A Life Sketch of

GEORGE ANDREW GRIFFETH, JR.

by a sister,

Alice Albertie Griffeth (Griffiths)

George Andrew Griffeth, Jr. was the first child of George Andrew Griffeth, Sr. and Mary Elizabeth Thurman. He was born September 20, 1870, at Hyde Park, Utah. He was born in what was called the “adobe house” which was located just west of Grandfather Patison Delos Griffeth’s home. It was a small house but a very clean and happy one.

The morning after his birth his mother heard his father yell to one of the neighbors, “We have a boy!” She said that she imagined that the whole town could hear. I suppose that he should be excused, though, for he was only twenty-one years old.

George was blessed November 30, 1970, by his grandfather, James Perkes. He was baptized September 20, 1878, by his uncle, Edward Horoni Thurman and confirmed September 22, 1878 by George Seamons.

George was a tall, slender, rather delicate boy with blue eyes and reddish blond hair. Although he was not too robust, he was full of life and always enjoyed playing a joke on someone. At one time he and anther boy left the school-room quickly and hurriedly had the door tied so that the other pupils and the teacher could not get out without crawling through a high window.

I remember when he took me for a ride on a hand sleigh and let the old dog, Blooch, grab the rope and run away with the sleigh and passenger, while he stood and laughed. When he went into the granary and found me playing in the deep bin of wheat, he put the trap door down, making it dark for me, so that I thought that I was smothering to death. Another time he teased my pet lamb until it was very angry, then took me and stood me in front of it. I was wearing a pair of mother’s shoes while mine were being repaired, I didn’t have time to get away before the lamb struck me and took me riding along belly—boost on his back. George and Irene sat on the porch and laughed until they were nearly sick. I felt better when father came home and said, “That was a foolish, trick, that child could have been killed”.

He used to take great delight in making fun of the young men who came to court his sisters. At one time a fine young man by the name of Clarence Chadwick came to see Irene and when he stepped inside of the room, George looked frightened and ran behind mother peeking out at one side and the other. When she finally got away from him, he ran over and began to crawl under a lounge, kicking as if he were nearly frightened to death. The poor fellow didn’t know whether to sit down or turn and get out.

When George was very young he learned to play the banjo. A man by the name of John Follett used to bring his fiddle down to our home and have George play the banjo and father the fiddle with him. Grandfather Griffeth, Father and George played for dances all over the valley. Often George would fall asleep and go right on playing. He played the violin a little and the guitar real well.

He always made friends really easily and had a way of not giving offenses, even in giving correction. He enjoyed dancing, singing in glee-club and sleigh-riding. He has lively horses and two strings of Swedish Bells. He liked to take a sleighful of young people then run races with other sleighs. He used to whirl the sleigh in front of the Fairview Store. Sometimes the horses would hardly move only to step sideways while the sleigh would be flying in a circle behind them. Sometimes even leaving the ground.

He usually dated all of the school teachers, who came into town, but never got serious with any one of them. One time a young girl named Evelyn Vilate Pratt, went home and told her brother, Frank, that she had decided who she was going to marry, George Andrew Griffeth, Frank said, “Oh you couldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole”. Soon after that Eva was carrying mail from Fairview to Preston, and she met George riding along on a horse. He stopped and asked for a date. When he went to her home to ask her father’s permission to take her, Eva was cleaning chickens. Brother Pratt talked with him for a long time before he gave his consent. He said, “She is just a kid, very young and full of life. You are much older. She may go, but I expect you to bring her back as sweet and clean as she now is”.

George took her up to his home for dinner, he had told his folks that he was going to bring a widow. When Aunt Ella Griffeth saw them she said, “Oh, its that Eva Pratt.” That hurt Eva’s feelings, but it didn’t stop their dating. She was his girl from then on.

About Thanksgiving time in the year of 1898, George left for Georgia, where he filled a two—year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. While on his mission at one time a mob gathered. George and his companion were at home. They could see the mob outside and knew there was no way they could get out without the mob getting them. There was a banjo hanging on the wall in the home. George asked if he could look at it. He took it down and began to play. Soon the crowd of negroes on the outside began to clap to the rhythm of the tunes and soon everyone joined in clapping and huming. After about two hours he stopped playing and everyone left without molesting them.

Eva waited for him, and on June 6, 1901 they were married in the Logan Temple. They drove up Logan canyon, then came back to Hyde Park, where Aunt Nellie Perkes had a delicious wedding supper prepared for them. They made their home in Fairview, where George worked for Eva’s father, Bishop Moroni W. Pratt, for several years.

They became the parents of five children, Vilate, who died at the age of 19, Melvin, Florence, Cora and Vaughn. He was the grandfather of twenty-seven, and had seven great grandchildren. He died at his home in Dayton, August 8, 1950 and was buried in the Dayton Cemetery.