MarDella LaRocco Crump 1931- 2024
Daughter of William Raymond and Margaretta Werrett LaRocco
Wife of Delbert Grant Crump
My grandparents on my mother's side were both from Wales. They didn't know one another until they met in Midvale. They were teenagers when they arrived in America. My mother's mother was a Williams and her father was a Werrett. My father's mother's family came from England. She was a Quayle and my father's father Joseph (Guiseppi) LaRocco came from Italy. He met and married my grandmother Abigail Quail in Dingle, Bear Lake County, Idaho.
My mother was born on 19 January 1896 in Midvale. My father was born in Dingle, Bear Lake County, Idaho on 5 November I 892.
My mother lived in Midvale until her family moved to Silver City when she was thirteen years old. She had just completed the eighth grade. In her early twenties, while visiting her friend, Iretta, in Midvale, she met and fell in love with my father. They were married in Silver City, Juab County, Utah on 22 June 1916. Seventeen years later on 12 January 1933, they were sealed in the Manti Temple. We children were all sealed to our parents on that day. My youngest sister was born under the covenant two years later. She was a dainty little blond-as light as I was dark.
My parents made their home in Midvale where my sister Mary was born on March 9, 1918. To find better employment, my parents and Mary moved to my Grandpa and Grandma Werrett's home in Silver City in 1919. My sister Rayma was born in Silver City at my Grandparent's home on April 4, 1920. Dad worked at the mill with my grandfather.
In December of 1923, my father went to work at the Tintic Standard Mines at Dividend, Juab County, Utah. Mother, Mary and Rayrna soon followed. Dividend was a little mining community in the Tintic area. During the boom days in the late 1800's, the Tintic Mining District, which included Eureka, supported more than 125 active mines and produced billions of tons of gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc. Dividend is no long there. It was located in the hills between Elberta and Eureka. There were many firsts for Eureka. The first J. C Penny Store was built in Eureka. Another first for Eureka was The First Fraternal Order of Elks Lodge, No. 711, which was founded in 1909. The lodge is still standing. Eureka also has the state's oldest Catholic Church and convent, well over 100 years old; the old LDS Church, transformed into a reunion hall; and many downtown buildings which are listed on the National Historic Register.
In the early years while they lived in Dividend and Silver City, mother said that they sometimes observed a Klu Klux Klan cross burning in the hills above the town at night.
My brother William Gilbert was born in Dividend on 9 June 1924. Another brother Raymond Darrell followed on 24 October 1926. On 10th of February 1929 Franklin Samuel was born.
At 3:15 A.M. on Thursday, February 5, 1931, the LaRocco family welcomed a much anticipated addition---me. After having three little boys, my family prayed for a little girl. Mother encountered no serious complications with my birth. She had turned 35 years old in January and my Dad had turned 38 years old the previous November. My birth certificate lists him as a miner and mother as a housewife. -
Mother planned on my being born on my Grandmother Werrett's birthday, which would have been I 7 December 1930, but for some reason I wasn't ready for this cold world. My sister Rayrna always teased me saying that I stopped the birth to see a movie and took my own sweet time to make my entrance. How silly is that?
When I finally did arrive six weeks later, I weighed 9-1/2 pounds. Mother said that I had a lot of dark curly hair and that I smiled at the nurse. My sisters told me later that this was really true inasmuch as they had witnessed my birth. Mary Pearl was thirteen years old. Rayma Naoma was eleven, Raymond Darrell was four, Franklin Samuel was two. My little brother William Gilbert would have been six. William died June 11, 1928 three years before my birth. He had been diagnosed with Nephrites, a disease of the kidneys. He and mother were at the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake for several months. Mother was finally told to take him home and prepare for his death. Nothing more could be done for him. On the few occasions when mother left the hospital, she stayed with her brother and sister-in-law Will and Belle Werrett.
To prepare William for burial, he was placed on mother's Singer sewing machine cabinet. Rayrna said that it was hard to use the sewing machine after that. The smell of formaldehyde was present for some time. This was such a hard time for my parents and for their three surviving children. Mom said that Darrell who was just two years old was so sad. He kept looking for his big brother and wondered where he had gone.
The cost of a home baby delivery at that time was $25.00. The miners paid a monthly fee of $.50 per month for health care. Mrs. Brim was the nurse and Dr. Callahan was the attending doctor at my birth. Dr. Wherret (pronounced like my mother's maiden name, but the spelling was different) was the other doctor for the miners.
Since I was a big baby, my sisters were eager to take care of me. My brother, Frank, who had been born two years earlier, was a frail little baby and every one had been afraid to hold him. He was what they called a "blue baby" because he was born with a heart murmur.
My little sister Beth was born June 5, 1935
I have been asked many times over my nearly eighty years, how my parents came up with my name, since there aren't very many with this name and the spelling is unique. The story from my mother was that because my little cousin could not pronounce my mother's name, which is "Margaretta", she called her what to my mother sounded like "mardetta". This gave my parents the idea to name me "MarDella". I don't know why they decided to use a capita] "D". I guess it looked fancy since my last name had two capitals in it. I went through elementary and junior high without my name being much of an issue. At least at this age, I don't recall any instances. But, when I entered high school as a sophomore, I was really embarrassed by my algebra teacher "Snide" Taylor. I was basically rather shy anyway and being new to a high school situation, Mr. Taylor, on the first day of school, was taking the roll call and asked me to spell my name. I, of course, spelled it emphasizing a capital "D" in MarDella and a capital "L" in
LaRocco. He looked up from the roll with a questionable look on his face and in a very gruff voice remarked, "What was wrong with your mother to give you a name like that?" I could have fallen through the floor. I was as hurt as only a child can be hurt. After calling the roll and starting the class, he yelled, "Little girl in the green sweater, what is 13 times 13? Of course, I was the little girl on the very back row in the green sweater and how was I to know 13 times 13? In elementary and junior high, we had only memorized up to 12 times 12. If I hadn't been so frightened, and he would have given me a minute, I could have figured it out. Snide was the football coach and if he lost a game on a Friday night, he was like a "bear" on Monday morning. I really hated his class, but, somehow, I did manage to pass with a fairly good grade.
