On a cold February 29, 1888 Peter Devlyn and his wife Jessie Gillespie had a two month premature baby girl. This being in the days before incubators, she was wrapped in cotton, placed in a basket, and set on the oven door for warmth. They named her Daisy Johnstone Devlyn and this is her story.
Peter Devlyn married the widow Jessie Gillespie Warnock. She had two daughters, Jean and Jessie, by her first husband James Warnock. They were ten and twelve years old when Daisy was born. They lived in an apartment house as did many other residents of Glasgow, Scotland. Peter at one time had studied to be a doctor, but had changed his vocation and became a draftsman. His hobby was photography.
When Daisy was a child she loved to play store among other childhood games. One day as she was playing, she cut the tip of her index finger nearly off. It hung by a thread. Her dad got to practice his doctoring. He set the two pieces together with a small piece of chewing tobacco, and bound it up. It healed beautifully. Daisy always said she could still feel the tobacco in her finger.
She loved music and as a child another favorite game was to get her friends to sit in the window sills while she led the singing.
She attended school in Glasgow and was studying French in the fifth grade. She had the usual childhood diseases, but a severe case of the measles left one eye weak and one ear damaged, leaving her hard of hearing in that ear.
She must have been a little mischievous as well because one day as her mother was taking the newest litter of kittens to be gotten rid of, Daisy could be found hanging out of the window yelling, “Murder! Murrrrderr!”
All was not fun and games for Daisy. Her father died when she was seven. Her sister Jean married Charles Glass when Daisy was fourteen. Daisy started work at age fourteen in a tailors shop. From the tailor shop she went to work in one of the large stores known as the Co-op. She worked there for many years. When Daisy was sixteen, her sister Jessie married Alexander McPhee.
Her natural love of music found her taking piano lessons at age eighteen. From there she progressed to the organ and took lessons from Alec Mitchell. She also had a pleasant singing voice and often went with John Muir, the church organist to sing at other churches. She also sang duets with John McFarland at the open air meetings of the mission.
A typical Presbyterian Sunday for Daisy went something like the following: 10 am before Sunday School the Christian Endeavor Society met. They formed a circle and on their knees gave quotations from the Bible. An example is “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy paths.” At 11 am regular church services began. Then they went home for lunch so they could be back at 2 pm for another service. After this they went to visit the sick in the hospitals. This was called the sunshine committee of which Daisy was president. Then there was Sunday School and open air meetings for the mission. She often sang in duets for these meetings. This was a typical Sunday.
On Saturday night was the Temperance Meeting. The first one she ever attended was to sing in a trio with Mary Gibson and Alec Morrison. An incident after a meeting was to become one of those embarrassing moments in life. After the meeting was over, Alec wanted her to meet someone and as she came down the dimly lit hall with her hand extended in greeting,she disappeared through the floor. Someone had left a trap door open and in the dimness of the hall she had not seen the gap in the floor. Aside from being mortified, all she could think of was her beautiful new umbrella that was now a tangled mess.
She loved flowers and the purple heather of her native land ws a favorite. She also loved roses. She always said, “Let me have my flowers while I’m still alive so I can enjoy them.
As Scottish winters were piercingly cold, women knitted their petticoats from wool. Not only could Daisy knit, but she could also crochet and embroider as well.
During World War I she became engaged to a young man named John Murray. He came from a rather well to do family. One of the gifts he gave her was a beautiful hand carved, hollow core, gold plated bracelet with their names and the date engraved on it. He joined the armed service inAugust and was shortly shipped out to France. He was shot and killed in October.
During this war Daisy worked as a Gray Lady and visited the wounded in hospitals and helped to arrange concerts for their entertainment.
As the predominant religion in Scotland, the family belonged to the Presbyterian Church. Daisy was a young lady with a lot of questions, questions her own church could not answer. She started visiting other churches and was invited to attend a social gathering of the Mormon church one evening. This started her interest in Mormonism. Her mother did not like the Mormons and was very much against her interest. About this time her sister Jean also became interested in the Mormon Church.
William A. Budge of Ogen, Utah was a Mormon Elder at this time on a mission in Scotland. He had originally been called to serve a 5 year mission to Turkey, but because of the unrest there, he had been transferred to Scotland. He served in Scotland for 3 ½ years. He was to baptize Jean and Charles Glass and would answer innumerable questions for Daisy. When they met again years later he called her the little lady with all the questions.
