Leah Matilda Krogue

The women pictured here are Isaac and Leah Dunford's daughters-in-law and daughter. Included are Mary Nelson Dunford, Mary Jacobsen Dunford, Ida Osmund Dunford, Eliza Jacobsen Dunford, Lovinia Clayton Dunford, Sarah Birdwell Dunford and Leah Mathilda Dunford Krogue.

Although the photo caption does not indicate who is whom in the picture, if they are listed left to right, with those standing in back listed first, and those pictured seated in the front listed last, then Sarah Birdwell Dunford would be on the far right in the plaid dress, and next to her seated on the floor would be Leah Mathilda Dunford Krogue, the Dunford's daughter, who was named after her mother, Leah.

SOURCE: The Isaac and Leah Bailey Dunford Family Story

FOUND HERE: http://books.google.com/books?id=7Jdplwrc8R0C&pg=PA242&lpg=PA242&dq...

Leah Matilda Dunford Krogue (1869-1932): Author: Jean Hulme Smith (Source: "The Story of the Ancestors and Descendants of Isaac and Leah Bailey Dunford." Bountiful, The Isaac and Leah Bailey Dunford Family Association, 1996). Leah Matilda Dunford, born April 21, 1869, at Bloomington, Idaho, was the thirteenth and last child born to Isaac and Leah Bailey Dunford. The Dunford family had buried three baby daughters in England before they emigrated to America. A fourth daughter, born while they were on the Atlantic, was buried on the banks of the Mississippi River as they journeyed up the river to St. Louis. (NOTE: Her name was Seaborn.) Eliza Ann, born in 1859, was the third child born while they lived in St. Louis. T wo sons: William and Alma, born in England, four sons: Moroni, Albert, Parley, and Oliver, born in St. Louis, and one, James, born in Bloomington, joined Eliza in welcoming this baby sister. William was already 22 years old, married, the father of one child, and living in Salt Lake City. Alma, also, lived in Salt Lake City.

Life in Bear Lake County was hard, at best, in those days. An early frost which took some of their crops that year, followed by hordes of grasshoppers, contributed to the poor quality and scarcity of good food. Moroni wrote to his brother Alma in Salt Lake City, "Our dear little sister is doing fairly well and is quite happy, but Mother is having it hard to make nurse on frozen wheat and potatoes." Leah, who had fragile health all her life, often remarked that she was "made from the leavings of 12 other children." Eliza Ann died from typhoid fever in 1871, when she was not yet twelve years old. Leah, age 2, was the only surviving daughter of the six that were born to the Dunford family.

In 1877 her brother Alma brought his wife, Susa, and their two children to live with the Dunford's while Alma served a mission in England. Leah enjoyed the companionship of Alma's daughter Leah Eudora, who was less than five years younger than Leah Matilda. Susa divorced Alma at this time (see interesting article in Peterson, Wanda Snow: William Snow, First Bishop of Pine Valley, pp. 151-152) and Alma's Leah remained with the Dunford's until Alma's marriage to Lovinia Clayton in 1882. The two Leah's cemented a bond that lasted throughout their lives.

James and these two Leah's were the children in the wagon at the time Isaac was killed as they traveled to Salt Lake City October 4, 1879, to visit William and Alma and attend conference. Leah was taught the pioneer skills of quilting, braiding rugs, making soap, growing vegetables and flowers, canning, churning, etc. She became an excellent seamstress, having taken a special class in Salt Lake City before her marriage. She also learned to play a guitar and enjoyed singing. She taught school for a brief period and was a longtime secretary in Relief Society, both in Bloomington and in Montpelier.

April 30, 1891, Leah married David A. Krogue in the Logan Temple. He was the son of Peter and Charlotte Nelson Krogue, also of Bloomington. David had purchased a log home on Canyon Street. One week after their marriage, he left for a two-year mission to the Southern States. He liked to tell people he "left a week old wife at home." Leah's brother, Oliver, and his wife, Ida, had been serving a mission in New Zealand. Their son, Rao was born in New Zealand about the time of Leah's marriage. When Rao was six months old, Ida brought her son back to Bloomington and lived with Leah for six months until Oliver returned from his mission. Leah and Ida taught school together in the log house and enjoyed musical activities together.

After his mother's death, Oliver bought the Dunford home which had been built in 1877, the first brick house in Bloomington, on the main highway, and these two families continued a close association through the years. David returned from his mission in July of 1893. He, like most men in Bloomington, was a farmer. He also taught school in the winter, having completed a Normal Course at BYC in Logan, Utah. He and Leah shared a home one winter with Leah's brother James, his wife, Eliza, and three children in Ovid and David commuted by horse (or cutter in the winter) to school in Liberty.

The next winter the Krogue's lived in Liberty. He taught school at various places in the area for 14 years. Seven children were added to the family in Bloomington: Leah Louise, born 30 September 1894; David Emerson, born 4 January 1896; Isaac Dunford, born 24 October 1897; Lucile Charlotte, born 4 November 1899; Nellie Mae, born 5 Jan 1902; Evan LeRoy, born 15 July 1905; and Letha Lois, born 8 Feb 1910. Louise had graduated from eighth grade in Bloomington in the spring of 1909, and her friends were going on to Fielding Academy in Paris, 3 miles north, but Louise was kept out of school that fall and winter because of her mother's poor health. "After Lois's birth, Mother had a very slow recovery so I was really needed, but I felt paid for so doing with the coming of the new sister." Leah and her new baby did well through the summer, so Louise was able to start high school in the fall.

