Matilda (T) Warby

  General Notes:

Calvin Warby notes:
A SKETCH OF MATILDA WARBY NELSON Written by a Daughter, Tillie Bascom February 10, 1867, my mother, Matilda, came to gladden the home of James and Mary Blanch Warby. She was born in Beaver, Utah, and grew up there, and had brothers and sisters, and had a twin sister. She did not have a chance to go to school much, she got in the fourth grade. They all had to work hard. She worked in the field and house, helped her mother wash on the board for the family. Matilda I married young, to Daniel Nelson, his first wife was my oldest sister. I helped them while she was alive. When she died she left five children. I tried to be a mother to them. I helped my husband work in the shingle mill. He sawed shingles. I bunched and carried them. Our first three children died in infancy. We lived in Beaver until our third child was born, then we moved to Manila. There we lived in a dugout the first winter, and part of the summer. We helped settle that place. There I brought seven more children into the world, I had thirteen, I still worked, and helped my husband all I could. We bought a ranch, half way between Manila and Linwood, and we lived there. Then our health failed us. We left the older boys on ranch, and bought a place in Manila and lived there until August 24, 1922, then moved to Vernal, Utah.
I took in washings, and ironings, and was a midwife. I would go away from home and help out in sickness any time I was asked. I went up to Fosdick ranch and stayed fifteen days with a woman, helped her have her baby, never got much money for it. I did lots of work for nothing. I have sat up with the dead and helped lay them away. Our home was where anyone could come in and stay all night or longer. We had two outlaws eat and sleep in our home. Also good people. The visiting brothers and sisters that came from Lyman, Wyoming for conference have stayed with us, I used to board the school teachers the last few years we lived in Manila. The young people came with Tillie and enjoyed Sunday dinner. They would enjoy themselves singing and playing the organ. I used to cook midnight suppers for the dances. Those days we danced all night. We have had good house parties in our house. I have knitted for the Red Cross, and knitted for my own family and for others. I have made lots of quilts for people and washed and corded wool for them. My husband didn't care about dances, and I did, so I'd tell him I'd go with the girls so they could have a good time. That was all the recreation there was in Manila. Sometimes It was tired and half sick, yet I would go rather than make the girls stay home. I was a Relief Society teacher, both in Manila and Vernal. When Tillie was born, I was near unto death, my husband was in Arizona. My sister-in-law came and helped me deliver. Tillie lay three days, black as a negro. The first or second night, I can't remember which, I had a high fever. I asked my son,. George, to bring me a five pound bucket of water, and a little box of quinine pills I had, and to put them on a chair by my bed. He could see I was awfully sick. He asked if he could sit by by my bed, and I said, "No, I'll be all right in the morning, you go to bed." I took those pills and drank all that water that night. By morning my fever had broken, and I got well. I never lost one mother in a maternity case. I took an old bachelor in that had broken his leg. His parents were dead, he drank and smoked, and no one would take care of him. I took care of him and kept him until he could go back to the sheep camp, and never got any money for it, When we went to the temple to be sealed, we had seven or eight children, I can't remember which. We went with a team and covered wagon. It took two days to go to Lyman, Wyoming. It took eight and one-half days to go to Salt Lake. On our way up a dugway, as I remember, it was near Coalville, our front wheel broke and came off. It threw me and the baby on to the ground. Pa went to the foot of the dugway and got help from a man there. He let us have a wheel. On our way back, just before we got to Lyman, Elsie fell out of the wagon, and got run over, but the Lord saved her life. As I remember, it took two weeks to make the trip Our closest doctor, in those days, was fifty miles. We had to remember how our parents doctored, so we could do our children. Harvey had typhoid fever. I took care of him and he got OK. All of my family came down with the mumps in a week's time. I had a young baby, but I fed the pigs, and chopped the wood, cooked the meals, packed my water from the ditch and nursed them all to health again. An old Indian squaw lived about a mile and a half from me, and one day she came up to the house and saw that the baby was sick. She walked back to her teepee and soon came back, walked up to the baby and tied a buckskin string around its neck, with a rattle from a rattle snake which was sewed in it. My baby got better so I used it for all my other children after that they were cutting teeth. She helped me take care of my children. She was a good old squaw. When the first world war broke out, the boys were leaving for the army, one boy asked me to serve supper for his dance. He said he'd pay for it. He came after and gave me a check. When I went to pay the store for the food, the check was no good, so I had to stand the expenses. I was only getting a little money for boarding the school teachers, so it was hard for me. (Mother died December 27, 1932, at her home in Vernal, Utah, of heart trouble). Tillie I used to gather some herbs, and make a mild drink. It was very good and healthful, too. One of our friends lived on the creek said that he would give five dollars for the first watermelon that was raised in the valley. I raised it so I got the money for that. The shingles that were made in the Beaver Mountains were cut with a large knife, that went up and down, and was run by a water wheel, and the logs that the shingles were made from were carted in by oxen. Harvey

  Noted events in her life were:

• source. Kirrily Cant (nee Stock) & Kay Adams

Matilda married Daniel Morgan Nelson, son of Edward Banks Nelson and Agnes Ann Morgan, on 30 Sep 1887 in Beaver City, Beaver, Utah USA. (Daniel Morgan Nelson was born on 12 Jan 1854 in St Louis, Missouri USA, died on 18 Jun 1932 in Maeser, Utah USA and was buried on 20 Jun 1932 in Maeser Fairview Cemetery, Utah USA.)