For the next five years Daisy did not lose her interest in Mormonism, but she did not want to antagonize her mother, whom she was caring for. She also wanted to be sure. She cared for her mother as she had promised to do through her last illness of cancer. She died after struggling for eighteen months with the disease. Her death occurred March 21, 1915. Daisy was now free to choose her religion.
One night on her , as she prayed for guidance and an answer to the question, “Is this the right religion?” Following is the answer she received: She had been praying and pleading with her Father in Heaven to lead, guide and her her to know and understand which was the true church, to give me a message so that I might know which one is true. Then she took her Bible, Opened it and looked. It was Revelation 14:6, “And I saw another angel vly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation and kindred, and tongue, and people.” She thought about this and opening the Bible again she found in the Acts of the Apostles 2:38-39, “Then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Gost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” This was the message for her. It was late and the house was quiet so she went to bed. She couldn’t sleep thinking about the everlasting, repenting and being baptized.
The room was in darkness and there appeared in one corner a little light as dim as a candle and gradually became brighter until the whole room was illuminated in the center of the room was a swimming pool. There were people around it. Two men, one taller than the other, were dressed white. She also was dressed in white. The taller man took her down the steps and immersed her into the water, baptizing her by name. As she came up out of the water there was a burning fire from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. She sat on a chair and the two men placed their hands upon her head. The shortest of the two men confirmed her as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The man that had baptized her shook her hand and said, “You are now a full fledged member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
Although at this time she had not met either of these two men, they did indeed baptize her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They were President George Simpkins and Elder Cannon. They baptized her on the 10th of May, 1916.
Four months later she was called as a missionary for her new church. There was a shortage of missionaries at this time and President George F. Richards called for girls to serve. Daisy served from September 1916 to 1921. Shen then asked for her release as she was emigrating to America. George Albert Smith was then the president of the Scottish Mission. He wrote her a letter of release and told her, “Once a missionary, always a missionary.” She lived that statement to the fullest.
Upon the death of her mother, apparently the dividing up of her possessions caused a great many feelings among the sisters. Daisy did not receive anything. She always threatened her own daughters that if they fought over the things she left upon her death that she would come back and haunt them.
One of the things she did before sailing to America was to search out relatives of her father and glean as much genealogy from them and information about her father as she could. She left this information with her organ music with her sister Jean until she was settled in America. When she sent for it they could not find it. For the entire length of her life she was never able to replace this information about her own father.
She sailed from Liverpool, England April 22, 1921 on the passenger ship Metagama. They docked in Montreal, Canada. The Metagama’s tonnage was 12,600 tons. J. Billies C.B.E. was commander and there were 546 passengers on board.
Her passport describes her at this time as: Profession, shop assistant, age 32; place of birth, Glasgow, Scotland 29 February 1888; height 4 feet 10 inches; forehead high; eyes blue; nose ordinary; mouth; natural; chin round; color of hair black; complexion light; face round; national status; British born subject. She also wore glasses with round metal frames.
Before she came to America her hair had been long enough to sit on. She had it bobbed and saved the hair that was cut off. It was one of the things to be found in her trunk years later, along with a beaded bag and one of her hand knit petticoats.
From Montreal, a train journey brought her to Salt Lake City on May 6, 1921. Her first home was the BeeHive House. It was a former home of Brigham Young. In 1916 it became a boarding house for young women. Sister McFarland was the house mother and was on the steps to greet Daisy upon her arrival. She shared a room on the second floor with another young lady from Scotland named Katherine.
The BeeHive House was often honored by visits from church authorities. Daisy was to meet newly appointed apostle David O. McKay and his wife, Emma. At Christmas time President Heber J. Grant gave each of the young ladies an autographed copy of his favorite poems. Jessie Evans (later President Joseph Fielding Smith’s wife) was at her prime and could be heard singing with the Tabernacle Choir. Daisy and Katherine often visited the tabernacle to hear them sing.
Things were wonderful and the church was dear to her. Daisy was now a member of the 18th Ward in the Ensign Stake. She was called to fill a stake mission.
She attended LDS Business College and took typing and shorthand. Her first job was as a cashier in Keeleys Cafe. Later she worked in ZCMI in the grocery department.
