· 26 April 2015 ·
Life Story of Elden Arthur Tolman 1914 – 1952 Written by Alta Rae Wilson Tolman, August 1959
Elden Arthur Tolman was born September 14, 1914 at Chesterfield, Idaho. He was the tenth child of Cyrus Tolman and Eliza Ann Riley Tolman. He was the youngest of the family. He had four sisters and five brothers.
Although Elden was baby brother to the rest of the family, he acted like a big brother to tiny eight month old Leora Peterson, a niece who came to live with the family. He romped with her and tended her. There was a strong bond of affection between the two children.
Elden’s father carried mail by horse and buggy to all parts of the country. His industrious mother made cheese and butter to sell. She cared for the sick, some of them in her own home, and acted as a mid-wife to many a mother.
His mother says of the boy Elden, “He usually was quiet and a pretty obedient boy.” Elden was never a boy to go away from home much. In the years Elden was growing up he was a good helper around the home. His mother sold around fifteen pounds of butter a week. Churning that butter grew to be a tiresome chore for a young boy even with a rhyme to say.
Come butter come, come butter come,
Peter’s standing at the gate
Waiting for a butter cake,
Come butter come.
Elden’s help was especially appreciated at haying time or threshing time. His father would say to mother, “Well, do you want me to get a girl for you?” and Mother would say, “No, let me have Elden. He’s better than a girl to help me.
About the time Elden started grade school, the family moved to Bancroft, Idaho. This is a larger community, not far from Chesterfield.
Elden enjoyed his early activities in the church. When he finished his Primary work he told his mother he just hated to quit going to Primary. Myrtle Call was the teacher, and she encouraged him to come back anytime he felt like it.
When Elden was eight, in fact on his birthday September 14, 1922, his father baptized him in Chesterfield. Wm. H. Robertson confirmed him on October 1, 1922.
In the fall of 1826, Elden was twelve and was ordained a Deacon. Elden’s priesthood ordination record follows:
October 26, 1930, ordained a teacher by Elmer Lloyd. June 12, 1932, ordained a Priest, by Joseph C. Call. “May 14, 1933, ordained an Elder by Oliver T. Steele. August 30, 1936, ordained a Seventy by John A. Widtsoe.
When Elden was about fifteen he had an illness that left its mark upon his life. They called it intestinal flu at the time, but it must have been something more serious. Whatever the illness, it left him with a weak heart. His physical activities from then on were restricted. Athletics were not permitted for him. It was after this illness that it seems he started having more nose bleeds.
When Elden attended the Bancroft High School, the principal was Charles McGregor. Elden respected and admired this man very much. When brothers Leonard and Olester went to Boise to attend High School, Elden didn’t want to go with them. He said he’d rather go to Bancroft High School, if Mr. McGregor was going to keep on teaching there.
It was when he was in High School that he got his leg broken. He had been swimming at Lava Hot Springs with George Jenkins and Harold Gooch. Coming over fish creek divide, Elden was thrown out of the truck they were riding in.
He was just getting around after breaking his leg when Bishop Joe Call came to see him. He asked him to go on a mission. His parents were proud to have him called. His older brothers had fulfilled missions. It was something the boys all expected to do. Of course, Elden accepted the call to go. So right after his graduation from high school, he departed June 9, 1933 for the Spanish American Mission which then included parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. His family is in possession of his very well kept missionary journals. They indicate a great personal growth and the joys and satisfactions that came to Elden from his missionary work. Elden was a boy when he went on his mission, but he matured on his mission and returned a man.
Just before Elden returned from his mission, his father and mother moved to Logan, Utah. They had always planned to go to Logan and work in the Temple when father quit carrying the mail. They moved into the small Hyde cottage just east of what is now the Logan L.D.S. Hospital, and on the spot where Sunshine Terrace now stands. They were only a half a block from the Temple, which made them very happy. When Elden returned from his mission December 24, 1935, he lived there with them.
Doctors had told Elden that he never would be able to stand hard physical work on a farm or ranch with his heart condition. So Elden decided to attend Utah State Agricultural College in Logan and learn to make a living some other way. At the college (now called Utah State University) Elden majored in Accounting and Secretarial Science and graduated in 1940. His choice of work proved to be very wise. He always enjoyed his accounting work and he was good at it.
In Logan, Elden and his parents lived in the L.D.S. Fifth ward. Elden was active in ward affairs. He regularly attended his priesthood meetings, Sunday School, M.I.A. and Jr. Genealogical meetings. Through church activities he made many good friends. The Izatt family, Zachary T. Champlin, Katie and Nolan Olsen, Veldon Jones, Irv Fish, Myrtle McCulloch, Margaret Gnehm are a few that I remember. It was through attendance and various church activities, mostly the genealogical meetings, that Elden and I (Alta Rae Wilson) met and became acquainted with each other.
