Rebecca Hughes Claridge (Porter)

Rebecca Hughes Claridge (Porter)

B-April 21, 1877

Orderville, Kane, Utah Territory

D- May 31, 1952

Safford, Graham Arizona

B- June 2, 1952

Thatcher, Cemetery, Arizona

Rebecca was 73 years old - Photo taken in 1950

Rebecca is 20 years old - Photo taken in 1909

 

This picture was taken in 1934 of Rebecca and Faye.  On the back of the picture, it states that this picture was taken before anyone knew it had been done.  Both subjects didn't like having their picture taken.  It was in the cabin at Mt. Graham. 

Faye was 3 in this picture.  The picture was taken in September 1909 while her father, James Porter, was on his mission. 

Early Memories of My Mother by Faye Porter Payne

When I was very small child I remember sitting very close to my Mother in Church. She always worn a very full skirt and a pretty lacy long sleeve blouse with a high lacy neck band. To me she was elegant! Oh but testimony day! I sat very close to Mother because I knew someone bearing their testimonies would cry. When they did, I would wrap the many folds of my mamma's skirt over my head and around me. Tears from mamma's and papa's made a very strange feeling in my chest. I just didn't want grown-ups to cry! I wasn't frightened it just stirred me up and I and it hurt where my chest was. As I grew up I still wished people wouldn't cry during their testimonies. Why, I don't know. Then one day I picked up an early Improvement Era and there it was! The answers I had waited so long for. It read: Tears fall and hearts swell, our spiritual nature is developing toward our divine potential. "Commanding us to be perfect, even as out Father in Heaven is perfect." The Lord is asking us to become what we were spiritually born to be. There was my answer. From then on crying during testimony bearing was beautiful. I cried with them and I still do. (D&C 62:3 " Nevertheless, ye are blessed for the testimony which you have borne is recorded in Heaven for the angels to look upon, and they rejoice over you, and your sins are forgiven you. Faye Porter Payne

My Mother by Faye Porter Payne

Her life was like a placid river, flowing toward the Kingdom of God. When the summons came for her to join the choir invisible and gather with that mighty throng of men and women whose garments have been washed in the blood of the Lamb and who have valiantly trodden the winepress of affliction; she will receive the Masters, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord." Happy, happy, happy has been her earth life. Joyful will be her eternal life. None of we children remember ever seeing her defeated or unhappy. Her life was a symphony of sweet thoughts, good deeds, inner strength and courage, peace and happiness. She had a saintly composure. To my daughters, her granddaughters, I would like to add--Carry on the works of righteousness; of courage, patience and understanding insight. Take the high path and reach up and out and forward. Stand by the ideals and patterns of life revealed by the Lord to his prophets. These patterns of life bring the reward of inner peace and true happiness.

