bread each slice in egg and breadcrumbs, then fry them in bacon fat. They are both very good, but almost impossible to find.

We visited Treharne and Catherine often. He had one son and three daughters. Dan was an extremely handsome man. One of the girls, Francell, had a family of twelve children and from what I understand, they were a great group. Margaret we visited from time to time and she was a very nice woman. And Anna. I really liked Anna. She really wasn’t that much older than me and she was very friendly. She married a man by the name of Wing so she was Anna Wing. He was a park ranger. She died when I was a freshman in college. Mr. Wing was working at Grand Canyon at the time and Anna is buried in the cemetery on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Every child should have a favorite uncle and mine was probably Uncle Kumen. Not so much for any direct interaction with him, (although he was always extremely kind to me) but for the perks that were provided to me through him. Kumen raised beef cattle and was the owner of the Blue Spring Ranch. The cattle were taken to the ranch in the spring and spent the summer grazing the meadow. Kumen spent the entire summer at the ranch, often by himself. Sometimes his wife would go up, but she usually didn’t stay. We would go fairly often, as Dad figured Kumen needed the company. And I loved every minute of the time that I spent at the Blue Spring. The ranch was named for the huge morning glory spring on the property. It was over 50 feet in diameter and I’m told that they never did find the bottom. The Blue Spring was somewhat hidden in the trees, and was a ways up the side of a hill. Further down was another, smaller spring, about 12 feet in diameter. This spring had a wooden foot bridge over it and it was where you walked out with a bucket to collect the days water supply for the house. The water was so cold and so pure and clean. The ground around the small spring and the streams issuing from them was verdant and green, covered with mosses and all manner of small green plants.

The house was really a cabin. It had one large main room that served as kitchen and Kumen’s bedroom (his bed with the brass bedstead was always made up with a canvas spread), and it had a smaller front bedroom. At the back were two rear rooms, one just a storage area and another bedroom. I usually slept in the smaller front bedroom. Oh, what a grand place to sleep, in a large fluffy and very high bed, heavy quilts guarding against the cold mountain nights. And the persistent sound of the water from the springs tumbling down the side of the hill. The house was situated part way up the gentle slope of the hill and looked out over the meadow where the cattle grazed. Just in front of the front step was a large clump of stinging nettle and if you didn’t watch when you came out you could do yourself real injury from that nettle. They tried to get rid of it but the nettle always returned. The house was lighted at night by a single kerosene lantern and everyone kept a flashlight for nocturnal trips to the outhouse. There was a large, black wood stove in the kitchen where dinners were cooked. The table, benches and chairs were all homemade.

There were other buildings, an old chicken coop and a barn, two outhouses, an old derelict fish hatchery and the cold house. The cold house was a small shed that was built over a pool that formed in one of the downhill streams. The floor consisted of a bunch of slots for holding perishable food items. The ice cold water was better than a refrigerator. After the cold house was torn down, keeping food cold didn’t prove to be any challenge at all. Folks just placed jars of milk, watermelons, etc. in niches along the sides of the stream. At one point someone had decided to try making the place a dude ranch, so there were two small one room cabins that had been furnished for people to stay in. What grand places a child could find to explore.

Kumen had horses and I could have ridden them any time, but I do not particularly care for horses, I hate riding, so I spent my time exploring the area and playing in the old buildings. There were always plenty of rodents to chase about. Kumen waged a lifelong battle against beavers, as he didn’t want them damming up the streams running down the hillside. Besides my nemesis, the stinging nettle, the lower hill sides were populated with sage and rabbit brush, wild rose bushes and a whole galaxy of other small shrubs and flowers. Further up the forest started, with lots of pine, spruce and aspen trees. We all carved our initials in the white bark of the aspen trees and in just a few years the writing would become a permanent black monument to our presence.

When I was nine years old the movies came to the ranch. They rented space and turned the area into the Swiss Alps. All of the outdoor scenes for ‘Bob, Son of Battle’ were filmed at the ranch. (It is a ‘B’ movie and I haven’t seen it on TV for years.) The movie company covered all of the main buildings with white burlap and they put thatch on the roof of each building. Some nonessential buildings were torn down at that time, among them the old fish hatchery and the cold house. The outhouses were essential, so some trees were placed to hide them. The scenes were shot from the meadow and it looked just like the Swiss mountainside. A stone bridge was built over a stream in the meadow and that bridge remained there for as long as I can remember. Bob, of course was a dog, a German shepherd, and there was another dog, a collie, in the movie. The only stars that I remember are the dogs. The movie people set up tents in the meadow. We would go on down and watch the activity. One vivid memory is of three large candy jars on a table in one of the tents. Two of the jars were full of candy and the other contained only one very large and very self- satisfied ground squirrel.