Our paths were to part for several years. In 1939 I graduated from the U.S.A.C. and went away to teach school for four years. After graduating in 1940 Elden went to California to work and go to school some more. The journals he kept indicate a strenuous schedule. Up at 7:30 a.m. and off to school classes. Work as a bus boy at a Men’s Club at noon, home later to study and work at the garage (he had living quarters over the garage), to bed at 12:30 or 1:00. After some time he gave up working at the garage and took a couple of part time accounting positions. His journal indicates his continuing interest in the Mexican and Spanish-speaking peoples. He would often attend meetings at the Spanish branches of the church.
In September 1942, Elden returned to Logan, Utah. His father was seriously ill. On October 20, 1942, his father died in the Soda Springs, Idaho hospital. Elden did not return to California but remained in Logan and lived with his mother in the Hyde place. He was employed at the Utah State Agricultural College as an accountant in the office of Dean George D. Clyde (now governor of the state of Utah, 1959) in connection with the administration of the Naval Radio and Civilian Pilot and Army Specialized Training Programs.
In June 1943, I returned to live with my mother in Logan after four years of teaching school, at Tabiona, Utah and Lyman ,Wyoming. The summer of 1943, Elden and his mother moved into a home Elden was buying on the corner of Fourth North and Fourth East. This was only half a block from where I lived. Elden and I renewed our friendship. Friendship turned into courtship and soon after Christmas we became engaged. I had been teaching Homemaking at South Cache High School in Hyrum about five miles away and traveling back and forth each day. I finished out the year and on June 19, 1944, Elden and I were married in the Logan Temple. We made our home in the house Elden had bought the year before. His mother moved into an apartment at Cyrus William’s home, two blocks away.
In the summer of 1944, Elden became local auditor with Wickes Engineering Construction Company who set up a local plant in the college Field House for packing war supplies and equipment for over-seas shipment.
In 1945 as Wickes were terminating there operations in Logan, Elden learned of a possible job in the office of Utah Mortgage Loan Co. I can remember someone from the office coming to see Elden to find out if he were available for the position. As Wickes were moving out of Logan within the month it worked out just right. Elden became auditor for the Utah Mortgage Loan Co. I often thought it was too wearing on Elden.
Elden had other responsibilities too. He kept books and made financial reports for several small businesses. He would work on these in the evening. We both held various positions in the ward. I taught Beehives one year and Sunday School for several years. Elden was M.I.A. secretary for three years and was also secretary for the Seventy’s Quorum to which he belonged. Whatever the job Elden was involved in, he gave it his best. He gave full measure of his efforts. Sometimes I wondered if he was giving more of himself that he could afford, but he was happy.
We felt especially grateful and blessed when after two years of marriage our first daughter was born, on May 29, 1946. We named her Ellen. Before too long, she had a sister, born September 22, 1947. We named her Marie after my childhood friend. Now we were indeed a family, a very happy one. Elden was so proud of his family.
By March 1947, the old Fifth Ward had grown so large it was divided. It became the Eighteenth and Fifth wards. We were within the boundaries set for the Fifth. There was a new bishopric. On March 23, 1947, Dr. Joseph H. Symons was sustained bishop of the Fifth ward. His counselors were Roland A. Reese and Dr. H. Loran Blood. Elden was sustained as ward clerk. On March 30, 1947, he was set apart by Elder Marion G. Romney.
In July 1949 while on a visit to Bancroft, Idaho, Elden suffered a mild stroke and was confined to the Soda Springs Hospital. One side of his was paralyzed and his speech impaired. I’m certain it was through the faith and prayers of those who loved him that he was able to recover so quickly. He was discharged from the hospital after one week with no paralysis or speech defect. I had been trying to learn to drive the car each day as I went back and forth to the hospital. Usually Marva Hopkins drove with me. When Elden was discharged, I drove Elden, Little Marie and Ellen home to Logan alone. I felt quite confident with Elden in the back seat to instruct me if I got in a spot. We got home just fine but I wasn’t up to a return trip to Bancroft the next week to join in celebrating Elden’s mother’s Eightieth Birthday. Cyrus William drove the car. Elden wasn’t feeling very strong but he took it easy and no damage was done.
Utah Mortgage Loan gave Elden a month or six weeks to convalesce at home and gain back his strength. After several months back at work, it became apparent that the work was too strenuous and so with mutual consent and understanding Elden left the Utah Mortgage Loan Company.
In January 1950, Elden found employment with the Budge Studebaker Agency and garage as their accountant.
