Ada Vilate Hendricks History

Ada Vilate Hendricks
February 27, 1888 to March 30, 1975

Ada Vilate Hendricks was born February 27, 1888, in Richmond, Utah, to Alma Hendricks and Julia Vilate Petty Hendricks. Ada was the oldest child and only daughter, she was to become sister to five younger brothers:


Thomas Alma born November 17, 1889
Joseph Vernon born January 25, 1892
Wren Petty born November 8, 1894
William Fenton born December 17, 1896
Lewis James born July 4, 1899.

Left to Right
Ada, Thomas, Wren, Fenton, Lewis

Ada’s parents with their first two children Ada and Thomas made their first move to Rexburg, Idaho, along with a brother, Joseph Smith Hendricks and Vilate’s sister Margaret Emma Petty, and two of their children. James Funk, then a teenage boy from Richmond, went with the Hendricks families to help drive the cattle. They farmed for about two years. They lived on the same block and worked their farms together. Another son, Vernon, was born during their stay in Rexburg. During this time a terrible epidemic of diphtheria broke out. Nearly every family in the town was stricken and most of them lost children. Ada recalls that her father rode horse back through blizzards to administer and sit up nights with the sick and dying. Upon returning home he would remove his clothes and leave them hanging on an open screened porch, hurray into the house where a tin tub of warm water with a little carbonic acid poured in for a disincentive, had been prepared by his wife Vilate. None of his family contracted the disease. Alma and Joe’s father, William Dorris Hendricks of Richmond, Utah, insisted that his sons move closer to home. Alma moved his family to Lewiston, Utah, where he farmed for a short time and then the family returned to Richmond where the fourth child, Wren, was born.



Alma Hendricks Julia Vilate Petty Hendricks



While the family lived in Richmond, the baby Wren became ill with spinal meningitis. It was winter and there was no doctor in Richmond. Two mid-wives Sarah Ann Lewis and Melinda Funk cared for him. He was ill for about six weeks. Vilate’s sister Margaret practically lived with the family to help nurse the baby who needed care around the clock. They took turns holding him on a pillow. Alma, Joe, Vilate and Margaret changed off sitting in a rocking chair holding the feverish baby. Ada’s parents lived in a one-room house with a shanty built on the back. They would go out of the shanty back door and reach icicles hanging from the sloping roof, bring them in and place in a large bowl kept on a table by the side of the baby. At times the restless baby rolled his head from side to side. Each time he put out his feverish tongue, whoever was holding him would put a drop of water in his mouth from the bowl. They wet and wrung cloths from the cold water and placed them on his head. The baby was struggling to survive.
A young doctor from Canada, Herbert Adamson, moved to Richmond to establish a practice. Dr. Adamson came to visit the baby daily after getting settled in Richmond. He advised Vilate not to “cling” to the child because if he lived, he would be affected in some way. Ada remembers her mother kneeling by the side of her bed and praying aloud for the baby boy. She would ask the Lord that if it was to be that her baby should live, that he would be perfect in mind and body. Wren lived to be a perfectly normal person mentally and physically. He and his wife Emma Blair raised two boys and four daughters. At the time of his death in 1974, at age seventy two, he had twenty three grandchildren and forty nine great-grandchildren.

The next move was to Logan where the fifth child Fenton was born. Ada’s father went to work for the Central Milling Company. They lived a short time in the Seventh Ward, where my paternal great-grandfather Chistian John Larsen, a Danish Convert, was bishop. Most of his congregation was Danish converts. They were either sent or congregated here when they arrived in Utah. One Sunday afternoon Alma encouraged Vilate to attend Sacrament Meeting while he stayed at home whit the children. The entire service was conducted in Danish and when Vilate returned home, Alma asked if she enjoyed the meeting. She said she had, but she hadn’t understood one word that was spoken.

They later lived in a house that the Central Mill Company owned. It was located on the east side of Main Street about two blocks south of the business district. Ada attended first a one-room school house in the Seventh Ward where only beginners studied. Late she went to the Woodruff School. Ada remembers the day President Lorenzo Snow visited in Logan and her father took her to town to watch the parade in his honor. She remembers him vividly as a handsome, elderly man with a beautiful white beard, riding in a splendid carriage.

