Life Sketch of

MARIA GERTRUDE GRIFFETH (THOMAS)

by her sister

Alice Albertie Griffeth Griffiths

Gertrude was born at Hyde Park, Utah July 4, 1884. It was at daybreak in the old Adobe House, located on the Patison Delos Griffeth lot on the north side of the street. The cannons were roaring and mother 5aid she bore the right colors for the Fourth of July, for Gertrude’s hair was red, her skin white, and eyes blue.

She was a pretty, lovable child. She always knew how to make friends. People confided in her. Many girls even asked her advice about love affairs. She never got angry enough to fly into a tantrum. If refused permission, she bided her time, stated her viewpoint and had good persuasion.

She was a vivacious child and seemed to get a great joy out of living. She liked to go swimming in the field that ran through our field. I remember when she was baptized in that stream. Father took her down to the home of James Hyde Sr. early one morning before the Fourth of July celebration. Brother Hyde baptized her July 4, 1892.

She was a natural leader, She made plans and usually executed them. She was kind and helpful to people in need. She used to like to fall backward in the snow and make print. When I coaxed her to come and hurry on home from school she would say, 3Just one more.

She was quick to learn in school. She was in the first High School to graduate in the Oneida Stake Academy. In the graduation exercises, she gave a paper entitled Jack’. It was a story of Mother’s step-brother who served in the Civil War. Others of that class were, Joseph Geddes Jr., Irma Wilcox (Hobbs), Celia Hansen (Winward), and Laura Hansen (Merril). They were considered really educated, and made good use of their lives, rearing good families.

Gertrude had a touch of the artistic. She lived to make paper flowers and to arrange real flowers into beautiful bouquets. She blended colors well.

Mother once paid our neighbor a duck to teach Gertrude how to make paper flowers, but she didn’t learn much that women. Our cousin Ea Hale noticed her gift and coaxed mother to let Gertrude go to the Gentile Valley with her and when she came home she had learned a great deal about flower making. I was fascinated to see her take the tissue paper and form it into such beautiful flowers. I wished so much I could do it too, but never could.

She had large blue eyes and a pretty mouth. She resembled our mother in features so naturally that she was the favorite of Uncle Ted Thurman, Mother’s only brother. I remember once, he didn’t even speak to us other little girls, but took Gertrude into his arms saying, ‘Little Mary’. I felt awful hurt at that time because he didn’t like me too. It’s strange how youngsters can be hurt because they don’t understand.

Bishop Edwin Bodily, depended upon Gertrude a great deal. I wondered sometimes that the young people of the ward weren’t Jealous of Gertrude and Delos, (Gertrude’s brother), the way the Bishop of the ward praised them. Maybe——they were jealous.

Gertrude liked to read and study. She would have gone to school and have made a good school teacher, but when Mother died rather young, leaving Father with the four of us not married, Gertrude considered it was her place to stay home and take care of Father, as she was the oldest girl at home. She took this responsibility very seriously. She settled down as a woman instead of young girl having dates.

I thought that sometimes she would never marry as long as Father lived. She fooled us though. A man named Daniel P. Thomas wrote a note telling her that he would be calling. She was not dressed when one of her brothers came in with the letter. He laughed and tossed it to her. It went over the bed and fell behind. She nearly stood on her head to retrieve it. The contents surprised her but she didn’t have time to send a refusal. When he ca Sunday evening, his sister, Nellie and husband, Joseph Johnson and their small son Spencer were with him. They went to Logan for supper. The child spilled his water and made a big mess. Well, somehow Gertrude didn’t seem to mind what had happened, and she kept on going with that man who was twenty—one years her senior. Dan had three sons and three daughters, then Gertrude added Keith and Jean.

Their marriage was solemnized in the Logan Temple December 13, 1916. When I married the June before, Gertrude said, ‘Well, I’d wait awhile if I were you. I wouldn’t be married in a leap year’. Of course, I had to teas. her and tell her she should wait a few weeks. She said, ‘I don’t care I want to be married on Mother and Father’s wedding Day’.

Gertrude was religious and willing, as soon as she was old enough she was put in the ward choir, and had a very sweet soprano voice. She taught religion class in the little old north-end school house in Fairview. She wasn’t very old when she was sustained as a Sunday School teacher in the kindergarten class. I’m not sure, but I think that she was of the first teachers in that class when the Church organized the kindergarten in the Sunday School. She taught there for several years then was taken to teach in class of older children where they were having discipline problems. She soon won the children’s confidence and love, and with help of Albert Egbert soon bettered the conditions in the class. She worked in the Sunday School and as president of the Mutual Improvement Association in Fairview. and as president of the Relief Society and Sunday School teacher in Treasureton. She also held offices in the Stake Mutual improvement association being Secretary and second Counselor. She worked in the Stake with, Luella Cowley, Nary Nelson and Nellie Thomas Johnson.

At one time she and a women named, Elsie Merrill, were sent to the Preston Third Ward. A man by the name of George Carver was Bishop. He got up and maid, ‘We have Mutual Improvement Stake Officers, I hope they say what they have to say and sit down’. Those poor women, they could barely deliver the special message they had, and then soon sat down.

Gertrude lived in Preston when they were first married. They had a farm in Treasureton with a small house on it. They would live in that house part of the summer then go back to Preston for the winter. The house burned down, so they built a comfortable little house up on the ranch and disposed of their Preston home.

They lived on the ranch for a number of years and left their Treasureton home and bought a home in Preston locating in the Sixth Ward in southwest of the city. Gertrude was active as chorister in the Relief Society and lived in that ward the short time they were there. She enjoyed music. She never became an excellent player, but she chorded on the organ with father and the boys when they played for dances. She had a real sweet soprano voice and usually sang soprano, though she could sing alto equally well. She sang a great deal in parties.

She was a very good dancer, too. Boys enjoyed her as a partner. One little joke on her made us laugh. Frank Bodily was playing the organ and her brother Delos was playing the banjo. Frank said, ‘Do you think Gertrude would play while I danced with Effie?’ Delos said, ‘Sure.’ Frank went down to her and said, ‘Will you play for this dance?’ She thought that he said, ‘Will you dance this dance?’

When he saw that she misunderstood him, he danced with her, while father played without the organ. Old Delos had to spill the beans, and it made Gertrude very unhappy to know that she had danced a dance she hadn’t been asked to dance.

Gertrude liked horses. She rode a horse a distance of three miles to school part of the time. She was a good cook and homemaker, a devoted wife, mother and a good neighbor. The spring before she died she said, ‘I’ll be fifty on the fourth of July. Why don’t you have a surprise party for me?’ So we did. She asked me to come down from Treasureton to see the parade then go on down to her place for dinner and I consented. I had already told the family what she had said about the surprise and all agreed to come. Gertrude>and I were out picking peas when other family members began to come. When she saw Irene’s folks, she said, ‘We’ll have to pick a few more.’ When others began to come, she gave me a queer look then began to cry. We stopped picking peas.

We were all there and she really was happy about it. She seemed to sense that was the farewell. She dreaded her operation and told Eleanor Ransom that she would not make it through,- and asked her to look after her children. She was operated on for a tumor. Her heart couldn’t take it. She died at the Preston Memorial Hospital, November 6, 1934. Her life was rather short but filled with love and service. She left a multitude of friends, and a strong testimony of the gospel to those who knew her.