When she got her job at Keeleys, she and Katharine moved from the BeeHive House to an apartment at 44 Hillside Ave in the home of John and Elizabeth Cairns. It was a block below the state capitol building and three locks from Temple Square. The Cairns had originally come from England and it was the Cairns that introduced Daisy Devlyn to David Griffiths Davis and Katherine to Roy Hainline. Dave and Daisy met in January 1924 and were married June 25, 1924. Daisy was 36 and Dave was 41. It was the first marriage for each. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple by Joseph Fielding Smith. Before their marriage they both received patriarchal blessings by Patriarch Hyrum Smith. Roy and Katherine were married in the same year. The two couples were life long friends although Dave and Daisy lived in Idaho most of their married life and Roy and Katherine lived in Grand Island, Nebraska.
The Cairns were good friends to the two young couples. John Cairns had a farm in Arbon, Idaho and this is where he became acquainted with Dave. Other friends on Hillside Ave were the McCulloughs and the Vances,
Dave and Daisy’s first home was a farm in Arbon, Idaho. They lived here for six years. The winters were extremely harsh, their mode of travel was mostly horse and wagon or sleigh. They awoke one winter morning to find themselves literally snowed into the house. The snow had drifted right up over the door. They had to tunnel a way out.
Though the winners could be harsh, spring could be beautiful with the meadow down by Joe and Elizabeth Arbons was full of wild iris and bachelor buttons. Other neighbors were May and Eddie Davis.
Dave and Daisy’s house was a small two room frame house. It had a large poplar tree and a lilac bush in the front. One room was a bedroom and the other a combination of a front room and kitchen. On the south wall was a brown wooden ox with a crank telephone in it. Daisy said the first time she saw the front room she teased Dave about it looking like a school room because all the chairs were lined up in a row.
To the north of the house was a small cemetery. Some of the headstones were shaped like little lambs. Their front yard gently sloped down to a gully or wash and then became hilly. It was on the hills that Dave worked and grew his grain. Whenever Dave was working in the fields and Daisy needed him, she would stand on the front porch and wave a dish towel or send their dog Mattie after him. They had another dog named Jiggs and a big red rooster that scratched in the front yard.
They also had animals that weren’t theirs. The skunks moved in under the house for a week before they could be persuaded to leave.
Daisy had a miscarriage and lost their first baby. Her first daughter Lorene was born January 24, 1926 in Malad, Oneida County, Idaho. The trip from Arbon to Malad was made in a sleigh a couple weeks before the baby was due. They stayed with Dave’s brother Owen until the baby was born.
Daisy was active in church again as Primary President. At this time she also sponsored her nephew Jim Glass and brought him to America from Scotland. He came to Arbon to visit them. Next she and Jim brought her sister Jean out from Scotland and they settled in Pocatello, Idaho. Jean married Max McWhorter. The next nephew to come was William, Bill.
During this period in their lives, Dave was quite well to do. But then the depression hit. Dave had just bought a new wheat combine when disaster struck and it was destroyed by fire. The fire destroyed not only the combine but the crops also. As did many others, he lost on the Liberty bonds he had purchased and the money in the bank. It was a long time before this loss was recovered.
Daisy made one attempt to learn to drive a car. She was doing great until she ran into the gate. That was the end of her driving days.
From Arbon they moved to Pleasantview, Idaho and leased a farm. The front yard was one large raspberry patch with a path down the middle. There were also poplar trees by the irrigation ditch that ran in from of the house. There wer lilac bushes down the driveway. The house was white frame and had 2 bedrooms, a large kitchen, a large front room and a smaller parlor. They had a garden and cows for their milk. They had chickens and rabbits too.
It was while they were living in Pleasant view, Daisy had her second daughter. At the beginning of this pregnancy the doctor she attended in Malad told her she had a bladder infection and to take lysol douches to clear it up. She was not satisfied with the diagnosis and when she went to Salt Lake to visit Mrs. Cairns she called a doctor there. The baby was to be born in Malad but things were not going well. The baby was coming breech. The doctor was wringing his hands and said he didn’t know what to do. Daisy, in her no nonsense way, told him what to do. She said, “Get my husband to go for his brother Owen and another Elder. They will administer to me.” This was done and the baby turned and was born. It was a very wearing birth and the nurse who attended Daisy advised her to have no more babies. At this time she was a month short of her forty third birthday. Her baby daughter had been born the 18 January 1931, five days short of her sister Lorene’s birthday. This was the extent of Dave and Daisy’s family. When her brother in law Owen’s wife, Anna, died, she helped to take care of his family.
