Elbert Vinson Call and Hannah Lucretia Tolman
Contributed By: jessicatomkinson · 27 March 2015 ·
Hanna Lucretia Tolman married Elbert Vinson Call on 11 August 1902 when she was only 14 years of age. They were married by Elbert’s Great Uncle Chester Call with a little ceremony in Chesterfield, Idaho, in the newly constructed Chester V. Call home. Everyone mentioned how kind spirited Lucretia was and always thought she was rather beautiful to look at.
Elbert and Hannah Lucretia lived in Chesterfield, Idaho for about one year‒ down in the field from his father’s home. “We always packed our water from the well to the house; put it on the stove to warm it for baths and clothes washing. We had to rub our clothes on a washboard. I remember my first washer which was run by hand. I was washing just before my first baby was born and Elbert was there. I was having such a time trying to rub the clothes clean. He wanted to help rub the clothes and as you might know, he had never rubbed clothes on a board before. He would rub on one place until he would nearly wear the clothes out. By the next week, we had a washer… hand-turned, of course,” Hannah said.
It was at Chesterfield that the first child, a girl, was born on 15 December 1902. She was premature and died the same day. This tiny baby was given the name Mary Call, and buried in the town cemetery. What a very sad time this was for Lucretia and Elbert.
About August of 1903, they packed their things in a wagon and went over the mountains to Blackfoot, Bingham, Idaho. They arrived in Riverside, a small town five miles from Blackfoot. There they bought a small acreage… about 20 acres, and built a house that was 12 feet by 12 feet. They thought it was a pretty nice home. It was wall papered and had a rag carpet that covered the floor from wall-to-wall.
Elbert and Lucretia made a special trip to Salt Lake. On the way, they stopped in Bountiful to see relatives and to obtain their patriarchal blessings from Elbert’s half-uncle, Patriarch Israel Barlow. They were told that their linage was through Ephraim. Also, that their descendants would help build the temple in the Center Stake of Zion and work there for both the living and the dead. Both were told that they were very noble spirits with a special work to do upon the earth at this time. Elbert was also told that his ancestors who had died were privileged to watch over and guide him from the Spirit World. Genealogical work was also mentioned. Two days later on 10 October 1906, Elbert and Lucretia entered the Salt Lake Temple. What a glorious day it must have been when they realized the beauty of the endowment, marriage for eternity, and had their two children sealed to them. Venus would have been two years old and little Mary was not forgotten. They would now forever be a part of the eternal family circle.
This trip was certainly difficult for the young family. Horse and buggy was almost certainly the mode of transportation. In addition, Lucretia was five months along with their 3rd child who was born on 17 February 1907.
Nona was our third child. When she was 2 months old, a terrible thing happened. One afternoon Lucretia came from her neighbors and laid Nona on the bed. The she put chips in the stove and went to
gather the eggs. When Lucretia came out of the coop, smoke was coming out all over the roof. She ran to the house and found it full of flames. She went in and got the baby, took her out and laid her in the alfalfa patch. Then, Lucretia went back in to see if she could save something, but was not able to do so. All they had was what clothes were on their back. Elbert was away working at the time. How bad Lucretia felt with two little children and no home. “We then moved to an old house not far from there that had belonged to his father. So with a small stove, table, bed and boxes for cupboards, we started to keep house again.
With only twenty acres of land to farm, it was necessary for Elbert to seek other employment. Shearing sheep was what he chose. This work was done year after year and took him away from home…at times as far away as Wyoming.
On 30 November 1908, another child was born at Riverside. He was named Varian. This little boy died when only three months old on March 6, 1909. It was a very sudden death and occurred at home. The cause is still a mystery. Some say this baby was being fed from the table (as was custom then) and ate a lot of greasy food like fried potatoes, then convulsions with vomiting followed. Death may have been due to aspiration of undigested food particles. What a sad time this must have been. Elbert and Lucretia had already lost one baby and now to lose yet another one. Lucretia notes that they buried this little boy in the Thomas Cemetery which is located about two or three miles from Riverside, Idaho.
Varial was born 9 January 1910. When he was about two months old, they bought one 120 acres of land at Wapello, Idaho, which is about 7 miles from Blackfoot. Again, we had the misfortune of having the house burn just before we moved there. Only two old log rooms with the side of one room burned off was left, so we had to nail a tent up to the house until we could get it boarded up. It also had a dirt roof and when it rained, we would have to roll up our bedding to keep from getting it wet.
