Ada Long

Ada Mathews was born June 14, 1904, Flag Day. She thought the flags were for her until she was a young lady. She was the daughter of Charles Phillip Mathews and Luverna Edessa Lee. She was the oldest of seven children. She was born in Panaca, Lincoln, Nevada, a small town with many loving relatives. Before Papa and Mama were married, he made a down payment on a house and lot in Panaca that belonged to Mrs. Syphus. Her son came to visit and said he did not want her to sell that house and lot so in tears she took the down payment back to Papa and he accepted it back. So when Papa and Mama were married, they moved in with Grandpa and Grandma Lee. Mama became pregnant and also developed an illness. Because she had much illness, Uncle Warren and Aunt Etta Lee Cox came home for my birth from St. George. They also had several children at home, so when Uncle Warren was noting her (Mama's) labor pains, he said: "Perhaps a change of position would help her." He picked her up and I was born on his lap. No doctor was there though I think there was a woman who helped with "deliveries," A Mrs. Terry. Edessa Lee Mathews was a sMAll woman, less than five feet in height. Mama said she hd wanted a girl and had the name chosen.

Both parents were active in the church and the town activities. Ours was a loving family, which included numerous cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great grandparents. Indeed, I also considered the whole town "family" calling all women "aunt" and all men "uncle" although they actually were not. Everyone in town was friendly and extremely good looking. When I first visited out of Panaca in my teens, I wondered why there were no homely people in our town as I found out of town. I enjoyed the joys and beauties of that small town, when the streets were lined with trees, sidewalks had ditches along them, most of which I managed to fall into while exploring the tiny plants and moss along their edges.

We enjoyed family and town picnics, children's dances, observances of the fourth of July, the 24th of July, may Day, which was important when I was young. We had dances and games and Christmas, with programs, food, and the thrill of a yearly reactivated town band. The Christmas Eve program was for everyone and became almost unbearably delightful if it happened to snow that evening. We had opportunities to take part in programs, plays, parties, and all kinds of things. It was easy to be a big frog in a small puddle and made for a good childhood.

Everyone had an opportunity to work in the church. My first real church assignment was as organist for the Primary when I was fourteen, then Sunday school and ward organist (September 10, 1921. When the religion classes the forerunners of the present seminaries were organized, I was one of the teachers (January 28, 1923. I also taught in Mutual and later was first counselor in the MIA presidency (October 7, 1923).

One of the early church experiences that I remember was being baptized in the "Big Ditch." Panaca's water system came from a spring northeast of town by way of the Big Ditch which ran past the Lee Butler home so we could get ready for baptism in the house and put dry clothes on afterwards. Children who became eight during the winter waited until the weather warmed up, and then there would be a group who were of age.

I remember my father in Sunday School and Church helping with the Sacrament, talking, blessing or helping consecrate olive oil and helping tithe everything, my mother teaching in Primary, bearing her testimony in church. I remember my early Primary and Sunday School teachers, giving the "Sacrament Gem" in Sunday School, Brother Weges long prayers, my Sunday clothes, the bell that rang for Sunday School and Church, taking the sacrament, the water was a glass that was passed and we each took a sip from it.

Our Sunday school class, which was not very large, met in the corner in the front of the organ. My first teacher that I can remember was Shanet Blad.

I can't remember our fist home. Our second home was a small, one bedroom, living room and kitchen. It was beautifully furnished. At a terrible flood in Caliente Papa brought carpet, chairs, a dresser, table, and I had my grandmother Mathews' organ. Later a piano that was on sale in Panaca was added.

Mama was a super bread maker. When Papa would go to get her for a date (they weren't called dates then 0 dance, or whatever), he would wait while she mixed the bread.

An early memory is of falling out of a tree onto a dry ditch bank and breaking my arm. The Longs were living across the street and Walter said I "yelped la a coyote." Papa was out of town and Doctor Campbell only had one arm. (He had lost it through an infection.) So Uncle Rex helped set my arm. It is just as straight.

One of my early memmories is of Walter. His mother came to visit and he was with her. A very thin little boy in bib overalls.

One of my first memories, oddly, is recuperating from an illness of some kind. A couple of teachers had a little black girl and she brought me a little lamb on wheels. Also the place where we were living had once had peach trees growing in back of it and Mama picked the first blossoms and brought them in to me.