Early in January 1952, Elden got the flu. It was pretty hard on him. When he went to our doctor, Gordon Harmston, he found out his lungs were filling with water because of his heart condition. Dr. Harmston gave Elden medication to clear the lungs of water and put Elden on a diet. After a few weeks his condition seemed to be under control but Elden was not yet well. The first week Elden was sick, Mr. Budge, his employer came up to the house and told him he didn’t have his job any longer. We decided we’d have to borrow on Elden’s insurance but the Seventy’s Quorum just took over our monthly bills. At this time I wasn’t familiar with the welfare plan of the Church and when Brother Cecil B. Kenner, our bishop (now stake president) said to me to figure out what I needed and tell Sister Daines (Newell B. Daines) I didn’t know what he meant. That dear Relief Society president phoned me. I found out the help we were to receive from Church Welfare. Every week for six months we received all the meat, eggs, cheese, and grocer staples we needed.
One night early in February I came home from a meeting to find Elden gasping for breath. He had been trying to get enough breath to call the doctor, but he hadn’t been able to. Then I went into action and Elden started worrying about me. I was expecting our third child in less than a month. I got the rocker and a blanket for Elden. I called Mr. Mortimer, a neighbor, and asked him to get someone to come and administer to Elden. I called Dr. Harmston. When he came he gave Elden an injection in the vein and said he’d had a heart collapse. He ordered the ambulance to come and take Elden to the hospital. I said I was going to the hospital too. I called Fawn Rasmuson whom I’d just left when I returned from the meeting and asked her if she could come and stay with Ellen and Marie, until I could get back. It turned out to be all night. At the hospital, Elden was put in an oxygen tent and I was given a bed in a room all fixed up in case I had a baby. I didn’t have the baby. My dear mother was flabbergasted when I showed up at her door at 7 a.m. weary and disheveled. When I told her all that had happened she scolded me for not waking her at such a time of crisis.
Elden seemed to respond to treatment quite well. I visited him twice a day. There was always someone willing to drive me over and back. (I wasn’t a car driver yet!) We found so many friends who helped us in so many ways. At five o’clock in the morning on February 10, I called my friend Fawn again. The baby was on its way. Would she come and take me to the hospital. Mother Tolman had been staying with us while Elden was in the hospital so I left the children with her. My mother took the children sometimes to relieve her. Fawn took them one day and they made valentines and sent to the hospital for mama and daddy and baby brother. When Elden’s nurse told him he had a baby son he was mighty pleased. In a few days, they put him in a wheel chair down on the first floor and brought him up in the elevator to see us in the maternity ward on the second floor. Sometimes we would visit over the phone. Elden was able to walk around a bit and so we’d arrange for him to be in the nurse’s sitting room at a certain time and I would call him on the phone.
When the baby and I left the hospital, Elden walked down the corridor with us and we both felt badly that he had to remain. However, after I’d been home about a week, the doctor felt Elden’s condition was stable enough so he could come home too. We got a hospital bed and set it up in the living room for him. He still had to take a lot of medicine to control his condition and he had to rest in a fairly upright position. The nights were hectic: Elden’s pills every three hours, feed the baby every four hours. Again friends helped. Fawn or someone else would spend the night with me and feed the baby when it was time so I could rest. Gradually Elden grew stronger and we got into a routine we could manage. As he lay on the bed, Elden kept thinking up schemes to support the family if he ever got strong enough to work and go back to his office work. The days of convalescence seemed endless to Elden. He became quite despondent at times. Late in the spring, Elden was well enough to leave the house a little. On the fourth of May, the family all went to fast meeting and Elden named his son, Thomas Wilson Tolman, and gave him a father’s blessing.
By June, Elden was doing a little accounting work for Crystal Furniture Co. In August he went to work for the Bluebird Café and Candy Co. as full time accountant. Things were beginning to look up for us. Then early in October Elden caught a cold. The evening of October 6, the children were tucked in bed and Elden was lying on the sofa. I was washing some things in the kitchen when I was startled by a sound. I rushed into Elden but he had passed quickly and easily away. His tired heart had made its last struggle to keep going and had failed.
Only a few weeks before Elden died, we found we were to have another child. Seven months after Elden died I gave birth to our fourth child, a strong, healthy little girl, we call Shirley (May 8, 1953).
Elden’s insurance enable me to finish paying for our house and kept us going until I went back to teaching school in 1955. After Shirley was a couple of years old I went back to college and got an Elementary Teaching Certificate. Yes, I finally learned to drive a car, confidently. Ellen, Marie, Thomas (Tommy), Shirley, and I still live in the white house on the corner that Elden bought the year before we were married.
I’m grateful for the few years Elden and I had together, for our family of four, and for the friends and loved ones who have encouraged, comforted, and guided me, and for my testimony of the Gospel. I know that one day our family will be reunited: Alta, Elden, Ellen, Marie, Thomas and Shirley will be together.
Visit FamilySearch to learn more about Elden Arthur Tolman. Visit the Thomas Tolman Family Organization to find out how you can get more involved in family history.