When Ada was ten years of age, in 1898, her parents moved the family to Coveville, later called Cove. They lived in the house by the side of the flour mill and Alma became miller of the High Creek Mill for the next eleven or twelve years. They also farmed and knew all the hardships of the pioneering days. They hauled firewood from the canyons so they could heat their homes and cooked with wood stoves. They used coal oil lamps to light their humble homes. Their water was dipped from the creek about half a block away and hauled in creamery cans to the house, usually by the children in their little red play wagon. Water was heated in a reservoir on the side of the kitchen stove. Visualize a farming community that started with one home high in the mountains at the head of High Creek, a wide shallow and in some places a swift stream. About every mile down the narrow, winding road was a farmhouse. The High Creek flour mill and Hendricks home stood on flat-land at the mouth of the canyon. This was the perfect location for the mill race. It was atypical Currier-Ives setting, sheds, barn and corral, chicken coops, picket fence and tall poplar trees surrounded the house. Ada wrote, “Our life in Cove, naturally, is the part of the family history that I know best. There were happy and sad times. My father struggled to keep the High Creek Mill going. He undertook the job of bringing the water down through a ditch higher on the hill. This mill race provided more power and worked well until the ditch broke and the entire hillside came down. Repairing this was a heart-breaking job for my father, but somehow he got it done. He also had troubles with water rights and the lawsuits to protect the historic mill rights. Our social life in Cove centered at the old meeting house about two miles further down the winding road. Here we worshipped, went to school and held all social functions. My parents were both always active in ward affairs. My mother was president of the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association for eight years, a position she held at the time of her death January 26, 1906.”



Mill Homestead

Lewis, the sixth and last child, was born at Cove. When Ada was seventeen, her mother died. At the time of a death, it was customary to have the deceased laid out at home. A man was summoned to make the coffin and the women gathered to sew burial clothes. It snowed the night before her mother’s funeral and it was a sparkling, sunshiny day when they drove to the Richmond Cemetery from Cove. The coffin was transported on an open flat bed sleigh drawn by a team of horses. Until Ada’s father re-married two years later, she had full charge of her five younger brothers and the house. Ada’s father Alma Hendricks married Almeda Larsen June 26, 1907. She was the daughter of Cove’s first bishop John C. Larsen.



Alma Hendricks Almeda Larsen Hendricks

September 11, 1907 Ada married Louis William Larsen, son of Bishop John C. Larsen, and half-brother to Almeda. In five years Ada and Louis moved eleven times. Her husband was a teacher and taught at the Ricks Academy, Rexburg, Idaho, for one year when he was called on a mission to the New England States. Ada and her infant son Richard Hendricks Larsen lived for two years with her mother-in-law in Logan. Upon returning, the couple moved to Lewiston, Utah, where he became principal of the first Lewiston High School. The following year he became the first principal of the Richmond High School. In 1912, a daughter, Louise, was born in Richmond. One year later, in 1913, they moved to Salt Lake City where Louis taught at the Granite High School and finally in the English Department at the University of Utah. Sometime in the early 1920’s he left teaching to engage in a career of advertising. Ada was a devoted homemaker, keeping it immaculate and inviting. Her hobby was flowers which she raised in abundance inside and out. She had three children, one daughter and two sons. The youngest, Thomas William, was killed during World War II at Mt. Belvedere, Italy. After her children were married she turned to genealogy. For years she went every Thursday to the Society to work with a researcher. Her home was bulging with records and she has placed many names in the Salt Lake, Logan, Idaho Falls and St. George Temples. She also aided in the publishing of a Hendricks genealogy book. When her husband passed away September 15, 1972, they had been married sixty five years. At the time of her death March 30, 1975 at age 87 years she was the oldest member of Brighton Camp of the Druthers of the Utah Pioneers. She was not a native of Butler, but moved there to make her home in May of 1948 and reside there for twenty seven years. The year they moved to their new house at 3120 E. 7800 South, was a heavy snow storm. They felt so isolated in their home that they locked their doors for two or three weeks and went to Salt Lake to stay with children.



Ada and Louis Larsen

Ada’s husband was a professional writer and naturally wrote for a hobby. Much of his writing was poetry. Ada Vilate Hendricks Larsen as the inspiration for many of his poems. This is one of those poems.

Mother
Her gentle presence filled a home
With comfort and delight
That radiated from her soul
Like soft celestial light.
If fell round us like a glow
Of sunshine from above
And filled our hearts with solace
From a sweet transcendent love.

Her magic kiss dispelled the cares
That crowded thick and fast;
Lo, ere we knew it, unawares,
Our sorrows all had passed.
A word, a touch, the deed was wrought,
She healed a bleeding heart;
The saddening things were all forgot,
So wondrous was her art.

She realized her noblest call
In toiling for her own;
A benediction fell on all
Within that hallowed home.
She moved about; her gentle voice
Like music’s softest strain
Went out to make a world rejoice,
An infinite refrain.

Ah, greater love hath none than this---
For every life she gave,
Her own she put upon the rack,
Serenely faced the grave.
Her cup of sorrow oft ran o’er;
The days filled up with cares;
She lived to bless the lives she bore,
With love and tears and prayers.
Louis W. Larsen

Following are some of the stories from Ada’s life that she told to her daughter Louise Larsen Armstrong.

