MARIA DELILA VAN LEUVEN ALLDREDGE
Mariah Delila VanLeuven (known as Delila) was born to
Mariah Elizabeth Durfee and Newman VanLeuven on the eleventh day of November
1882 in Aurora, Utah, a town named by her father and meaning beautiful. She
learned from her parents about the beauties of the earth. She had a happy
and active childhood in Aurora, made up of both work and play. Her carpenter
father made toys for his children - little chairs, dressers, and tables and
she had dolls and other playthings. She often enjoyed a game of checkers
or dominos with her father. One of her favorite sports was to play baseball
with her brothers and that may be the reason she was such a baseball fan
and loved to attend the games of her grandsons and great grandsons as long
as she lived. She was educated through the eighth grade while in Aurora.
Delila had her share of work to do on the farm along with other
members of the family - hoeing the big garden, and doing household chores.
She says, "Boy! Fun we did have there! We had a farm. We had to work,
but we had fun while we were working!"
Her mother taught her to do many useful things. From their sheep they carded
the wool and made it into yarn. They mixed white and black wool in varying
degrees to attain the different shades of grey that they wanted. When Delila
was older she was taught to help knit that yarn into the mens' socks.
She also learned to crochet and has been doing it ever
since. At the age of nine she was awarded a prize at the county fair for
a tidy (doily) she had made. She did other handwork also, such as hair flowers,
and those made of wool which were framed in velvet and also hand-beaded collars.
She learned to make quilts and through her later years made a hundred or
more and gave many of them to her children and grandchildren.
Her parents moved from Aurora to Mexico when she was
fifteen years old. Before they left, her young folks' group gave her a lovely
birthday party as a farewell gesture. Her father chartered a train to go
down on and a freight car for the animals, two wagons, and things like that.
They left Aurora on November 24, 1888 and went to Deming, New Mexico close
to the border. They lived in tents there for two weeks waiting for President
Anthony W. Ivins to meet them as had been arranged to help them across the
border through customs. He was so sweet when he helped them through, it didn't
cost them nearly as much as it would have without his help.
In Mexico they went first to Galiana and then moved to
various places during their fifteen years in that country. They lived in
Dublan, Morelos, and San Jose and had good homes and gardens and an active
church and community life. In Dublan they grew strawberries so big her father
said he'd give them a quarter if they could put a strawberry in their mouth
without crushing it.
Delila was always afraid of snakes. In her autobiography
she tells of some incidents with different reptiles:
"When we were living out in Morelos, our horses were
turned loose out in the country and if we had to use them we went and got
them. One day we went to get the horses; and there was a clump of trees,
and he went on one side and I went on the other side. We could see that there
were some animals down a-ways and I looking strongly to see if it was ours
and not paying attention to something under my foot. That's where I stepped
on the Gila Monster. I had my foot right on the neck of a Gila Monster, and
he was throwing his head up and with his tongue way out trying to strike
my leg. Well, when I saw what it was it frightened me to pieces and I jumped
and went to screaming and hollering. And Neil came running over there to
see what was the trouble. By that time he had run down in a hole under the
bushes. Neil said I was white as a sheet. When I got back to the house, Mother
asked what on earth had happened, I was still so white. Two weeks after that
while reaching down in a barrel where we kept our discarded clothes a lizard
ran up under the loose sleeve of my dress. Oh, I was dancing and screaming
and could feel the legs as it moved and Mother was trying her hardest to
get it out. She said, "If you don't stand still I'll never get it out." And
I said, "Mother, I can't! I can't!" I was just a-screaming and carrying on
there; but she eventually got it. But it was weeks before I finally got over
that shock, it kept me so nervous. We had so many experiences with those
rattlesnakes; it was a miracle that we never got bit. Out on the Arizona
Strip one got right under our water wagon. I couldn't kill one, though I
could sure run from them. But Nora got up on the wagon and came down on it
with a shovel and got it. I was out herding Fred Schulze's bucks one day
while the boys went after a load of water. I was sitting under a Cedar tree
reading from the Era and heard something squeaking up in the tree. I looked
up just as a red racer fell down right on my dress where it was spread out
beside me. I throwed that book and my hat and just went out of there on my
hands and knees. I never sat under a tree again. If I was out with the sheep
or anything, I stayed out in the open. That's why I can't stand to even look
at the picture of a snake now."
On August 16, 1902 Delila was married to Isaac (Ike)
Alldredge and four of her six children were born in Mexico. Her oldest, a
daughter named Aritta, lived only a few hours. Their other children were
Irvin, Nora, Lurie, Dee, and Verl. Delila was Ike's second wife. When she
talks of Aunt Annie (his first wife) her comments are, "We never had bad
words, her children were like mine."
