Dear Relatives

BERT RICHARD SUTTON

Bert Richard Sutton, son of Richard Davis and Elizabeth Van Wagoner Sutton was born the 23^rd of January 1880 in Provo City, Utah County, Utah. He received his formal schooling in the Provo schools and Brigham Young University. He married Naomi Anna Douglas and they made their home in Provo. Bert was a lifetime druggist and operator of the Sutton Café. He was druggist of the Sutton Chase Drug and Provo Drug Stores. He was affiliated with R.A. Morrefield in the café.

He was a member of the Provo Rotary Club, and enjoyed the hobbies of hunting and fishing.

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PARLEY PRATT VAN WAGONER

Parley Pratt Van Wagoner was born at Midway, Utah, on the 6^th of November 1863, the son of John Halma Van Wagoner and Nancy Elizabeth Young. On October 24, 1884, he married Emma Slack Jones. They made their home in Provo, Utah, for a time, later moving to Mammoth, Utah, and then to Raymond, Alberta, Canada. To this union were born ten children.

Parley followed his father’s trade and was an excellent carpenter. It is said he cut so accurately that he seldom had to re-saw a board or re-set a door. He worked in Provo, Park City, and Robinson (Juab County) where he framed timbers for the Grand Central Mine. In 1903 he moved his family to Raymond, Alberta, Canada, where he built many of the first homes and barns. He lived in Canada for 17 years, and could be called a pioneer of that community.

In 1920 he and his family moved to Long Beach, California; then to Los Angeles, where he continued working as a carpenter and contractor. He built many lovely homes in this area. His wife, Emma, passed away a short time after they moved to California. He later remarried. He died in Los Angeles, California, on the 26^th of May 1934.

His sons, Parley and Lynn Van Wagoner were both contractors and builders. Parley passed away in 1954, but Lynn is still living in California. His daughter, Grace Van Wagoner Swan, lives in the Los Angeles area. Another daughter, Maude Van Wagoner Sorenson, is living in Raymond, Alberta, Canada.

EVA ELIZA VAN WAGONER POWEL

Written April 1938 by Eva Powell

I was born in Provo, Utah, the 18^th of March, 1886, a daughter of Parley Pratt Van Wagoner and Emma Slack Jones. After I was four years old father built a home near the Provo Cemetery, where I lived until I was ten years old, when my father go a job in Mammoth, Utah, framing timbers for the Grand Central Mine. We lived there for six years. My father built a number of homes there.

When I was sixteen we moved to Provo Second Ward, which is now the Sixth Ward, in my Grandfather Jones’ home. We lived here one year. I attended the Franklin School, but my eyes proved to be so bad I was told to leave school by my doctor, which I did in the seventh grade. I had not been able to see the writing on the board except from the teacher’s desk, and I wore glasses from my tenth year, but I have been blessed that I have done all my sewing for my large family.

Father moved us to Raymond, Alberta, Canada in April, 1903. That same year I met my husband, Ray, he having come that year with his mother and two younger brothers to visit his sister and brother-in-law, Warren Depew, who had come from Payson, Utah, with the Mormons who migrated with Jesse Knight to do farming. I went with Ray three years and we were married Dec. 21, 1906, in the Salt Lake Temple. We spent our honeymoon in Utah visiting loved ones, returning to Raymond one month later in 40 below zero weather. Many hundreds of cattle died that winter. We lived in Raymond 21 years, but never naturalized. My father, Parley Pratt Van Wagoner, moved to Long Beach, California, the spring of 1920, later moving to Los Angeles where he died. Mother died in Log Beach their first year there and was buried in Provo, Utah. Father was buried in California.

Ten of our children were born in Canada, and four died there. When our first child was one year old, we sent Ray’s brother, Albert, on a mission to Ireland for two years. We took his farm, but we had hail and drought, and had to look elsewhere for work to keep him on his mission. We went on the Mendenhall ranch to work where we earned enough to keep Albert. He completed his mission, and the Lord has blessed and helped us ever since. We have always paid our tithes and have never been hungry and have owned our own home most of our lives. The winter I spent on the ranch I never saw a woman. Indians came to the ranch, but I was not afraid. I felt contentment.

We returned to Raymond to live. Ray worked on some of the largest farms there, plowing and disking hundreds of acres of land for the Sugar Company, and he also worked in every part of the sugar factory. It was here he learned to take care of electric wiring. He later took a course in electricity by correspondence.

In 1924 we moved to Payson, Utah. Our daughter, Shirley V., was born there. The following spring he applied for a job as city electrician in Nephi, Utah , and was accepted. After we came to Nephi Mildred, our twelfth and last child, was born. Shirley V. died here at the age of four years.

On August 24, 1938, my husband was called to be second counselor to Bishop P. B. Cowan of Nephi South Ward. He has also served as superintendent of the Sunday School and as scoutmaster. He was later called to the Juab Stake High Council.

Eva Eliza Van Wagoner Powell passed away December 6, 1961, at Nephi, Utah. She was buried in Payson Cemetery. She was a woman of great faith. She was active in the L.D.S. Church, serving in many capacities, both Stake and Ward. She was greatly loved by all her friends, and neighbors. She was a woman of great charity, doing many kind deeds for those she loved. She helped in the homes of the sick and visited the old and infirm. She was the first President of the D.U.P. in Nephi, and spent many hours writing histories of pioneers of Nephi who were still living at that time. From the time she was very young she started a series of diaries. She left a wealth of material concerning her life, and the events that happened world wide.