On the 29 February 1912, a little girl was added to the family. She was named LeOta, and the spelling was influenced by Lucretia’s sister, Myrtle, who was present to help with the birth. Myrtle had traveled down from Salem, Idaho to be with her sister. Of course, babies were born at home then. LeOta was a very pretty child with dark brown hair and eyes. Her father used to tease and say that they had gotten her from a squaw at the nearby Fort Hall Indian Reservation where he had sheared sheep for the Indians there..
The next important event in the Call home was the birth of another son on 17 January 1914. He was blessed on 5 April 1914 by Bishop C.A. Merkley and given the name of Jerold. He was our 7th child and very much wanted. Lucretia was a true Mother in Israel because even after the fifteenth child, when she knew there would be no more children, she said that it saddened her to think there would be no more babies.
In 1915, Elbert V. Call was put in as the 1st counselor to Bishop Ezra S. Buchan. He had fulfilled other church callings as an Elder and now at 34 years of age, he was ordained a High Priest by Apostle Orson F. Whitney on 8 August 1915.
There were 2 other events in 1915. The first was the death of Judson A. Tolman on 4 July 1915 at Preston, Idaho. Lucretia thought a great deal of her kind and gentle father and this would have been a sad time. Yet, later that year on 13 November 1915, a new baby girl brought joy into their home. They named her Zola A. Call. The ‘A’ was only an initial and one wonders if it might have been for Lucretia’s father.
On 19 November 1916, Apostle B.H. Roberts set Elbert apart as the Bishop of the Wapello Ward. He held this position until 9 May 1920. His sister Mabel has said that he was a very good bishop. Many times he and his wife risked their health by visiting members who were afflicted with typhoid, diphtheria, and other contagious diseases. But the Lord blessed them not to catch any of these conditions.
Erma was born on the 26 of November 1917 at Wapello. She says, “I have heard my mother tell many times of when I was about 6 months old that I was very sick and the doctor pronounced me dead. But mother couldn’t accept this and told an older sister, Nona, to run and get her father… that the baby’s eyes were beginning to set. Father came; I was administered to and recovered.”
Two years later, almost to the day, another daughter blessed the home of Elbert and Lucretia. She was given a most meaningful name of Annis L. Call. The first name was for her father’s mother Annis J. Barlow Call, and the initial ‘L’ stood for her mother Lucretia. She was born 27 November 1919 at Wapello.
In the spring of 1920, on the 9th of May, the father of this family was released as Bishop of the Wapello Ward and then put in as an alternate High Councilman of the Blackfoot Stake on 16 of May of the same year. This occasion caused the family to move from Wapello to a new farm one mile out of Blackfoot.
Nona recalls that she was in the 8th grade at Blackfoot and that she helped a lot when her next sister, Wanda, was born on 3 October 1921. Of course she was born at home as were those before her. Nona washed dishes, neighbors came to help, her father cooked, and the doctor arrived after the baby was born. Nona was away at the exact moment of the birth because she had been sent to the neighbors to find a better light.
In about May of 1923, the family packed all their belongings and moved to Flowell, Utah. This was a long trip as Flowell is near Fillmore in South Central Utah. Nona had wen there at least a year earlier to stay with friends and go to school. She says that her family traveled in a Model T Ford and were quite uncomfortable due to the leakage of gasoline. The gas tank was under the front seat and when it leaked, there was gasoline on her clothes. The wetness as well as the fumes must have made for a most undesirable trip. They first located on the Dan Steven’s Place. When farming proved unprofitable in that area of low rainfall, the family moved to first Flowell and then Fillmore while Elbert worked out shearing sheep.
On 5 January 1924, Venus was married to Edyth Garret at Nephi, Utah. Edyth was real friendly and Erma recalls that she would sit on the cupboard counter and sing songs to the children.
Nine days after this marriage, Sherman was born at Flowell on 14 January, 1924. He was blessed by his father on 2 March 1924. Nona was present and helped her mother at the time of his birth.
Then later in the year, Nona married Melville Alexander Tomkinson in the Temple on 4 June 1924. So, many important events took place that year.