Quite often, a quilt was put up in the front room and relatives and neighbors would come to quilt. Margarite Davis and Mary Ipsen were good friends of Daisy’s. Most people enjoyed her company. She was a sympathetic listener and fun company. She was stern when the occasion demanded and human enough to get angry. She was also nervous and cried when she was happy or sad. She always cried when she bore her testimony.
Some of the ladies in Pleasantview and Samaria made cakes to take to the Washakie Indian Reservation for a special program where they were to furnish the cakes. Daisy made a large round cake and there had been quite a rush to get it ready in time. Washakie was about 15 miles from Pleasantview. While they were there, they met the newly appointed Bishop Timbimbu and his wife. It was a pleasant visit and greatly enjoyed. When Daisy got home and was putting away the things she had used to make the cake, she started to giggle. Soon the tears were running down her cheeks. She had put Watkins liniment instead of vanilla in the cake. She had bought both from the Watkins salesman and they were in similar bottles.
It was at Pleasantview that her daughters had the childhood diseases. They both had measles and chicken pox. Lorene had whooping cough and mumps. Della had pneumonia. Her husband, Dave had typhoid. So the family spent quite a bit of time in quarantine.
One day the dam that held the irrigation water broke and all the fish and water poured down the irrigation ditches. Everybody was out fishing with a bucket. One scoop and you had your supper. The ditch ran in front of the house and was full of fish that day. Most of them ended up in the lucerne fields. Fish was one of Daisy’s favorite foods. She loved all kinds of fish.
Growing their own chickens gave them plenty of eggs and chickens for eating. She made delicious chicken soup, or any kind of soup. She baked Scotch shortbread and at Christmas made carrot pudding and fruit cakes. When food was not so plentiful, quite often the family would have bread and milk for supper or a dish of fruit and scones (fried bread).
She quilted or sewed and her hand would go numb and she would have to shake the circulation back into it. She did her own canning. She was a compassionate lady that helped others in time of sickness or death. One of her great talents was to be a good listener. Over the years a great many people brought their troubles to her.
It was while they were still at Pleasantview that she took part in a church program and danced the Highland Fling. Over the years her daughters found that by teasing her or making her angry her Scottish accent became broader. They did it frequently on purpose.
Her daughter Lorene had gone with the neighbor’s children on their hay rack. Iris and Lorene were riding the horses. On the way home one of the dogs jumped and nipped the horse’s flank. Lorene fell off and broke her arm. She came home with her hand hanging straight down and the bones sticking out of her wrist. Daisy found Dave in the field and they all went into Malad to the doctor. Dave stayed with Lorene while the arm was set. Daisy and Della walked up and down while the clock was ticking while Daisy held Della’s hand. She flinched and squeezed that hand every time Lorene could be heard screaming.
Hard times were still with them and they lost their car. Although they did get it back later. Dave borrowed $400 from Daisy’s niece Jean and her husband Mac and bought an International truck. He could now haul cattle and sheep and earn a better living. They eventually paid the money back to Mac and Jean.
Daisy wanted to become a citizen of the United States and had studied toward this goal. She took out her citizenship papers in Pocatello, Idaho. Llewellyn (Bud) Williams went with her as did her husband and children. Bud was the husband of Daisy’s niece, Mary. They were great friends as well as relatives over the years.
Dave and Daisy moved to a house in Malad City and after a few months Bud and Mary and their children moved in next door. No one was making a living on small farms. Money was hard to come by and work was hard to come by. Work was hard to find. The depression had really hit the country hard. Dave and Bud finally got a job with the WPA, a government sponsored work project. Everyone was happy and saw them off to work. In all the excitement they forgot their shovels and had to come back for them.
One of the hardest things about not having money for extras was at Christmas time. Although presents may not have been large in number there was plenty of love in their home.
An extravagance Dave insisted on was when a photographer came to the door and he had Daisy get a picture of her mother enlarged and framed. It was done in color and became one of her prized possessions.