In Morelos she lived a mile and a half from the chapel and
had to walk. Once in a while her folks would come by with the buggy and sometimes
they would walk. She was Sunday School secretary and had to be there at eight
o'clock for prayer meeting. Of course, every morning she had to do chores
before she went, come back and get dinner and slop the pigs and anything
that they had to do and then be back to meeting at two o'clock. They had
Mutual on Sunday nights. She was an officer and took her kids with her every
time. They walked that distance back and forth, three times on Sunday. Now
people can't go around the corner unless they have a car.
Because of the Mexican Revolution in 1912 the families
returned to the United States. Delila tells this of their life in Mexico
and what they left behind when forced out:
"We just went through everything - poverty like - and we
just got to where we had built it up and had to leave it all...just all out
in the street. We turned everything we had out to the street. They, the
insurrectors, raided our home after we left. As soon as we moved out the
Mexicans moved in. I had two beautiful hogs all ready to kill...and one hundred
of the pettiest white leghorns (I raised them from five hens) just ready
to start laying." While they lived in Mexico they trusted the local Mexicans.
She explained, "We never did lose a thing from the Mexicans. If you get
a friend, they'd die for you." However, when the family moved back to
Utah, her dad hung a side of pork up and the next morning it was gone.
"Stolen!" she claimed. "In Mexico, we never lost five cents worth
of things!"
During the following nine years they made their home
in several places in Utah and Nevada -- Hinckley, Delta, Abraham, Eureka,
St. Thomas, Kaolin, Mesquite, and St. George. In all of these places Delila
held many church positions in the Relief Society, Sunday School and Primary
organizations. She has held almost every office there is in Relief Society,
being president in Mt. Trumbull. She has been a Relief Society teacher from
the time she was 18 years old.
When the family was living in Mesquite NV in 1918 Delila's
husband, Ike, went back to Utah to find work and left Delila, her new baby,
Verl, and her other four children there for several months. In the following
paragraphs she tells of a faith-promoting incident that occurred while they
were there:
"Tobler, the mill man there, was a great friend of
Dad's and he left him owing some to keep me in flour. And Ike had bought
me a sack of flour before he left. I had some bacon and stuff like that and
I could go to the store and get what we had to have. Across the street was
my neighbor, Mr. H----, and he had a cow that gave five gallons of milk to
the milking and he was separating the milk and shipping the cream. I tried
to get that man to sell me a quart of milk a day for my baby and I would
give him a quarter. But do you think he would do it? I said, "Do you know,
Brig, that you could never get a quarter's worth of cream out of one quart
of milk?" But he still wouldn't let me have it. Then my neighbor up a mile
above us found it out, and he sent his girl down every day for I don't know
how long, with a bucket of milk as full as she could carry it, without slopping
over. And a great big slab of the loveliest bacon; that was the difference
in them. This was the one who was furnishing me with the flour; I could pay
him and he would keep me in flour. Well, a big flood came down and took the
dam out of the river, and that stopped them from making any more flour until
the could get the dam put back in again. Well, he only had three sacks of
flour left in his mill when this flood came. All the neighbors around were
low in flour of course. Then Mr. H----'s wife (the man who wouldn't let us
have the milk) said, "Sister Alldredge, will you let us have some flour?
We have no flour and our babies are hungry." Well, I dished them out a pan
of flour. Then the neighbor over here wanted some and I let her have it.
And I just kept them all in flour until my sack was gone. The last bit of
it I took out and made a batch of biscuits for my children. Well, here they
came, "Have you got some flour or bread or something so we can get enough
for the babies to have something to eat?" I said, "Well, I have just made
the last flour I had into biscuits, but I will divide with you." And if anybody
ever prayed to the Lord for help, I did it; and if anybody was ever answered,
I was. I kept a biscuit apiece for my babies and gave the rest to the three
neighbors. I just trusted in the Lord to see what would happen to us. Well
when Brother Tobler came home (he had to go right by my place to go home
from his mill) he brought me a sack of flour. He said, "Sister Alldredge,
I have been prompted very strongly that you are out of flour." I said , "Brother
Tobler, a prayer never was answered straighter in your life. I have divided
my flour; my last biscuit, with my neighbors who were clear out around here.
I'm so thankful that you have brought this flour. Now I can divide with them
again." And I did. I told my neighbors, "I have flour; now I can divide with
you again." By the time that was gone they had the mill fixed and operating
again.
We had an awful hard time out to Mt. Trumbull when we first went out there.
For three weeks we never had a speck of flour. We had corn meal and that
was about all we lived on. Well, I was never so thankful in my life as when
that sack of flour came into my house, not only for myself but for my neighbors.
I told this once when they were telling faith- promoting stories. I said,
"I am not boasting over this, but I want you to know how the Lord came to
my rescue when I needed it." Several asked me if I had that recorded and
when I said, 'No.' They said, 'You must get that recorded. That will be one
of the greatest things for your children and grandchildren.'"