I wanted to go to school when I was five. Mama asked the president of the School Board and I started school but got sick. My schooling began in old Wadsworth store and was first grade. Later we moved to the cement brick grammar school. We usually played games at recess.

High school was in Panaca but was for Caliente and Pioche also and was called the Lincoln county High School. Several things of note happened in high school. One year in chemistry I had my experiment going well and decided to visit my neighbor. I got there just in time for her experiment to explode in my face. I got quite deep burns around my right eye and some on my hands. The Chemistry teacher put soda on the boiling acid. The next week I was playing baseball. I missed catching the ball and it hit me in the face, blackening my eye. My mother wept when I got home.

I also did typing for one of the teachers. He was writing a book ad he set two of us to type it. He would go to the store while we typed and bring back a candy bar for us. I always took my candy bar home to Freeda and Lester who would meet me at the gate to see if I had the bar that day.

One of my favorite boods was dried corn. We dried the corn by putting it on a sheet on the rrof over the kitchen. I watched over it to keep the flies off. I was late for school once needing "just one more" handful of dried corn.

We had school plays which were presented in the town Social Hall for everybody in the county. Our students were superb actors and actresses, we thought, and so did our parents.

We had many dances and programs and even some minstrels. Everybody went to the dances and very few had dates. But if a girl was lucky she might be asked to be "walked home" by a young man. Everyone danced with many partners and if a girl and boy had more than three or four dances together, whispers floated about the hall, and nods of knowledge. "There must be a romance blooming there." We had "live" music always for these dances provided by a school orchestra. There were some weekends and summer dances to the music of the player piano.

Very few girls wore "make up" to school or even to dances. We did our own hair wit the help of our mothers or girl friends. We often found many of our dresses made from the same bolt of cloth from the Panaca Co-op store, but each with a different pattern treatment or trimming.

Boys wore white shirts always for dress, and the style was quite tight trousers near the bottom of the legs and quite short so that fancy sox could show. Also a really tiny bow tie was very smart.

We had Spanish Club 1 and 2. Mr. E. A. Hansen was our instructor. It was a popular class and we had some hilarious experiences with translations. One of the boys we translated in class was titled "Marienella." In a snapshot of the Spanish Club I am one of the members.

As Juniors, we had many parties without dates in our various homes where we would have dinners sometimes, making candy, making jokes and singing.

We only had six members as Sophomores and Juniors, three boys and three girls, so we had much fun. a snapshot of four of those six showed Ada Hammond, Gertrude Long, Ada Mathews, and Bill Ronnow. Our dresses were quite long, within eight inches of the ground. There were five members in our faculty, one woman and four men. H.A. Whiteneck was our principal and instructor in mathematics. J.R. Smith was our principal in our freshman year. Mr. Whiteneck's geometry class was a really fascinating experience and we all loved it. E.A. Hansen was instructor in languages, history and physical education. Karl Banks, instructor in science and manual training. Evelyn LaKamp, instructor in Domestic Science and physical education. Stanley Johnson instructor on music and stenography. That year there were only three in the Senior Class and they all graduated.

Our band convened after school for practice in the same room where the girls who took home economics had cooked during the day, and we often found bits of their cooking results tucked away in a drawer for us to snack on. In our sewing we used treadle machines and basted everything, even all the straight seams before we were allowed to sew them.

In Spanish 2 we complained because we left our notebooks in the study hall in our desks, the Spanish 1 kids would slip them out and copy our translations when we were busy elsewhere. Such deceit.

We published a school paper, the Lincoln Firefly, of which I was the editor. For our editorials when we could think of nothing else to write about, our principal would say, well, hit the school board or the faculty.

In 1920 the summer work began on installing a water system in the high school buildings so that we could add physics and chemistry to our curriculum.

In the spring, summer and fall, picnics were enjoyed in Cathedral Gorge; cooking mulligan stews, at the Spring above town where our town water came from; in the beautiful Condor Canyon north of town, where a stream of water ran through and there was a big, interesting dripping cave. We walked or at times were fortunate to have someone provide a hay rack and team for us.

There were chalk tunnels east of town as a point of interest, an old mill and ruins of the town of Bullionville a few miles west of Panaca, the White Wash south of town which was an area of farms, interesting hills all about us, and a big green-whhite hill in the middle of the town not far from the high school that was called Court Rock. It was of clay with layers of isinglass, and during storms the clay would wash down onto the streets and sidewalk and make them extremely slippery.