Aunt Zola says, “I remember while we lived in Flowell we were so happy for the 4th and 24th of July because they had celebrations and Momma got some of this dotted Swiss material. Seems like she made one me and one for Erma. One was blue and one was orchid. She didn’t have a pattern as I remember. The pattern was made by cutting it out of a newspaper. Then we had a new pair of patent leather slippers. Oh, I really felt I had something. Because as I remember we had one pair for Sunday best and a pair we wore to school. By summer quite often they were wore out and we quite often has to go barefoot for every day. My, I hated that… getting stickers in your feet.”
It was wile in Utah that Lucretia had typhoid fever. Her husband was away from home working and she was so very sick. In those days people died of typhoid fever. It has only been since the discovery of Penicillin in the 1940’s and the advent of immunization vaccines that this dreaded disease has been almost completely wiped out. It is interesting to note that the symptoms include chills and fever, exhaustion, headache, and other aches, diarrhea, and possibly clots in blood vessels. A possible complication is to have the hair fall out. This did happen to Lucretia. Erma and Nona both recall of how her long hair was just falling out by the handfuls and so it was cut off short.
Erma says also that when they lived in Flowell, she remembers Venus’ wife died while giving birth to a daughter, Beth. She remembers kneeling with my mother and all the family around the bed and crying. Erma also says, “I honor and revere my father and mother for the examples they set for me. They were firm in the gospel, they taught us to work, always working with us and leading us. During the summers I thought we had such fun taking lunches and going with my father to thin beets. I remember how we would sing as we rode along. Oh, how tired we were when we returned in the evening.”
At last Elbert and Lucretia decided that they just couldn’t make a living in Utah and decided to return to Idaho. It is not known just why they decided to move to the Boise Valley, but this is what they did. When they left Fillmore, there were 8 children piled into a little Model T Ford. Oh, how cramped and tired it made them. Each time they could stop at a fruit stand, all the children got out and rolled on the grass and tried to exercise their tired legs. All household goods were shipped in the train. Still there wasn’t enough room.
This trip that seemed to take forever took them to Blackfoot, Idaho first where Elbert borrowed $100.00 from his father to help them get on to the Boise area. When they finally arrived, they lived with Elbert’s sister Lula Nelson and family. Aunt Lula says that when they arrived at their home in Nampa, the only food they has was a hundred pound sack of dry beans. Lucretia recorded that this trip from Utah was begun on 7 September 1926.
After staying with the Nelson’s a short time, the family located on a farm at Locust Grove, halfway between Nampa and Meridian. It was here that Elsie was born on 19 February 1927. Erma recalls that
on that evening, their mother hurried them all off to bed and told them to go right to sleep. Of course they were suspicious that something was going to happen and guessed that the baby would be born. Sure enough, as they listened, the sounds of the household indicated that something exciting was about to happen. They listened as hard as they could and at last they heard the cry of a newborn baby. Next came a knock at the door and in came the doctor. Their father told him that it wasn’t even worth his dirtying his hands as the baby was already born. He had delivered the baby by himself.
Elsie was really named by her older brother Varial. She says that she has been told that Varial was dating a girl by the name of Elsie and this is why he liked the name. Elsie also says that Nona had come up from Utah to help her mother with this birth. Nona was expecting Howard at the time. Another interesting part of this story is that as a baby, Elsie slept with her parents until the next child was born and she had to sleep with LeOta. It is news to the latest generation that babies didn’t sleep in cribs very much in those days. In fact, all of the Call children slept with their parents when they were infants.
Next, the family moved to another farm near Meridian, Idaho. They lived here for nearly two years before buying the McIntyre farm in the Riverside community of Canyon County, Idaho. Erma’s mother and father-in-law to be had homesteaded that farm and lost it during hard times when they didn’t have $100 dollars for payment.
Vernon was born on 23 March 1929 in Nampa, Idaho. Lucretia stayed with her sister-in-law on the Call side (Aunt Mona to the children). He was blessed by Elder Robert Lewis Ord on 7 July 1929, and named Elbert Vernon Call in honor of his father.
The last child, a boy, was born on 25 May 1931, at a hospital in Nampa. Dale was premature and his mother had albumin poisoning so she had to have this child in the hospital. The full name for this baby was Chester Dale Call in honor of his grandfather Chester Vinson Call.
A very sad event of the same year occurred on 23 September 1931. Lucretia’s mother, Mary Ann Howard Tolman, passed away in Salt Lake City, Utah. At first it didn’t look like Lucretia would get to go to the funeral, but when Varial heard about this he said, “You’ll go too because I will take you.” So he fixed up his car and took his mother to the funeral.