Ada’s mother taught school in Richmond when she was a girl of only fifteen. Some of the boys she taught were taller than she and were sometimes difficult. One of the fathers provided her with a willow to insure discipline. At age fourteen, she was secretary of the first Primary organization in Richmond. In her early womanhood Ada’s mother had typhoid fever which weakened her heart and now doubt resulted in her early death at the age of thirty eight.

Alma, Ada’s father, got experience in flour milling. During the busiest seasons, Alma would go to Cove and help his half-brother William Dorris Hendricks, Ada’s grandfather, and Gowdy Hogan, in 1862-63, in the mouth of High Creek Canyon. A word more about William Dorris Hendricks-----At age seventeen, he was one of the youngest members of the Mormon Battalion, serving as a bugler. His parents James Hendricks and Drucilla Dorris Hendricks built the first adobe building and operated a lunch counter at the Warm Springs in North Salt Lake. James Hendricks was also first bishop of the Nineteenth ward, one of the nineteen wards first organized by Brigham Young after arriving in Salt Lake.

While operating the flour mill the flour was sacked in bags marked Remus Omaha Bag Company. A certain weight, or measure, was remove4d from each bag of flour to pay for the bag. Sixty pounds of wheat was exchanged for forty pounds of flour. This was the way they made a profit.

Her mother Vilate had a doctor book and consulted it frequently. Dr. Adamson, who had become a close friend of the family, would stop by when visiting someone in the area. Having been called to attend a sick baby of another family living up High Creek, he stopped to say “hello.” Vilate inquired of the condition of the baby and Dr. Adamson said he didn’t expect the child to live. As soon as he had left, Vilate took Ada and her doctor book and went to see the child. Ada didn’t remember what she did for the baby recovered, but he recovered. On his next visit, Dr. Adamson stopped again to ask Vilate where she had received her license to practice medicine. He remarked that the child had improved and he wanted Vilate to know that she had hurt his reputation as a doctor. This was all in fun. Many humorous stories were told of the good doctor. Ada’s brother Fenton after attending a dance to Richmond walked out to drive his young lady home only to find his horse and buggy gone. Everyone knew everyone else’s outfit and stealing was unheard of in that day. Suddenly Dr. Adamson came driving up with it. He also had attended the dance but had a call to make and rather than walk across the street to his home and harness his own horse and buggy, he said he knew Fenton’s rig so be borrowed it.

Ada’s grandfather had five wives and forty three children. The year Ada was born there were seventeen other grandchildren born. Ada remembers an interesting story involving her grandfather. Richmond at that time had hard dirt sidewalks. During wet weather mud puddles in the road would be covered with board planks for crossing. It was necessary at times for persons crossing on the planks to wait their turn or walk in the mud. One day Ada met her grandfather waiting for her to cross. She happily said “hello grandpa,” and he patted her on the head and said, “Whose little girl are you?” Ada replied, “I’m Alma’s little girl.” He said, “run on home to your Mother and tell your daddy hello”

Ada in her teen years spent many days with her grandmother, William Dorris Hendricks second wife Alvira Lavona, and cherished the memory of a close relationship which she did not share with her grandfather, whom she always admired but did not know well. Each of the five wives had a lovely home of her own built by W. D. Hendricks. She relates helping Grandma Hendricks carry a mattress home down the street, having just filled it with fresh straw from a neighboring stack which had just been opened. This was in preparation for the coming winter. This was usually done once a year.

Alvira Lavona in front of her home

Whenever there was a funeral in town, Grandma Hendricks, who lived alone, without a phone of course, would get dressed and sit on her front porch until someone noticed her or remembered to stop by for her. Every woman had a good black dress and was thus ready for a wedding or a funeral.

Ada’s maternal grandmother Julia Ann Petty having turned her home into a hotel needed all the willing hands she could find, and Ada helped in this home often with the table and other chores. Her favorite memory was of the traveling theatrical troupes who stayed with her grandmother and performed in all the neighboring towns. They slept during the day, performed in the evening and Grandma Petty had a dinner prepared for them after each show and they then played cards late into the night. A popular game of the time was Fan Tan. Women never traveled with a company which necessitated men playing the part of women. She was startled one day to see a side door open from one of the rooms and the most beautifully dressed woman she had every seen emerge and stroll downtown. It was, of course a man in costume shocking the townspeople.

When the first post office was opened, the United States government sent their own person out to run it. The people felt that the government did not trust a Mormon in this position to handle their own mail.

Peddlers roamed the countryside selling post and pans, fabric, ribbon, laces and thread. This was as exciting to the women on the farm as a day shopping nowadays. Fabric was also purchased in mercantile stores in Richmond and Logan. Ada in her middle teens clerked in the Richmond Mercantile for a Mr. Monson, of whom she was very fond. Ada and her mother would take their fabric and pattern and frequently drove the horse and buggy to Smithfield to have a dress made or fitted.