Often we climbed onto the top of the Court rock which gave us an interesting view of the town and Meadow Valle. One time we had a school band concern on top of the court Rock. One could hear clearly from there, many voices and sounds from all over town at certain times of early evening. And conversations from the top of the Rock could also be heard all over town at certain times of day.

In early spring we enjoyed walking about town. At that time, the town was very beautiful, with trees lining the sidewalk all over town, with nicely kept lawns and flowerbeds, with huge lilac bushes covered with heavy blooms. The odor was entrancing. There were small irrigation streams lining the streets along the sidewalks.

There were three stores in town at that time, the Panaca Co-op, N.J. Wadsworth;s, and a small barber shop of Gentry's. The Co-op and Wadsworths carried food and yards of goods and shoes and a little of everything. But clothes, other than men's overalls and occasionally simple house dersses were not caried in the stores.

We were fortunate to have the last of the County Normal Training Schools for acquiring a teaching certificate We held the Normal School in our small wooden church and did our practice teaching int he elementary school. I did not teach although I was prepared to, but my mother was sick. I did teach a short term at Crystal Springs and would have liked to do more teaching.

At Cyrstal Springs I lived with the Thirlots, eating wit the family and hired hands. While there a skink got under my room. I went to a hill nearby and built a fire and stood in the smoke trying to destry the ordor. Even my powder had that ordor and had to be thrown away. I enjoyed the teaching although it was just a one room school. I taught Joe Thirlots' brothers.

I played piano in a dance orchestra for local dances until I was married. Sometimes I would get so tired that I would be asleep, still playing and then would wonder whether we were on the firt or the second time through.

I married Walter Varah Long of Panaca, Nevada, in the Salt Lake Temple June 25, 1924. he was teaching school int Tonopah. There were over 30 couples being married that day because the temple was closing for the summer. There was much confusion as grooms lost their brides and where they should be. We were married by Joseph Fielding Smith. While mama came up to Salt Lake City with us, she was unable to attend the temple. In those days the recommend was for a specific temple, which in Mama's case was for St. George. Because the stake president was in Logandale, she could not get another recommend in time for the Salt Lake City Temple. So we were lone at the marriage although we had my mother and Walter's sister with us to stay that night. We went to Salt Lake City so that Walter could get into summer school

Aunt Minnie Ambros gave me a blue glass monkey. We were eating ice cream cones on a high school lawn and a policeman ran us off.

That fall we began our first six years of married life in the mining town of Tonopah. It was barren and desolate looking after the green of Panaca, but there were good people there.

Unfortunately, we were always in debt. Because everything in Panaca was less expensive than in Tonopah, we would buy supplies in Panaca and then it would take us until Christmas to pay that off. And then we would go to Salt Lake City for Walter to go to Summer school on all we had saved from Christmas on. After we had moved to Las Vegas we finally decided not to buy "on time." It was a little different at first and Walter fixed a box to separate the various amounts of the budget. We had been "suckers" at buying books, especailly "on time." It was wonderful when we learned to say "no" to salesmen.

I think when I first saw a "touring" car was when Uncle Warren came out with his family from St. George. When Walter bought his first car he went to St. George and boght it from Uncle Warren, who said: "Larraine, get in the car and show him how to drive." Lorraine showed him the "shift," and brake, then got out. Wanda was with us. With all that "training" we left for Panaca and ran into a bridge and various things.

Having no LDS Church in Tonopah we LDS members gathered in parties and in a scripture class on Sunday evenings which Walter taught. Walter was the only priesthood holder in town. We were part of the California Mission. Missionaries visited us from time to time, one of whom set Walter apart officially as the teacher. We had the sacrament once a month which he administered.

Our first child, Walter E. was born in Tonopah, Nye County, March 30, 1925. Our landlord lived across the street and suggested that Walter come over there to sleep, out of the way and where he could get his sleep. She had many clocks, all set at different times. Walter got little sleep between gongs of the clocks. Three days after the birth I came down with an infection. The doctor blamed it on the nurse for not keeping things sterile. I had to go to the hospital for three days. Meanwhile the nurse took Walter E. home to care for him. Walter E. was friendly and a very good baby. I took him to the doctor, I don't remember for what. He said, "what are you feeding your baby?" I said: "oh, I nurse him." The doctor said: "On the way home stop and buy a box of Graham crackers for him." So I did. I put him on the floor when I got home and gave him a cracket. He broke it into small bits and ate it.

