Elizabeth Helen Black

History of Elizabeth Helen Powell Black: I was born in Wasatch, Salt Lake County August 28, 1889. I was the seventh child of Theodore and Mary Anne Cunningham Powell. There were four boys. The oldest, Ernest, died when he was eight or nine months old. When I was less than eight months old my father died. Mother worked and kept us all together, she kept boarders, did sewing and laundering. In Wasatch there were three months of the year that the sun doesn’t shine because of the high mountains. When I was about six years old, mother married John Mattson and we moved to Granite where we went to school. The older children had formerly walked to school from Wasatch to Granite, a distance of 2½ miles. The school building was a one-room building and had one teacher for all eight grades.

There were two more girls added to the family, again one dying at the age of eight months. Mother always worked and helped keep the family. The boys and Grandpa Mattson worked in the mines at Alta, up Little Cottonwood Canyon, where the family would go every summer. We girls would help Mother in the boarding house. About 1903 Fred married Lulu Blythe. They had three children and were divorced in 1916.

In September 1905 Mother bought a home in Sandy and there I finished school where we had a teacher for each grade. Before I was married I taught Sunday school classes and was in the ward choir. In June 1904, before we left Granite, Hattie was married to Ernest Keil. They had two girls. John was married to Florence Whetman in October 1905. They had two boys, the oldest died. In January 1906 my brother William was killed in a snow slide in Alta.

In the summer of 1905 I met Albert Black in Alta. He was working in the mines there. On October 2nd 1907 he left for a mission to Ireland. He came home the 9th of December 1909. We corresponded all of the time that he was gone. For three years I worked in Uncle John’s store at Granite and at ********* store in Sandy. I spent a winter in Salt Lake taking millinery at Auerbach’s. I was married June 8, 1910, in the Salt Lake Temple to Albert C. Black. Until November we lived in Deseret, Millard County. Then we went to Sandy and Daddy worked in Alta. I stayed with Mother. In the spring we moved to Knightville for about three or four months. From there we went to Provo until February 1912. All this time Albert was working in the mines.

In February 1912 he started working for De Laval Separator Company and we moved back to Sandy. In August the same year we were transferred to Pocatello Idaho. Lon and Janet (Albert’s brother) were living there and working for the De Laval Company. The men were out in their territory from Monday morning until Friday or Saturday, so the four of us lived together. While Janet and I were alone we would go to shows and visiting. In July 1913 we were transferred again, this time to Helena, Montana.

Then the greatest event so far happened on June 24th, 1914, Mary was born in the L.D.S. Hospital in Salt Lake City. In Helena we worked in the branch and enjoyed it very much. At that time Apostle Melvin J. Ballard was president of the North Western States Mission. While we were in Helena, Pearl, Florence, Authnell, Mother and Grandpa Mattson came to visit us. We lived in Montana until 1917. Then we were transferred back to Utah. Albert was made supervisor of the Utah territory, so once again we lived in Sandy in part of Mother’s home.

Another great event happened on May 8th, 1917, Leo came to bring us happiness. I worked in religion class. On July 23 1919 another important event took place when Helen was born. We were glad to have another added to the family. In August 1919 Albert went to Afton Wyoming to manage the Burton Creameries in Star Valley. In September the rest of the family moved. There we lived until 1926. In 1921 a boy was added to the family but only lived two hours. Another boy was born June 17, 1923, and died March 17, 1932, in Delta, Utah. [This was Robert who had hydrocephalus and never developed normally. He was like an infant the full 9 years of his life.]

In July 1922 we all went to Yellowstone Park. May 1926 the creameries were sold to Kraft Cheese Co. Daddy and Brother Burton bought foxes and we moved to Ogden. There we were happy for four years. Once again Albert worked for the De Laval Separator Co., then for Nelson and Ricks Company. On December 14, 1926, mother passed away, the hardest thing I had known, but on December 24th Norma came to help cheer things up. In 1928 Albert was made counselor to Bishop David J. Wilson of the Ogden 12th Ward. All of the children were taking an active part in the ward there and we were all happy in Ogden when the crash came and Dr. Shepherd wanted Albert to go to Delta and manage his creameries. So in 1931 we went to Delta, and worked in the ward and different organizations.

Mary, Leo, and Helen all graduated from high school at Delta. Norma went to school her first four years in Delta. In 1932 Mary went to the BYU at Provo and again in 1933. In April 1933 the family took a trip to Las Vegas and the Boulder Dam. The summer of 1933 we went to Zion and Bryce canyons. In March Bobby was taken from us. He would have been nine years old June 9th of the same year. We lived in Lawrence’s house in Delta until they sold it to Fenton Gardner, then we moved to Rulon Starley’s home and lived there for over three years until we moved to Midvale the last of September 1937.

On June 16, 1937, Albert and I left Delta for a wonderful trip with the Sperry dealers on a tour of America. Our first stop was at Chicago, then to Detroit Michigan, Niagra Falls and New York. At New York we took a boat to Miami Florida, then we went by train the Galveston Texas, Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, then into Los Angeles and back to Salt Lake. In the fall of 1934 Mary went to Utah State Agricultural College in Logan for one year. June 19th Mary graduated from BYU majoring in foods and nutrition.

May 1935 Leo graduated from high school in Delta, and in the fall went to the University of Utah for one year. Leo was called on a mission to the Swiss German mission and left Salt Lake February 18, 1937, for his field of labor. May 1937 Helen graduated from the Delta High School and went to Utah State the following winter. Mary taught school for the next two years in Lyman Wyoming. It was very lonesome for the three of us home alone. Norma went to school here in Midvale.

I am a Relief Society block teacher. We all went to Alta for the 24th of July, 1938. I was given my patriarchal blessing by William D. Kuhre. In October 1927, Albert and I went to Chicago. Victoria, his sister stayed with the children. We stayed at Uncle Lon’s while we were in Chicago. It was a wonderful trip.