During the depression years, the family took on various money raising projects to make ends meet. Two of the projects were raising turkeys and chickens. One year they had around 2000 chickens and over 1000 turkeys. They butchered their own turkeys and sold the grade A and B. Grade C had crooked breasts and so were kept for the family to eat. They were butchered and then hung up in the attic of their big two-story house. The coldness of the winter weather preserved them well, and thus the family had turkey to eat for quite a while. Erma recalls that when they herded turkeys, they slept near them at night in a tent. Two children usually stayed each night, an older one with a younger one. One night, Erma and one of her younger sisters or brothers were staying when they were suddenly awakened by the sound of turkeys in distress. What a noise they made with their wings. It was at least 3 days that all of the turkeys came back to the camp. The cause of the disturbance was coyotes.
It should be mentioned that their mother, Lucretia, was the one that had to manage these projects because there was more than enough farm work to keep their father busy. Each morning she would boil the cracked eggs, cut them up, use scissors to cut alfalfa or other greens into this mixture, and then feed this to the turkeys.
Annis remembers that once she became so disgusted with those turkeys for not letting others get up to the food that she picked up a rock and threw it. That rock hit one turkey on the head and he fell over dead. Wanda had a similar accident.
When herding cows or turkeys, it was not uncommon to come upon a rattlesnake. Annis recalls that she was about the only one that didn’t run from them. She would pick up a rock and kill it, then cut off the rattles to show the rest.
All of the children took turns and helped herd cows and turkeys. Other chores included milking the cows, separating the milk, selling eggs, cleaning the chicken house, etc. Erma says that they would get Wanda aggravated by teasing her and then she would go out and clean the big chicken house. These chores were not all that were involved with farm life for the growing children. Boys and girls alike had to go out into the field to help out with the haying, picking up potatoes, etc. Annis recalls that once her father raised squaw corn. She and others took turns staying home from school that fall to get it picked. Of course the picking was done by hand, and there were no modern corn picking machines at that time.
Erma says, “There was years during the Depression when we couldn’t always get to all of our meetings, but Papa would try hard to get us to Sunday school and Sacrament meeting. I will always thank them for their teaching and the testimony I have as a result of this teaching. I can still see Mother pumping water and having us children help her to haul water in buckets to heat it on a coal stove. Then starting with several inches of water in a round tub, the Saturday night baths began. Adding a little hot water before each child took his turn. Sunday is a real special day to me now, but at the time, I got tired of Papa reading the Bible. But then Mother usually had a cream cake afterwards.”
LeOta says, “Another fond memory was that on Fast Day we would kneel in prayer even though we weren’t having breakfast, then we would go to Sunday school.” Family prayer was a daily occurrence in the Call home. The chairs were all turned around so kneeling at them would be easier. This was a tradition that Lucretia brought from her childhood home.
The Call’s ate well-rounded, yet simple meals prepared from food they had raised themselves. Many a supper consisted of bread and milk, onions or radishes in season, and apricots for fruit. Erma tells that apricots were their main fruit because there was an orchard at the side of the house and 9/10 of the trees were apricots. She said that soon, after school let out for the summer, those apricots would begin to ripen. Of course, the top of the tree would ripen first, so up when the ladders and the apricot season began. Lucretia would bottle several hundred quarts and then dry the rest. None were wasted. Since bottles were being emptied for daily meals, she would fill these too. So when autumn came, all the jars were full.
Clothing was another scarce item during the Depression. Most of the children had only one dress or pair of pants for school. Many times there were only shoes for church. Once when LeOta was working for Forney’s in Boise, Mrs. Forney gave her a box of shoes for the family. Everyone was so happy. Their mother told them that each one could have a pair to wear. Even though these shoes didn’t always fit the style of the day, or the feet they covered, they were very much appreciated. Now it was possible to cross the stubble field and sticker patches with feet protected.
Varial married Imogene Wood 14 November 1933. Earlier that same year, LeOta had married George Steele in the Cardston Alberta Temple. Then, in 1935, Erma had married Frank Alexander William McIntyre. Each son or daughter-in-law was welcomed into the family circle with complete acceptance, especially by Lucretia.
Written by Hannah Lucretia Call
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