They decided to try ranching again when they heard of a sixty five acre dry land wheat farm fived miles north of Malad. It had a two room frame house with a full basement. It had a large enclosed (halfway) front porch and everyone came in the kitchen door. There was no electricity so Daisy loaned her Maytag washer to her sister Jean who had also emigrated from Scotland with her youngest son, John. She now did her wash on a scrubbing board with water heated on the old black Monarch range. Their nearest neighbors were the Morgan Toveys and Perry Jones.
Daisy had taken a Greyhound bus to Salt Lake City (they would stop at the end of our lane and let her off). She went every so often to visit Mrs. Cairns. While she was there walking home from town at North Temple and Main Street at Temple Square she was hit by a motorcycle that had no brakes. It knocked her over, broke her glasses and false teeth and gave her a great deal of pain the remainder of her life. She would pace around the house when she could no longer stand to sit. When asked how she was she would always say, “fine”. She couldn’t stand a complainer. This was when Mrs. Tovey would bring a jar of strawberry jam or something to tempt her appetite.
When Dave went hauling cattle or sheep Lorene milked the only cow they had. They all fed the animals and gathered the eggs. There was plenty of milk and eggs and Daisy often made tapioca and blamange pudding and ice cream in the old hand turned freezer. There was plenty of cream so they made their own butter. They had lots of chickens and sold eggs. There were two large raspberry patches, red currants, gooseberries, black currants, blue damson plums, pottawattamie plums and lots of wild chokecherries and elderberries. The whole family would get up at 5 am when the berries were ripe and pick them. These were sold for $1.25 a case to one of the stores in town along with the eggs.
This was basically a dry land farm and they grew turkey red wheat and had their own flour ground. There was usually a pig or a heifer to kill for meat. Daisy hated the days for butchering and stayed as far away as possible and kept her daughters away.
She was short of breath whenever she climbed hills. There was a small hill from the garden to the house. Lorene and Della would get behind her like a train and push her up the hill.
While living on the farm she rarely went to church. With Dave gone when the weather was good and being snowed in most of the time in the winter. Without the church to help, she instilled in her children a knowledge of the gospel, the order of prayer and the desire to marry in the temple. Kneeling family prayers was not a usual thing but rather a special one. She and Dave took turns giving these special prayers.
Many happy hours were spent visiting with her sister Jean in Pocatello or when they came to visit. Then her Scottish accent really came back.
She disliked thunder and lightning with a passion and perhaps held a fear of it.
In 1939 Dave came back from a trip and brought a battery radio and a gold fringed table cover as a surprise. Life begins at 40 with Helen Trent and Innersanctum with the squeaking became a part of her life. It also brought the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed on December 7, 1941 and America was officially in the Second World War. She sent food packages to her sister Jessie still in Scotland and feeling the brunt of the bombings of the British Isles by the Germans.
She was not mechanical minded. Dave once told her she couldn’t even flush the toilet correctly. Funny enough but it was true. When anyone else flushed it, it filled up and quit running. When Daisy flushed it, it never quite quit running. That was always the last thing she did before she went anywhere, was to make a trip to the bathroom. She always said “Just in case.”
She always licked her stamps then sat on her letter to make sure they stuck. Whenever she went visiting and knew the people well, she never knocked on the door but stuck her head in the door and called, “You who, anybody home?”.
Things were getting hard for them again. The farm was not paying. They lost it. They sold the horses and cows and all the chickens except 30. The day before they moved to Ogden, they canned the 30 chickens.
Apartment houses in Ogden were at a premium because of the Army Supply Depot that was in operation. Dave was working at Hill Field and they were staying with his brother Owen and his second wife, Florence, while they looked for an apartment. After searching from one end of town to the other, Daisy and Della stopped at a small grocery store on 21st Street for something cool to drink before walking back to owens. They happened to ask the clerk about a place to stay while they were there. A lady named Flora Belnap overheard and offered to rent them the top floor of her house at 2149 Madison. They moved in. Daisy got a job at the Ogden Arsenal. Lorene was working for Ace Barclay and living in their home for the summer. Della took over the wash, cleaning and preparing the evening meal. Things were looking up for them until Dave became sick and couldn’t work. Three doctors in Ogden could not diagnose his ailment so they went to a clinic in Salt Lake to see a Dr. Cannon. He took one look at Dave, popped him in the hospital, got him a couple of transfusions and removed a third of his stomach. He had a bleeding duodenal ulcer.
