William Rich South by Elnora Empey (daughter)

 

William Rich South was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, September 18, 1861, eldest son of Charles and Elizabeth Rich South. When the South family lived in Salt Lake City, William lived with his Uncle John Taylor. The boys ran everywhere barefooted. They played games on the wall around the temple grounds. This wall originally was adobe so it was easy to make toe holes to cling too.

 

The boys loved to play around here; for here were stock, horses, cows, and other produce given for tithing in place of money, as a lot of people had no money. The produce at the tithing office was given to these people to use. It is easy for us to see how thrilling it must have been to see these people and help give them the provisions. Imagine the difference in their way of travel and living to come to conference compared to our way. It took two or three weeks to come from Star Valley for instance, and think of the travel in a wagon, campfire meals, and poor roads.

 

William loved to tell about conference times in Salt Lake City. People would come from far and near in wagons to conference. Around the Temple Square were built sheds for the people and animals to live under. Here the people met, danced, sang, and visited throughout conference time.

 

William also tells how the boys went in groups and herded cattle above town, where the upper part of Salt Lake City is now, in the spring, and then drove the herds down what they called cow pastures, where is now the lower part of the city. He also tells of two Negroes who came with the first families into Utah, either with John Taylors’ family or the Piedmont Smith’s.

 

When William was twelve years of age the Charles South family moved to Rich County. In those days the boys of the town had no money so they made their own fun. One favorite sport was breaking calves for oxen. They also hunted deer; the deer being used for hide and meat. They did logging. The people were very poor and instead of having potatoes to eat, they often had rutabagas instead. They used calf hides for overshoes. As a small lad in Randolph and when he grew older, he helped his father carve out coffins and water pails. Charles South made all the coffins in Randolph for a good many years.

 

At the age of fifteen he went with his uncle to Rush Valley to get wild horses. In those days that was wild country, and he tells about seeing the cowpunchers go to Salgtown to get drunk. When they were drunk they really celebrated. They would shoot all the bottles off the shelf at the saloon, and then in the morning when they were sober they would go to the owner of the saloon and pay for the damage, so no one was arrested.

 

At the age of seventeen, William and his brother, Ed, went to Park City to haul salt, and haul coal from Coalville to the smelter.

In 1885, June 24th, he married Sarah Jane Peart in the Logan Temple. Life in Randolph was hard. It was so cold in the winter that Jane used to put the dough at the foot of the bed so it wouldn’t freeze. To live and raise a family there was hard on both husband and wife. A doctor was so far away, a midwife was all the help one had. Not much could be raised to live on.

 

William often brought home a water bucket full of marbles. Playing marbles was the recreation of men also. He loved baseball and often he would be so stiff from this game; Janie would have to help him off and on with his coat. An old timer from Randolph made the remark that the South boys were the baseball game in Randolph for a number of years. William loved to ice skate. The people in Randolph had some real old fashioned parties in those days. Sometimes they wouldn’t get home until daylight, if they had to go very far.

 

William, like the rest of the people in that day, was very interested in politics and Election Day usually ended in a fight with a few black eyes and cuts. William was born by instinct a woodsman. He loved to work in wood, as a lumberman or as a carpenter. He operated a sawmill in Randolph for man years.

 

During the time William and Jane lived in Randolph they were blessed with nine children: John, Sarah Jane, Phoebe Agnes, Leona Elizabeth, Raymond Everett, Lera William, Elyndor Peart, Rhoda May and Olof. John died when a small boy and Olof died at birth. The family moved to Logan about 1904 where another child was born. This child was named Elnora.

 

They moved to Ogden in 1906 and while there, William worked as a carpenter, building houses. He also worked as a carpenter at the railroad shops. During the time he lived in Ogden, he went to Mexico for a six month’s stay to work as a carpenter.

 

In 1909 the family moved to Trenton to operate a small hotel. Here another son was born, George Peart. While in Trenton, Sarah or Sadie married Albert Brough, Phoebe married Earl Pratt, Leona married Earl Andrew and Raymond married Mabel Brough.

 

The love of the timber was in his soul and in 1917 he went to Iosepha to operate a sawmill of his own. The family moved to Grantsville in the winter of 1918 and in the summer of 1919 moved to Salt Lake city. He moved to Ogden in 1920, spent one winter in Kelse, California as a carpenter and then back to Ogden, but not to stay.

