Autobiogaphy of Orin Austin Seager

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ORIN AUSTIN SEAGER

I was born September 14, 1872 in the little village of Tyrrel Hill, Trumbull County, Ohio, to Mary Emeline Tyrrell Seager. My father, Orin Barber Seager had died April 23, 1872 at the age of 29 of inflammatory rheumatism, five months before my birth.

My father and mother had been married about five years and had no children, my mother being rather frail and delicate. Some Morman Elders called at their home and gave mother a blessing, and promised her that she should have a child, and I was born in due time in fulfillment ot that promise.

My grandmother, Lucretia Webster Tyrrel and her two daughters, Aunt Sylvia Adeline, and mother joined the church, but grandfather Asahel Tyrrell, and the two sons, Asahel Hazard and Austin never accepted the gospel.

Aunt Sylvia married Simpson Misener, and they came to Utah about 1869 and located first in Provo, then in American Fork. Grandmother Tyrrell made a trip out to Utah to visit them, and the day before she had planned to return home became ill, and died in American Fork. Grandfather Tyrrell, apparently suspicious of the Mormons, felt that they were responsible for her death. So Aunt Sylvia, and Uncle Simpson and the children in order to allay his fears and corredt the wrong impression, returned to Ohio. While there their son Aaron was bor. They returned to American Fork in the fall of 1872 or spring of 73, bringing mother and me with them.

After her arrival in American fork mother met and married Warren Barnes Smith in 1873 as second wife. Of this marriage six children were born, four girls and two boys. Telitha, Asahel, Artencia, Stella, May and Junius. Telitha married Stanley Dallin, Artencia married William Rose, Asahel married Ella Thryring, Stella married Erin Tolman, May married George Toone, and Junius married Effie Davis. I grew up in American Fork, feeling the need of a father’s interest and affection, as my step father was lacking in both toward me. But a good mother planted in my heart a love for the gospel and respect for the priesthood. A small inheritance from my father enabled me to attend the Brigham Young Academy for three years, a great blessing and spiritual strength. At about the age of seventeen I entered the Brigham Young Academy at Provo, when it was housed in an old warehouse near the railroad depot. One summer I secured employment with a section crew working between Schofield, Carbon County, and a small place called P.V. Junction. One Day while helping to pump the car, I was thrown off and one of my legs was badly injured, so that a train had to be flagged, and I was removed to my home in American Fork. I was disabled most of the summer, and returned to the B.Y.A. that fall on crutches. I secured lodging with the family of the station agent, so did not have far to go to school. That year the Academy was moved to its new home on North University Avenue.

 While attending school at Provo, mother and a young woman friend came over to visit me one day. They drove a horse and cart and on their return home, on the outskirts of American Fork, a dog ran out and frightened the horse, and mother was thrown from the cart, catching on something so that she was dragged some distance. Her young companion was dazed for a time , but soon regained consciousness and ran to a neighbors home to seek assistance. Mother was taken home and a doctor summoned. She suffered the loss of one ear, and had part of her scalp torn loose. An old midwife came with the doctor to care for her, and it was the midwife, under the doctors supervision, who sewed the scalp back on, and made the other necessary repairs. The next day Aunt Sylvia came and treated her injuries with number 6, a homemade preparation of their own. I think it might not be amiss to tell of a strange premonition concerning this accident which I received that same night. I dreamed that mother had had an accident, and could plainly see the cart wrecked and the pieces strewn along the road. In my dream I labored frantically to gather the wreckage and assemble it again. So I was some what prepared for the telephone message which came to me the next morning at school, calling me home to mother’s bedside.

In the fall of 1892 I went to Logan to attend the Agricultural College and boarded at the home of a family named Crockett. It was at a party given by some of the young ladies who stayed at this place that I met the charming young lady Mary Robinson. Her sister Vilate was there also, and my room mate Ralph Merrill, accompanied he Vilate, home that night. The following Sunday he and I were invited to have dinner at their home, and from then on for the remainder of the school year it was our regular practice to spend Sunday with the Robinson girls at their home.

That spring, I accompanied Mary and her father and Mother to Salt lake to attend the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple. The following summer, Mary and Vilate came down to American Fork to be present at the wedding of my sister Telitha. The next fall I returned to the B.Y.A. to persue a Sunday School course.