Needless to say the kind of money for this emergency was not available. Daisy put her pride in her pocket, went to see Bishop Edward T. Saunders, and asked for a loan of the money out of the fast offerings until she could pay it back. He granted her request and she paid it back.
We lived in the Fourth Ward. Lorene and Daisy were Sunday School teachers. Cora and Orville Stimpson were good neighbors and good friends as were Polly Cater and Margaret Corliss and lived on the corner. Elizabeth Tillotsen of the ward became a good friend also.
It was while we were living on Madison that her daughter, Lorene, met a sailor by the name of Abel Grant Weaver. She was 19 years old. When his leave was over, they corresponded and decided to get married. When Daisy heard this, she fired a letter like a missile to Seaman 1st Class A. Grant Weaver, wanting to know everything pertinent. His answer must have calmed her fears because she kept his letter for years. Lorene and Grant were married on April 10, 1945 in the Salt Lake City Temple by President Robert I. Burton. There was a reception at the home of the Tillotsons for them. They then left for Astoria, Oregon where Grant was stationed.
They presented Daisy with her first granddaughter, Lynne, born September 19, 1946. Lorene gave her a second granddaughter, Terry, born January 29, 1950 and her third granddaughter, Debra, born October 3, 1952.
Daisy had quit work at the Arsenal and started working hard on her genealogy research. She was able to get the temple work for her relatives on her mother’s side done for generations back. She got special permission to do the temple work for her fiance who had been killed. She even helped on the research of her husband’s family and was willing to help anyone with theirs that she could. But the one she researched for 50 years and could never find, was the genealogy of her father. That same information she had sought out and put in a notebook turned up missing when she sent for it.
They bought a home at 2754 Liberty Avenue and were living in the Fifth Ward. She was helping to teach a genealogy class. Her enthusiasm was great and she was asked to speak in other wards. She sang with the singing mothers in Relief Society. She enjoyed the many temple trips that were organized under the direction of Jacob Lambert. Their bus driver was Tommy Barker. They took trips to St. George, Mesa, Arizona, Idaho Falls and Cardston, but the one she enjoyed the most was to Palmyra, New York and the Sacred Grove. It was one of the highlights of her life.
While living in the Fifth Ward, her daughter, Della, met and married Gordon Rollo Orme, another young man who had been a sailor. They met in March and became engaged in May. Daisy wondered how they would manage on Gordon’s wages. She gave her consent when Della told her, “I’ve learned to manage by watching you.” Della, at eighteen and Gordon, twenty three, were married October 7, 1949 in the Salt Lake Temple by the same man who had married her sister; President Robert I. Burton.
They presented Daisy with her first grandson, William David, born January 21, 1951 on a beautiful Sunday morning. Her fourth granddaughter, Karen was born two years later, January 23, 1953. Her second grandson, Corey Douglas, was born on October 18, 1957 and her third grandson, Jason Ross was born on August 3, 1964.
Dave had given up smoking six months before Della was married and in a few more months he was able to get back his temple recommend and accompany Daisy on some of the temple trips. He was working for Ogden City schools, but quit shortly after Della’s marriage and went to work at Hill Field again.
For a few canning seasons Daisy worked at Pierce’s Cannery along with her neighbors Mime Peterson and Mrs. DeYoung. This was hard, long, seasonal work.
Lorene and Grant took them on vacations to Yellowstone National Park. They spent three winters in Mesa, Arizona, doing temple work. Some friend there took them across the border into Mexico.
She helped her daughters when each of her grandchildren were born. She willingly baby sat and entertained her grandchildren with stories. Her grandchildren loved her and could hardly wait to be as tall as Grandma Davis, who was now 4 feet 8 inches tall.
At 72 years of age she was asked to be the Relief Society chorister. She kept this calling until she was 78 and decided she sounded funny when she sang. Myra Froerer was the organist and they became good friends.
She wore her hair piled high on her head in curls to give her more height. For the same reason she always wore hats with high crowns. It was hard to buy a dress to fit her. They had to be taken in at the waist and up on the hem. She bought a beaver fur coat for winter to keep her warm, then hung it in the closet for best occasions.