Three of Kumen and Aunt Ett’s children I know a little more than some other cousins. One young man, Frederick, died quite young, he was a serious alcoholic and that was the cause of his death. The other, Cardin, was in a tragic accident when a piece of equipment he was driving hit a high power line. His injuries were severe and he suffered for the remainder of his life. His wife was interesting. She decided to go back to school and get a master’s degree. The subject of her master’s thesis was the Leigh family. I have not read the thesis, but I am told that she did a great job. She focused, I believe, on the Leigh’s that came to Cedar from Wales.

As Kumen got older he felt that he needed company on the ranch so he started bringing Thora’s son, Tony Cox to the ranch with him. Tony spent many years going to the ranch each and every summer. He was great, he showed me all kinds of places that I had not found on my own. Tony died a few years ago. I’m told that he was broken hearted when the ranch was eventually sold. Thora also had a daughter, Shirleen, whom I knew quite well, as we were all about the same age. She was just a year older than me and was always friendly and interested in what we were doing. She came to Mom’s funeral, I appreciated that. Her husband, Raymond Bauer, a member of the third ward when I was growing up, died of cancer just a few years ago. (A victim of the above ground atomic bomb tests that showered down radiation upon all of us.)

My last trip to the ranch was after I was married; Dad, Mom, Kenneth and I went on up for a day trip. It just wasn’t the same. I think Kumen had given up ranching by then and it was more of a family retreat than a ranch. They had built on to the house, made a nice large room to the side of the kitchen. Someone had installed a generator and there were electric lights in the house. There might of even been a refrigerator. In my mind’s eye I still see it as it was when I was a child, the old house, with a bench outside under the kitchen window, the stinging nettle and the wonderful cold springs, the great Blue Spring and the small kitchen spring.

Since moving to California I have met a couple of people that were familiar with the ranch and had visited the Blue Spring. That unique body of water is something they always remember and comment on.

Association with Kumen and Ett continued in town throughout the year. He often showed up at the house to visit Dad. If you can call it visiting. They mainly just sat and kept each other company. Every Christmas we visited them in their home and Aunt Ett served sage cheese along with some sort of fruit cake. She traveled to Parowan specifically to purchase the sage cheese at the Parowan Creamery. I always looked forward to these visits; the house was so interesting (even though the only parts I was ever in was the living - kitchen areas) and I loved the sage cheese. Their house was an interesting old brick affair with a pantry, a sitting room with a fireplace, a parlor and a large front porch. I always though the pantry was pretty clever, but you had to pass through it to reach the kitchen from the sitting room. Sort of an odd arrangement.

The brother just younger than Dad was Leon. My memories are of a kindly older man, but I do not know much about him. When I was a very young child he lived with aunt Abby. He married very late in life, to a lady named Minnie. Eventually they moved to Washington, Utah. My last memories of him are visiting him and Minnie in their Washington home. He was the only member of the family to actually live somewhere other than Cedar City. The only thing that I know for sure is that he ‘joined up’ during the first world war, but I don’t think he went beyond Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City.

Alice was the youngest and she went to school with Mom. Alice was married to Carlos Jones, a prominent sheep rancher. He was active in the Sheepman’s Association and due to his positions in the association the Joneses did a fair amount of traveling, not only in the United States, but to other countries. Everywhere they went Aunt Alice collected a doll dressed in traditional costume. When she was quite old she started giving the dolls away to nieces when they would come to visit. We were given the doll from Wales.

Alice had only one child, a son named DeOrr. (I think that is the correct spelling). He was in the navy during the second world war. When he came home on a leave he and some companions drove up the canyon and on their way home, late at night, they went off the road in the gulch. Of course all of them were killed. This pretty well did Alice in. She gave his things away; I received his bed. I slept in that little single bed until I left home. When we emptied out the folks house we took that bed back to Alice for want of something to do with it. She wouldn’t have needed it, as she was of advanced age herself. She was the last of the Leigh’s to die.

I had really no first cousins that were anywhere near my age, but I did have a rollicking bunch of Aunts, Uncles and plenty of them had grandchildren that were near my age. It wasn’t a real close bunch, but we did know each other and there was some satisfaction in the connections. During the time that I was growing up in Cedar, almost a third of the names in the phone book were Leigh’s and they were all related. There was Dad’s brothers and sister’s families and Dad also had a bunch of cousins and they all had families. As a child I was mostly confused as to who everyone was, and since I left Cedar right out of high school, I never did get them all straightened out. It wasn’t exactly a dynasty, but we were definitely a presence.