Lloyd K was born in Panaca, September 5, 1926, three weeks late with the cord tightly wrapped around his neck, at 3 a.m. All doctors in the county were off on vacation. Mama was in Cedar City. I finally wrote to nurse Brown in Alamo who had training as a nurse and midwife. She said if she hadn't been there to get the cord from around his neck he would have died in his birth. Walter had to leave in three h ours for Tonopah where he was teaching. One of the women in the town told me that every woman in town was praying that he would be born before Walter left. Interestingly, nurse Brown wrote on her report that Lloyd K was born in Alamo, where she lived rather than in Panaca. We found this out when he had to get birth certificates fo the army. It took a little to get it straightened out.

To get training in going to Sunday School we took the boys to the Presbyterian Church in Tonopah. Since they attended LDS services in the summers in Panaca, or Salt Lake City, theynoticed the difference. Walter and i were in the adult class which had every denomination as members except a Presbyterian.

In 1930 Miss Maude Frazier invited Walter to teach in Las Vegas, Clark county Schools. Walter taught in the elementary school first, later in high school, eventually becoming principal of the Las Vegas high school, the one and only high school in town at that time.

Someone asked Walter about the depression in the early thirties. He said: "Depression? What depression? We have always lived in a depression." I sewed and often made over clothes given to us so that they looked new. And with the girls when given bare top dresses, a "bolero" jacket would make it suitable. I also cleaned and washed also. Made coats also. I learned this from my mother.

Our third child, Ada Vee, was born in Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada, May 14, 1931, and our fourth child, Shelley, was born in Las Vegas, May 6, 1936. A few months after Shelly's birth, Ada Vee campe down with a strep infection. This was before the days of penicillin and the death rate for the infection was high. Vee was taken to the hospital and provided with a private nurse. Walter reported that our savings were used up the first day. Vee was there for several months.

Mama took Shelley to Panaca. the boys and Walter took care of the home with help from neighbors and friends. Finally the infection centeredi n her right foot. The doctors would lance it to remove the puss. the continual lancing and infection froze her ankle and she was crippled ever after although she took dancing and learned to walk with out a noticeable limp. Because of the frozen ankle, she had to wear high heels. Very good shoes were purchased and then heels added to them for this six year old girl and then as she grew older.

In Las Vegas we had the advantages of the Las Vegas Ward of the Moapa Stake for our children and ourselves, plus the friendly atmosphere of a small town at first. We formed many good friendships with the other teachers in the school and with the ward members.

Walter was active in the ward, starting as president of the YMMIA. When Berkeley Bunker was made bishop, he came to Walter, who was on the stand with the choir waiting for the meeting, and asked Walter to be his first counselor. Later, when Berkeley Bunker was appointed as Nevada Senator, Walter was acting Bishop for a few months before Reed Whipple was sustained as bishop. At that point, Walter was called as the stake clerk under President Bryan Bunker, where he served for ten years.

That town grew rapidly into a large city as we watched the building of Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam), the filing of Lake Mead, the growth of a huge tourist industry, the coming of Nellis Air Base, a huge airfield wit one of the busiest landing fields in the world, building of the Strip with its tremendously large hotels, introduction of shopping centers, subdivisions, parks and many schools.

Our original Moapa Stake that covered parts of two counties and two states was divided in 1954 and the Las Vegas Stake was formed under the direction of Gay Myers, who had been serving as the Moapa stake president since 1951.

I had other illnesses, at one time almost dying of pneumonia. Walter's priesthood and the blessings given to me brought me through.

I have had the privilege of working in Primary as a teacher and president, teaching in Sunday School, in MIA as a teacher and also as first counselor in the MIA presidency; in Relief Society as a teacher of theology, social science, literature, cultural refinement and physical fitness and as the second counselor in the ward presidency, secretary-treasurer, magazine representative (in the Charleston Ward and 5th Ward), and as a member of the Stake Boards as theology, social science, literature, cultural refinement and physical fitness and as the second counselor in the ward presidency, secretary-treasurer, magazine representative (in the Charleston Ward and 5th Ward), and as a member of the Stake Boards as theology, social science, literature and Culture Refinement leader.