Louise wrote: However, soon after holidays, about a year after our new baby [Lois] had come, my darling mother had a severe attack of pneumonia. How sick she was! I didn't hesitate to stay home and help. All of our other children but the baby went to Grandmother's. [Krogue--Leah's mother had died in 1892.] She hovered between life and death for weeks. We were blessed to procure a capable and devoted nurse, Cynthia Hulme--a graduate of Budge Hospital nursing school in Logan. In spite of her tireless devotion and care and much faith and administrations, we came close to losing Mother several times. One Sunday her brothers and others came and waited for the 'Final' but, through administrations, etc., she survived and was a joy for us 21 more years.

David and his brother Nels had homesteaded a dry farm north of Bennington. In 1914 Leah and David and their family moved to Montpelier to be closer to the farm. David numbered the boards on his barn and reconstructed it at the new home. They had a 10-acre plot surrounding the 2-story brick home with 5 bedrooms and indoor plumbing! Later on they bought a Hudson sedan and built a double garage west of the house. David bought a field below town and here he pastured the cows and raised hay for his animals. They continued to make their own butter and grow their vegetables and such fruit as the Bear Lake climate could support. They had a cream separator, operated by hand, in a large finished basement with furnace, coal room, and storage rooms. They had a wind-up Victrola and a piano. Louise had taken lessons from her Aunt Ida on a pump organ, and her parents sent her to various teachers: J.B. Tueller in Paris, John J. McClellan in Salt Lake City, and she eventually graduated from the McCune School of Music in Salt Lake City. Her parents wisely planned that she could learn to play, then she could teach the other children.

In the fall of 1917 David went to Logan to assist with the illness and death of his youngest brother, Leonard, supposedly ill with food poisoning. The illness turned out to be smallpox. The family contracted the disease, and Leah was "literally covered" with pox. World War I was on at this time, and it was a depressing time in many ways. Louise had graduated from Albion Normal School and had taught school at South Montpelier, Georgetown, and Montpelier. She went to summer school at Berkeley in 1918, taking her mother and her little sister Lois with her. They rode in a Pullman car for the first time, visited cousins in Pasadena, took a sight-seeing tour in Los Angeles, and spent an interesting summer in Berkeley. They had their first experience on the ocean, going from San Francisco to Portland on a ship. In Portland they visited their cousin Nellie Rayl, then came on the train along the Columbia River, stopping in Boise to get acquainted for the first time with their state capital.

The fall of 1918 brought the terrible flu epidemic. Lucile and Dunford were attending school in Salt Lake City. The folks telephoned them to come home, where they were quarantined in the two front rooms of the house for two weeks and food was passed to them through an outside door. Schools were closed. The Krogue's drove to Bloomington in their new car; nobody invited them in. It was a scary time.

The summer of 1920 brought a great tragedy to the family. Dunford had been attending the University of Utah, studying pre-medicine. He was selling knit goods from Utah Woolen Mills to make some money during the summer. The family received a card from him, saying how much he had enjoyed driving through Yellowstone Park en route to Montana. The next day a telegram arrived with the message that he had been taken to the hospital in Butte, Montana, with appendicitis. David left for Butte on the next train, but he was too late to reach Dunford before he died, August 2, 1920. Dunford was buried in Bloomington cemetery, the first to be interred in the family plot where his parents now lie.

Emerson had left for a mission to Australia January 1, l917. He was transferred to South Africa. When he returned, November 10, 1920, he was devastated to hear of the death of his brother, Dunford, and astounded to hear that he had become an uncle. Louise had married her longtime sweetheart, Ben Hulme from Bloomington in 1919 when he returned from the war. A year later she had returned to her parents' home where the first grandchild, Harold Hulme, was born. Leah lived to see Emerson graduate from Elgin Watchmaking College, become established in his trade in Salt Lake City, and marry Alice Emmett.

Lucile graduated with honors from LDS Business College, married Douglas Ream, and moved to California.

Nelle became a stenographer, married Harold Noall, and moved to Salt Lake City.

Evan graduated from University of Utah law school and went to Washington, D.C., where he married Ruth Martin two years after Leah's death.

Lois graduated from LDS Business College and was working in Boise when she married Fred Woolley three years after her mother's death.

Even though none of their children were living in the state, David and Leah remained in close touch with their family. Lucile and her three children made extended visits every summer. She was there with her parents June 10, 1932, when Leah, suffering terrible pain, died. The diagnosis was angina pectoris. All the children returned for their mother's funeral. She was buried beside her son in Bloomington cemetery. Her husband lived as a widower for 19 years before he joined them there.

At the time of her death there were nine grandchildren (later expanded to twenty-one). Each of these children could expect a box a various kinds of homemade candy on his or her birthday, just enough of each variety for each member of the family to have one piece. When they heard of her passing, the grandchildren lamented, "Now who will send us candy for our birthday?" Leah was a devoted, thoughtful wife, mother, and grandmother, and probably now a caring Guardian Angel to her family.

• Reference: FamilySearch Family Tree - SmartCopy: Jul 4 2021, 21:42:18 UTC