On December 27, 1893, Mary Robinson and I were married in the Logan Temple. We set up housekeeping in the old store building owned by her father. The next spring we began building a home of our own down on the “Island”. I had received about $2,000 from my father’s estate, and it was this money which enabled us to build our home. I worked at odd jobs, at one time being employed by a nursery for seventy five cents a day, and paid in script. At another time i worked for my wife’s Uncle George Pitkin at Millville, cutting willows on his farm and received for a weeks work a little pig. I also secured some employment at one of the stores in Logan. But we became discouraged by this kind of hit and miss existence, and began to feel the urge to acquire some property, and having heard from some friends of the opportunities awaiting in Arizona, I decided to go down and investigate the possibilities. So in April 1897, I secured a half-rate train fare ticket through the church agent, and went to Thatcher, Arizona, where I worked with a man who operated a small sawmill in the mountains nearby. He owned an ox-team, and we each used an ox in getting the timber out and as each load was sawed we would haul it to town for sale. I was unimpressed with the country, and did not like the hot dry climate, so after three months, and having earned enough to buy a ticket home returned to my family, who had remained in Logan with her mother. The spring I reached Arizona there had been a flood at Thatcher which had washed out the canals and flooded the farms, which did add to the attractiveness of the place. Also, all the land which could be serviced by the existing irrigation system had been taken up.

Soon after my return home I received a communication from my brother-in-law Will Woolsy, who was working in the mines at Mercur, Utah, advising me that he believed he could secure employment for me there if I would come down. So again left my family and went to Mercur. After spending three or four days looking about for something to do, I was given a job hauling sand from the town into the canyon. I had been at this work only a day or two when, as I was passing through town with the empty wagon, a dog frightened the horses, causing them to run away. As they jumped a ditch I was thrown high into the air injuring my hip in the fall. A boy who had jumped on the wagon for a ride as I passed along the main street, was taken to his home in an unconscious condition. The horses continued to run down the canyon and threw the wagon against the corner of a house before they finally freed themselves of their burden and ran into the hills.

As it happened, the boy was the son of one of the men who hired me, and when he learned of the accident, I was “given my time,” and again returned to Logan.

About this time we began to hear glowing reports from Canada. We were told of the splendid opportunity this country held for young people who would go there and help build up the commonwealth. So, we borrowed sufficient funds from a friend of Mary’s family to purchase tickets, and in September 1897 my wife and our two little girls, Larue age three and Irene, a baby in arms, left Logan and entrained for that great Empire in the north, where we hoped to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We traveled by rail to Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, then boarded a huge freight wagon which carried us to Cardston, a distance of fifty miles. As Mary and I perched ourselves on the big spring seats atop the load of freight, each with a little girl in our arms, we looked out over the vast expanse of prairie and wondered what fortunes were locked in it’s bosom for us, so far from home and the familiar scenes so dear to our hearts.

We had been in Cardston only a few days when Brother C. O. Card was instrumental in securing employment at the church farm for both me and my wife. And the winter after our arrival in Canada I spent time freighting supplies to workers who were building a railroad from Mc Cloud through Crowsnest Pass. Then after my wife’s sister and her husband Will Woolsey, came to Canada, I worked with him as a carpenter. We homesteaded a quarter section of land fifteen miles south-east and across from the river Cardston. After building a log house on the property, we lived there one winter and then for several years would live in town in the winter and move out to ranch each summer. Two sons were born to us while we were in Cardston, Orin Burtis, born March 22, 1900, and who died three weeks later and William Kennedy, born September 26, 1901.

We remained in Canada seven Years, and while there assisted in the erection of a meeting house at Kimball, and a school at Cardston. Also some government buildings, one of which used an intricate patterned ceiling. We held various church positions and sang in the choir. When we went to Cardston there was not a frame house in the town, all of the buildings being done with logs.

We left Canada in July, 1904 and went to Le Grand, Oregom, where I followed the carpenter trade for several weeks, but the desire to return to Utah overcame us, and in September of that year, we reached Logan. We spent the following winter there, and in early spring, I began making trips over to Bear River Valley to look for a farm. We decided on one at North Garland, but had some difficulty getting a title, so I was compelled to seek elsewhere. I had been coming into the valley on the train and getting off at Collinston, but after being disappointed in getting the farm at Garland I decided to go as far south as Deweyville and go west from there. One trip I passed the Keele place and asked them if they knew of any property for sale in that neighborhood and was told that the farm adjoining the school house might be bought. As I passed this place a feeling of deep peace took hold of me, as it did each time I came near, so that I felt that here at last was the home I had been seeking. I contacted the man who had charge of the property, made the proper negotiations, and a deal was consumated. Then I came over and built a small house on the southeast corner of the farm, and when it was ready, went back to Logan to get the family. We loaded our belongings on a wagon, and set out, Taking two days to make the 25 miles.

The farm was all except ten acres, in sage brush, which we immediately set about clearing, and that summer had it all in crops, and planted an orchard. I had been starved for fruit while we were in Canada that we planted a good sized patch of melons, and when they ripened, I put them in the cellar under the house to cool, and as the well water was very poor, would eat melons instead of drinking water. But too much of any good thing is bad, and I became violently ill, and lost my appetite for melons for a time.