When Mormon Monuments, fund raising group for church buildings, was organized I served on the committee. Also I was a member of the Centennial Booklet Staff, co-author of a 24th of July Pageant and helped with the fifth-Sixth Ward Dedication Booklet.

I also helped organize and present a program for the National Association of PTA held in the Las Vegas High School Auditorium. I was a member of the Las Vegas branch.

there was much fun in assisting Lila Crane, Ellen Thiriot, LaVerna Whipple and others in producing "skits," plays and entertainments for the ward before television.

I was a charter member and officer of the Las Vegas Branch of American Pen Women, member and officer in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers.

Our four children graduated from Las Vegas High School. Walter E. graduated from the University of Nevada at Reno as a Mechanical Engineer and worked as a project engineer at Titanium Metals Corporation of America. He served in the Air Force in the Philippines and Japan, filled a mission to the Spanish0American Mission, married Lenna Deane Gardner in the St. George Temple and they have five children.

Lloyd K. graduated from the Brigham Young University as a history teacher, served in the army in the Philippine Islands, filled a mission in Canada, and married Marianne Muser Sharp in the alt lake City Temple. They have six children.

Vee married James B. Medlin in the St. George Temple after graduating from Brigham young University as a Speech Therapist. She has a Master's Degree in Speech. They have four children. Vee taught in the Easter Seal Center until her children began to arrive and was a writer, editor and publisher in Word Making Productions. James was a lawyer.

Shelley graduated from Brigham Young University as an Elementary Teacher and married Sale Beckstrand in the St. George Temple. She taught school while her husband was getting his doctorate in nuclear physics. They have three children.

Walter had a school named for him, the Walter V. Long Elementary School. He worked in the Genealogical Library until illness forced his further retirement. He died in February, 1986. Oh, yes, Walter was a high priest, as are our two sons, and a home teacher and taught genealogy and gospel doctrine classes in Sunday school.

Ada Mathews Long, July, 1980, compiled from several writings of Ada in June, 2007, by Walter E. Long.

SOURCE: https://familysearch.org/photos/documents/3354097

Obituary: Ada Mathews was born June 14, 1904, the daughter of Charles Phillip Mathews and Luverna Edessa Lee. She was the oldest of seven children. She was born in Panaca, Nevada, a small town with many loving relatives.

She graduated from Lincoln County High School at Panaca. She also attended the last of the County Normal Training Schools, receiving a teaching certificate. She did not take a teaching position but was called to replace a sick teacher at Crystal Springs in a one room school. This experience was a highlight as she spoke of it often in later years.

She married Walter Varah Long of Panaca, Nevada, in the Salt Lake Temple June 25, 1925. Walter was teaching in Tonopah but attended summer school at the University of Utah for many years to complete college work for a degree in education.

Ada found Tonopah barren and desolate after the green of Panaca. Their first son, Walter E. Long, was born March 30, 1925, in Tonopah. Fourteen months later, September 5, 1926, a second son, Lloyd K. Long, was born in Panaca while Ada visited her parents.

After six years in Tonopah, they moved to Las Vegas. Here they watched the building of Hoover Dam and the filling of Lake Mead. They also found a ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints along with many friends in what was then a small town.

Their first daughter, Ada Vee Long, was born May 14, 1931, in Las Vegas. A second daughter, Shelley, followed on May 6, 1936. A few months after Shelley’s birth, Ada Vee was stricken with a strep infection that left her crippled. Ada spent many hours at the hospital. Ada herself had several serious illnesses during her lifetime.

Both Ada and Walter were active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ada’s first assignment was organist for the Primary organization at the age of 14. Over the years she taught in the Primary and later was president. She filled positions in the Relief Society both in the ward and stake and was in the presidency of the ward. She taught Sunday school many years.

Ada wrote poems for her children and friends. She also wrote skits for the Church and enjoyed working on skits with other members of the ward. Two years after celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary, Walter grew ill. Ada nursed him for several months before his passing in February 1986. Ada remained in her home until her health started to fail. She lived with Walter E. and Lenna for awhile and then stayed at K and Marianne’s home. It’s there that she died peaceably in her bed on December 3, 1999.