 

By this time Elyndor or Ellie was married to Mary Reed and Lera married Polly Elmer. In 1922 William, Janie and George went to Ely, Nevada. Rhoda and Elnora stayed in Ogden. In 1929 Rhoda married Lester J. Stevens and Elnora married Charles H. Empey.

 

About 1931 William and Janie came back to Ogden. But again the love of the timber called to William R. South and he went to work with his brother Sam at Island Park, with headquarters at Idaho Falls. Janie’s health was not very good so she stayed in Ogden during this time. She died in Ogden February 20, 1934.

In 1941, William’s health failed him, and he went to Trenton to live with Sarah and Albert. He died November 24, 1941. By this time George was married to Maxine Heiss.

 

William Rich South and his family traveled around a great deal. A relative of Leona’s once said “Your folks were like the old fable, ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss,’” but another friend on hearing this remark said, “That may be true, but a rolling stone smooths off all the rough corners and becomes smooth and shiny.” That was like Will South. He lead and interesting life.

 

CHARACTERISTICS

William loved to do things for his children. He came home one Christmas night and had carried a tree from the canyon where his mill was to home. He loved to take his children with him. He took them to circuses, once going all the way to Ogden in a covered wagon from Randolph. Where things were beautiful he loved his children to go. He was a good husband and kind father.

 

He had a mind of his own and did not like to be bossed. I think that is a characteristic of all the family and one that father and mother passed on to their children and grandchildren. He hated gossip of any kind or ugly or unclean stories. He would say if one cannot find good to say of people, don’t say anything.

 

He was clean morally and physically. He encouraged his children to cultivate friendship with the best of people. Money was not so important, but character, good character, was what he wanted in his friends and children’s friends.

 

William’s family and Jane’s family were of good pioneer stock. They dared the hardships of pioneer life. They obeyed the commandment to replenish the earth. They lived good clean lives and of them can be said, and I am sure will be said, as they passed the Pearly gates of Heaven, “Well done, thou good and faithful servants, inasmuch as yea have been faithful in small things and kept My commandments, enter into My Kingdom and abide here evermore”.

 

RELIGION

Religion played a big part in William’s life. Here are several faith promoting incidents in his life and the life of his father as told to Elnora. He told her of his father going with a group of scouts headed by Lot Smith. They met up with the officers and men of the army. The officers made them demount and mount again and no shots were fired. When the soldiers were sent out from Fort Bridger, the Mormons were sent to Echo Canyon. They stationed themselves on the sides of the canyon ready to roll rocks on the soldiers as they came in the canyon, therefore using a few men to advantage. Charles South was one of the men left in Salt Lake City to burn it at the time of the soldiers coming into Salt Lake City.

William South tells of being buried in the snow at Logan Canyon in fifteen feet of snow and men were guided to the place he was buried by the Hand of the Lord.

 

The men brought him out of the slide and laid him on the floor of the canyon, thinking he was dead, and were getting ready to come to town when he revived. It took him a long time to regain his health, but he recovered.

 

He had his thumb cut completely off by a saw in Ely, Nevada. The doctor scoffed at sewing it back, but Dad insisted. It got well and although a little stiff was as good as new.

 

Because his body was clean and he loved simple living, he was master of his body. One time while William and his son George were coming from work, when working at Horseshoe bend, Idaho, they stepped under a tree to get away from a thunderstorm. George said, “I don’t feel so good”, so they decided to move on. Fifteen minutes later a flood covered the area where they had been standing.

 

William donated money and labor to the church. He donated to the Randolph Stake House, Ninth Ward in Ogden, and the Ely, Nevada Tabernacle. He spent the last few years of his life helping to build the Idaho Falls Temple.

 

When a young lad, he helped bring the huge stones from the canyon to build the Salt Lake Temple. He helped to get the material out for the Logan Temple. Men were called to go to Logan from the towns around and help in the erection of the Logan Temple.

 

When he lived in Trenton, he had the only piano at that time and the church would borrow it for dances and other recreation. He donated chairs, tables, and gave much time to help fix the church for recreation.

 

At one time when he was working on the Idaho Falls Temple, he became displeased at his boss, so he quit. He stayed away for a day or two and then he thought to himself, “I am not working for this man; I am working for God”, so he went back to work. This incident typifies the character of Brother William South. Few men have had the privilege to help erect three such fine edifices for the Glory of God’s great work in a single lifetime.