When she was 71 she had a tumor the size of a grapefruit removed from her uterus by Dr. Lindsay Curtis. At age 79 she had skin cancer removed from her neck by Dr. Dean Tanner. The family Doctor was Grant F. Kearns who loved to tease her.
Daisy was a woman of prayer and called upon God frequently. Her daily prayer was that she would be able to take care of Dave as long as he needed her. Her prayer was answered. During the night of January 12, 1969, on his way back from the bathroom, he fell and bumped his head. On the 13th of January, he slipped into a coma and was taken by ambulance to the Dee Hospital. He never regained consciousness. He died at 11:55 pm on January 13, 1969. He was 86 years old.
From the day Dave went into the hospital Daisy was welcomed into her daughter’s Lorene’s home. She spent the next 3 ½ years there. Her granddaughter Lynne lived half a block away with her husband Don Cummings and their children. Daisy got to know her great grandchildren, Jeff, Kristy and Cindy very well. She always tried to have small candies or gum handy for her grandchildren.
She entered into the spirit of everything. At 81 she tried slacks, panty hose and baseball, hamburgers and malts. She always said good things come in small packages and when she got old if she got funny (senile) to please tell her. How can you say “Mother you’re funny”? She worried about her grandchildren and tried to keep her opinions to herself. She wasn’t very successful and was never afraid to express an opinion. She tried to help with the house while living at Lorene’s because Lorene was working. She also felt the family needed time alone so she would spend part of her day in her room. They kept telling her she was part of the family.
She was proud of being a convert to the church. Even as she sat on a stool by Dave’s casket she could be heard telling someone, “I’m a convert to the church you know.
Her good friends and favorite visiting teacher was one she met while living at Lorene’s. Her name was Elizabeth Dooley. A close association sprang up between them. Through Daisy’s visits and gentle Persuasion Elizabeth and her husband decided to go through the temple and be sealed. However her husband had a heart condition and died a week before their appointment.
Daisy was in the hospital the same time as Mr. Dooley. Her health had been deteriorating and she had trouble keeping food on her stomach. Elizabeth Dooley, concerned about her, called one morning after Lorene had gone to work. Della had gotten her children off to school, arrived at Daisy’s and found her on the floor too weak to get back in bed. Her doctor was Chelton Feeney and Della got him to admit her to the hospital. Della and Lynne took her. Lynne picked her up like a baby and carried from the bed to the car. At the hospital she got a wheelchair, and again picked her up from the car and put her in it. Granddaughter Karen worked in the hospital and when told she was coming had gotten her admittance papers ready so she could go directly to the room. In her room the nurses were wondering how best to put her into bed. Lynne said, “I’ll show you,” and again picked her up and laid her on the bed.
As Dr. Feeney said she rather resented getting well enough to go home. She was ready to leave us. Twice at Lorene’s before entering the hospital, Lorene heard her talking to someone in her room after she’d gone to bed. When she went in to see who she was talking to, she said, “Dave has come for me.”
After ten days in the hospital in May, she went back to Lorene’s until school was out. She could no longer be left alone. Lorene worked and was worn out worrying about her. When grandson, Bill, left for Alaska for the summer and a place could be made for her at Della’s she went there to live. Her health continued deteriorating. She could keep very little food on her stomach. She slept most of the time. She still dressed every day and sat in the front room or out on the patio in the evening.
She still inquired after her grandchildren and took an interest in their activities. She missed seeing her great grandchildren each day and wondered what they were doing. While her health had been good she enjoyed the hustle and bustle of Lorene’s home but now that she was failing she commented on the peace at Della’s.
A number of Daisy’s nieces and nephews came to see her that summer of 1972. It was hard for them to recognize their fun loving Aunt Daisy of years past. They all knew it was just a matter of time. Time took its toll. On Saturday afternoon, September 9 at 3:20 PM she went to meet Dve and those loved ones who were waiting for her. She had slept the morning away and did not rouse when offered food or drink. She just seemed extremely tired. She was 84 years old. In actual fact she had only 21 birthdays having been a leap year baby. As she lay in her casket it was as if she had shed her actual years and looked like the birthdays she really had. Those who knew her for many years said that was how she looked when they first met her. She was a great little lady. She died of congestive heart failure.