We used our $2,ooo, so the sale of our little home in Logan was the down payment on the farm. Because we had not money for operating expenses, Brother Waldren who operated a general merchandise establishment in Tremonton, extended us credit until we harvested our crops that fall. This he did a year or two until we could build up a little reserve.

Maudell was born December 22, 1906, and Tyrrell r. was born January 30,1909. Then came Mildred, November 20, 1910. When the baby was six weeks old, I accepted a call the North Western States Mission, and on January 8, 1911, I bade my family goodby and boarded the train at Deweyville. I returned home in December, 1912. Carroll Austin was born February 6, 1914.

Before leaving for my mission I had acted as a ward teacher, Sunday School teacher, 1^st councilor of the Y.M.M.I.A. of the North Elwood Ward, had labored as 1^st Councilor to J. H. Forsgren in Stake Religion class, had charge of baptisms and the amusements in the Elwood Ward.

On my return, when the Tremonton ward was organized I was chosen to act as 1^st Councilor to Bishop Keller, the other councilor being K. H. Fridal Jr. When K. H. Fridal Jr. was clhosen Bishop, I acted as his 1^st Councilor also. Altogether I served 12 years in the Bishopric of the Tremonton Ward, after which I went into the High Council of the

Bear River Stake.

When the new ward chapel was erected I donated $500 to the cause, and assisted in it” erection. Having charge of the concrete work.

In December of 1940 I was chosen to head the Stake Genealogy  Committee.

Our daughter Irene, who had married Howard Andeason, was instantly killed in an automobile accident near Brigham City July 3, 1929. She left eight children, the oldest, De Loy, being 10½ years old, the youngest Marion, five months. One other child had died. We took two of these motherless children, Con who was four and Joyce just past tow at that time, and since, three others, Nelda, Madalyn, and Marion came to make their home with us. The other three, De Loy, Lila and Dennis, have all at some time been with us.

In August, 1938, my wife and I and my cousin, Isadore Seager Partch, took a trip by auto to New York to visit our son Austin and his family. We visited places of church interest on the way out and on the day of my 66^th birthday I visited my birthplace, and stood in the rain at the grave of my father. I met a man, Mr. Card, who had known my father and mother and her family, and gained much interesting information concerning them. Also apt Purport, Ohio, I was taken by a cousin to visit an elderly woman, Ella Germond, whose mother-in-law had been my grandfather Seager’s sister. She had in her possession of an old chest which the Seager family had brought from Connecticut meny years before. She gave me a hymn book which had been great grandfather Seagers, and a number of pictures of the family. We also met several distant cousins, the first relatives I had ever seen.

After most of Irene’s children had grown up, but while the younger five were still with us, another great tragedy struck. Mary had been to Salt Lake City to attend the funeral of a step brother, and on her return home, the car in which she was a passenger collided head-on with another vehicle near Lagoon. Mary suffered two fractures, a broken arm, ribs and possibly a skull fracture. She was taken to the

Dee Hospital in Ogden, and while little hope was entertained for her recovery Tyrrell came from Mountain City, Nevada, and he and Dr. Paul S. Richards set the broken bones. After several agonizing weeks in the hospital she was able to return home, where she lay for a great while in a cast, and finally was enabled to enjoy the dubious comfort of a wheel chair, which had been let for the past 11 years.     (Need the death date of Grandma)

After much urging, I finally succumbed to the idea that I had done my share of hard labor, and we leased the farm and came to Salt Lake City, in November, 1944. We lived first in a rented apartment and then bought the little home on Sixth Avenue and K Street where we now reside.

(Need to finish this thought for him).

As a member of the North 21^st Ward of the Emigration Stake I have filled positions of Ward Teacher and Secretary of the High Priests Quorum. I have also devoted a great deal of time to Genealogical research and some Temple work.. Before we left the farm, mother and I celebrated our 50^th wedding anniversary December 27, 1943, surrounded by our family and well wishing friends.

Today, September 14, 1952 our family has grown to include 6 living children, 26 living grandchildren and 20 great grandchildren.

POSTSCRIPT -                                    Mary Seager Dies at 87

An early pioneer of Tremonton, and active church leader, Mrs Mary Robinson Seager, 87, died at her home in Salt Lake City, Thursday, March 1, 1962 of cancer. Funeral Services were held Monday afternoon in the North 21^st Ward in Salt Lake City, Burial was in the Honeyville Cemetery.

Mrs. Seager was born April 27, 1874 in Logan, Utah, a daughter of Harriet Violet Pitkin and William Kennedy Robinson. She married Orin A. Seager December 27, 1893 in the Logan Temple.

They spent seven years in Canada homesteading land, then returned to Utah in 1905, and purchased a farm in East Tremonton.