Several years later, I got back at Snide. This was after Del and I were married. Delbert was a principal and we attended a party with some teachers, principals and administrators. It was at the Sandy Park and was served buffet style. Snide wanted to hurry and get something to eat, but instead of him getting first in line, he yelled to me, "MarDella, come over here and get in line." I walked over to him and in a quiet voice said, "Mr. Taylor, you could give me orders in the classroom when I was a sophomore, but you can't give me orders now. You get in line first. I will eat when 1 am ready. 1 walked away feeling very triumphant. Somehow when one becomes an adult and almost an equal to a former teacher, one becomes less intimidated by them.
I didn't especially care for my name, but I did find that over the years when I encounter a former friend, school mate or acquaintance, I might not come up with their name immediately, but almost always they remember my name. So thank you Mom and Dad.
Some of my earliest memories of my childhood in Dividend were playing with my brothers. I tagged along with them as often as they would let me. They played ball and chased lizards or whatever else they could find in the hills of that mining camp. We sometimes would walk through the sagebrush down to the ball field. They always watched out for me. Frank and I were very close. I would watch out our front window in the afternoon for my brothers to come home from school. One day a week, I would go with my mother to Relief Society. Our Church building was in Elberta, several miles down the canyon.
My best friend in Dividend was Erma Dean Voltz. There were other friends there, but Erma Dean and I lived close to each other and so we were together often.
In the winter, the kids would sled down what was called New Town Hill. There was always a group of kids playing outdoors-winter or summer. We had to make our own entertainment because we didn't have all the technology that the kids have today.
Our neighbors on the north of our home were the Berquists. They had a large Chinese ceramic Budda sitting on their floor. It was almost as big as my sister Beth. They would let me sit by it and touch it. 1 thought it was great. Berquists only had one girl who was probably fifteen years older than I so they paid attention to me and Beth.
My hair had a natural soft curl to it and mother used to wrap my slightly wet hair around her finger and brush it to make a curl-much like Shirley Temple's hair style. As I got older, she would wrap my hair on strips of cloth or strips of brown bags for a tighter curl. When a teenager, I would put my hair up in pin curls. We would take a few pieces of hair and wrap it in a curl tight to the head and stick a bobby pin over it to hold it down. This became a problem during the war when we could not get bobby pins. My Uncle Earl Okelberry ran the Okelberry store in Goshen and we were able to get bobby pins from him. Later rollers came into being. As a young girl I wore my hair long, but when I became a teenager, I cut it in a windblown style.
My older sisters always had a lot of friends and we younger children had fun whenever they came around. They liked to make taffy and fudge. They would pour the fudge in a big tray and then place it outside to cool. We didn't have the convenience of a refrigerator. (I bought my mother her first refrigerator when I was a teenager.) The group had a lot of fun making taffy as they pulled and pulled until it would break into pieces. I wonder how many times the animals got their treats when they placed them outside to cool. Sometimes they would pop popcorn. This was done by putting com kernels in a wire basket and then placing it over the stove and shaking it quickly in a back and forth motion until all the kernels popped. The stove was not electric or gas. The top of the stove was kept hot by burning wood and coal in it.
When I was about three years old, Darrell (Ray), Frank and I came down with scarlet fever. In those days, when a child had a communicable disease, the whole family would be under quarantine and a sign was placed in the window to warn people to not go to that house. Mother made sure that we stayed in the bedroom where the shades were drawn so the light would not harm our eyes. She scared us by telling us we would go blind if we looked outside, so we were very obedient, but it was hard to stay in those dark rooms with no lights. We didn't have TV then, but even if we did, we would not have been able to watch it. Mother did tell us a lot of stories to entertain us.
In the spring of I 936 as our family was traveling home after Mary's graduation from Payson High, the school bus suddenly came around the bend and forced our car to the side of the road where we hung precariously over the edge of a deep ravine. We all carefully climbed out the side furthest from the ravine. We stood outside the car frightened and in shock. Word got to the town that we had gone over
the cliff Needless to say, the town people were so happy when it was reported that we were all safe. My mother often remarked how grateful she was that our guardian angels had protected us from such a disaster.
My family loved living in Dividend, mostly because of the people there. Mother and my sisters always said how happy they were there and they often talked about the wonderful people who were their friends and neighbors. They told us many stories that I wished I had written down about the Felt's, the Sullivan's, the Tulupos', Mike and Mae Andrews, the Berquist's, the Malstrom's, the Hickman's, the Colton's, the Moody's, the Kirkendahls, the Eltons, the Blaines', the Erekson's and many more that I no longer remember. There is something about people who have lived in a community like Dividend who are never forgotten.
Dividend still holds reunions in the Elks Lodge at Eureka. Blaine and l attended a couple of these reunions. The first one that I went to, I felt so strange. We went in a little late and l went over to a lady who was putting things away and introduced myself. She immediately turned around and looked at me and yelled, "MarDella". She called her brother who was at the other end of the room and said, "Don, we have found MarDella". He came over and gave me a hug. She then pulled a picture out of her box and gave me a copy. It was a picture of four little kids. We looked like refugees from the war. She, her brother, her sister, Erma Dean and I were in the picture. I will never forget how excited she was to see me. Here it was seventy years later and she had not forgotten me.
(more in separate blog posts)
Kommentare