Delila and her children were in Mesquite for four or five
months then went back to the Delta area for a few years. Their journey on
New Year's Day 1921 from Delta as they were moving to St. George presents
quite a contrast to the ease in which we travel now. They came in two wagons,
her husband driving one team and her fifteen year old son Irvin driving the
other. It took them 13 days, plodding through heavy snow much of the way.
When they stopped to cook along the way, Isaac would scrape the snow away
so as to make a circle for the fire, and a place for chairs around it on
which the children were to sit. At night heated bricks wrapped in blankets
helped to keep them warm in the wagons where they slept. What a trip that
must have been! When they came down off the ridge by Pintura, they were so
glad to get out of the snow and down where it was warm, the kids whooped
and hollered and yelled and played in the sand. They stayed three or four
hours there just letting the kids play in the sunshine.
Their stay in St. George was for only a few months, then
they moved to Mt. Trumbull on the Arizona Strip in that same year of 1921
where she homesteaded. Delila and her children worked hard out to Mt. Trumbull.
They ran a goat herd and shipped the milk north to be made into cheese. They
were 80 miles south of St. George which was the closest town. Her children
remember their years at Mt. Trumbull with much fondness. Their first years
there held many hardships, but it soon grew to be a lively community with
a school and an active branch of the church. She held several church positions
and participated in all the community activities -- the dances, parties,
programs, and celebrations. Every Friday night the town held a dance or other
activity with the young and old folks joining together. Delila said that
her children didn't mind her being there. "They never did act like they
didn't want the parents around. Thank goodness my girlies wanted me to go
with them."
She was very interested in plays, music, and the performing arts. She told
of a time she and her husband were in a play. "I remember the night back
around 1918, when my husband, Isaac and I were filling in with a theatre
troup and I was the maiden and Isaac was the villain and I had to shoot him
in the play. I took quite a while to explain to my children that it was only
a play and daddy would be coming home that night like he always did. After
I shot Isaac he was supposed to fall backwards and as he did his head was
over the line where the curtain came down. As he looked up and saw the curtain
about to bean him he had to decide whether to stay 'dead' or get ot of the
way of the curtain. He moved and everyone laughed to see it."
In May of 1936 because of the drought at Mt. Trumbull
the family moved to St. George and this was her home for the rest of her
life. She did a lot of temple work, helped with cleaning in the temple, and
also laundrying for several months.
Every summer she went to the VanLeuven reunion at Duck
Creek and usually camped out for a week. She only missed one year since about
1939 and that was in 1976. She was a very fun-loving gal and very much enjoyed
all the activities, in her later years mostly as a spectator. If Delila was
there you knew that the activity won't be dull. She said, "I like fun
and have not time for crankiness or crossness."
She had several big birthday celebrations including her
95th where she waltzed with her son, Verl, and did the Virginia Reel with
her grandson, Danny.
She was very close to her brother, Ed. They were nearly
the same age and he taught her almost everything -- they were always together.
He taught her to dance and she loved going to all the dances she could.
Delila was very proud of her children and was very close to
all of them. She knew the names of all her posterity and kept track of them
and which ones were expecting. In 1978 her large posterity numbered: 6 children,
42 grandchildren, 161 great grandchildren, 13 great-greats and 8 or 9 more
on the way.
She indeed fulfilled the scripture in Proverbs 31:27-28
which reads: "She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not
the bread of idleness -- her children rise up and call her blessed."
Delila's granddaughter, Darlene Alldredge
Larsen once wrote in a tribute to her grandmother:
"Grandma loves beauty in her world--and when things around
her were not beautiful she changed them. Crocheting hundreds of beautiful
doilies and large "Last Supper" sacrament table covers, making quilts, beads,
hair flowers, sofa pillows, raising a garden--and her flowers, her beautiful
flowers. How many of us remember the Mother's Days when our gifts to our
mothers were beautiful bouquets of roses carefully selected from grandma's
bushes arranged in fruit jars she helped us wrap with crepe paper to make
them more lovely. Even while living on the strip where water had to be carried
she had beautiful flowers both in and out of the house."
"There is beauty all around when Grandma or her influence
is there because she is love--Love of Life, Love of the Gospel, and Love
of Family."
Delila Alldredge lived to celebrate her 100th birthday
where she once again danced the Virginia Reel. She lived in her own home
until her death on February 17, 1983, three months after her 100th
birthday.
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Compiled by Cindy Alldredge from the following:
1. A tribute written by Dorothy Alldredge (daughter-in-law) - September 18,
1978.
2. Autobiography of Delila VanLeuven Alldredge
3. Tribute written by Darlene Alldredge Larsen (granddaughter)
4. Newspaper article by Elizabeth Weinsheimer.
5. Newspaper article by Janice F. DeMille
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Delila Alldredge
autobiography
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Return to Alldredge Family Genealogy Page
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This history was originally
posted at my site:
http://members.aol.com/Cballd/delila.html