Life History

Rebecca Claridge Porter 21 April 1877--31 May 1952 Rebecca Hughes Claridge was born April 21, 1877 at Orderville, Utah, just two hours before her father Samuel Claridge left Orderville to fill a mission to England. She was the seventh child, and first daughter, born to Samuel and Rebecca Hughes Claridge. Of most of her life, Rebecca Hughes Claridge Porter has written the following: " I was just six years old when we came to Arizona from Utah, and I can remember a few little incidents. I remember we had two or three covered wagons loaded with all our belongings and I know we brought a heard of cattle with us for I well remember Jo letting me ride behind him on his horse. I think Jo and Hyrum drove the cattle. There were three families of us, Carpenters, Brinkerhoff's and us. I think I was the only girl in the company. We had only been here about three months when my sister Nell was born. Our home was a tent and one room made of willows, but it wasn't long before father built an adobe house with three rooms in it. We lived there until I was 13 years old. Mother was very clean, every week she and I would clean all the doors and windows and scrub the floors, and how we would clean on Saturday nights. I had chills and fever down there, every other day I would be sick with a hard chill and fever then the next day I would help mother, as she had so much to do with five boys older than I, and Nellie, Mercy, Julie and Kate that were all born in that house. When we moved up in town to our big new home, (April 14, 1892) Mother and I were thrilled. We tore and sewed rags, and had rag bees (they used to call them) where we would cook a good dinner , invite a lot of ladies to come and sew rags together, and at the end of the day we would feel well paid for our work, with a big pile of balls of rags in the corner of the room all sewed. When we got enough rags sewed together, and enough for a carpet for a room we would have it woven into strips, then sew the strips together, to make the carpet cover the floor from wall to wall. I never will forget how nice those carpets looked in our new house. Father was Bishop of the Thatcher Ward at that time and we had lots of company; and dear mother would cook big dinners for company. I was just budding into womanhood, and was very proud of our new home. When I was about 15 I went to school, the Academy. When I was 14 Father and Mother left all the children with me and went to Pine Crest (Pinetop, Az 1 July 1892) in the Northern part of the State to a conference. I remember father and mother warning me of the open well that had a curb around it, and we had to draw our water out of it in buckets, they were afraid of the little children climbing up on the curb and falling down into the well. I assured them I would watch them carefully. Kate was the baby and was only two years old. Joy and I were in full charge, as he was twelve and I was fourteen. The older boys were Married. There were Ed, Nellie, Mercy, Julia, and Kate to care for, and we all slept in one bedroom because we felt much safer. One night after we had gone to bed, and all the children were asleep, I heard someone come in the kitchen. I nudged Joy and he was awake and said he heard it too. We layed cross ways of the bed and I think there were two of the children between us. Joy and I were the only ones awake, and were we scared. We kept quiet as a mouse and every time we'd hear a noise we'd nudge each other. Finally we were overcome with sleep and never heard the noise again. The next morning a big ham that had been hanging on the screen porch was gone, and a couple more things, but we felt lucky anyway that they didn't bother us. Father and Mother were gone about ten days, and we were all well when they came home. We were a very happy bunch to see our parents again. When I attended school it was understood with the Principal (George Cluff, 1891-1895) that I would stay out of school one day each week to help Mother wash, and every morning I had to get up and clean up all the bedrooms before I left for school. Mother liked the day I stayed out, because I would tell her all the gossip about the boys and girls at school. We always did the ironing at night, and about 11:00 pm we would stop ironing to eat us a quiet bite as Mother used to call it. It would consist of eggnog and toast, or cornmeal gruel and toast, but how I enjoyed it. Father was very strict with me, and just now and then he would let me go to a dance, but Mother would help me beg him on some occasions and we would win out. The next day I would manage to tell Mother everything that happened. Joy used to have to go with me but I generally came home with some boys. The dance hall was just across the street and Joy could come home and hide and watch us come home. He'd even eavesdrop on us, and the next day he would tell me everything we'd had said. I wouldn't get mad at him because he wouldn't tell Father about me coming home with some boy. When I go to be sixteen I had my boy friends come to the house. I met Jim Porter when I was sixteen, at school. He was with other boys that came from Safford down to the Academy. He asked me at school if I would be to the dance in Allred's hall that night and I said I thought so. He told me that there were some boys coming down from Safford to the dance. Of course I wanted to go and Father said I'd better not go, but Mother knew I had a crush on Jim Porter. She helped me to go to the dance. We had a new carpet to sew up the strips. Mother said at the supper table Reby and I are going to sit up tonight and sew up a strip or two of the carpet. Pay went to bed at his usual hour with Mother and I busy sewing on the carpet. When Pas had gone to bed, Mother told me to hurry and get ready and she would walk over to the dance with me. She told me to be sure and be home at 12:00 which I did, accompanied by my boyfriend Jim,. This was the first time that I had even come home with him, and from then on I went with him steady until we were married two years later. Jim's Father owned two large freight outfits, sixteen horses on each, and Jim drove one of the. The freighted ore from Globe to Wilcox and they would be gone on one trip for about one month. We did really enjoy ourselves the few days that we spent together at the end of the trip when he was home. He would stop at our house when he came home from Globe with his three or four large wagons and sixteen horses. I would get up in the high seat with him and go home with him to Layton. He would clean up and then we would take his Mothers nice buggy and come back down to our house. It would just be two or three days and then he would be off again on another trip. Freight discontinued during the two years of our courtship and they sold their big outfits. Jim kept part of his and freighted in a smaller way. His Father went off and he kept his Mother, his sister Maude, and Harry, his little brother, until we were married. Of course our wedding was a grand affair. Jim's sister Maud and Karl Cluff were married the same time we were, only they were married the 15th of September and we were married on the 16th (1897). We had a big free dance together on the night we were married and what a night--it rained and such a flood we had to pay the musicians to play all night and everyone danced until morning as we couldn't get home. They had to take everyone home at daybreak in big wagons, there was so much water. Maud and I had wedding dresses alike, long white satin trimmed with wide silk lace, and long white veils which touched the floor, and orange blossoms. We had about 75 guests and had a big hot dinner at 6:00. I remembered Mother Hired Aunt Cynthia Layton to help cook the dinner. Of course we had a big dance that night and it was free for all. We lived with Jim's Mother for three or four months, until our home was fixed up. It was on the big ranch at Solomonville which George Foote and Jim had rented. Our home consisted of one room about 16 x 16. Our room was comfortable with a homemade carpet which I sewed the rags for before I was married and Mother had woven. We had a bed, stove, and Jim made a table and cupboard. We were very happy for all I had left a good home of eight rooms and everything comfortable. We lived there that year and in the spring just when our crops were ready to harvest, a flood came and took everything we had. All we came out with was a new machine Jim bought me as we were going to have a baby. In August he moved me down to Mothers where the baby was born (Vera August 3, 1898). We stayed there until Jim built us a one room lumber house on Fathers ranch, which Jim and Wilf rented that year. We moved down there in September 1898, just one year after we were married. Vera died that winter in January and in December 1899 (December 11, 1899) Lola was born in that home. In 1900 we moved to Bryce on 40 acres Jim bought. For the next several years Rebecca and Jim lived on this farm at Bryce. Three more children were born there. Faye, their third child , was born December 5, 1901. Their fourth child, and first son, Glen was born October 16, 1903. Their fifth child Priscilla Layton was born November 24, 1905. Transportation at this time was all by horse and buggy. Jim always had the best and prettiest horses pulling his carriage. It took them to and from church where Jim was in the Superintendence, and Rebecca a teach in the Sunday School. Since there were no stores in Bryce, they did all their shopping at Webb's store in Pima, across the river. At times this river would run so high they would have to use a boat to cross on. But it was the horse and buggy that regularly took them to Grandmother Claridge's for a visit. It wasn't infrequent that the buggy would get stuck in the quicksand as it tried to cross the river. In 1908 Rebecca and Jim moved to Thatcher. They bought the brick home on main street just across the street from Grandfather and Grandmother Samuel and Rebecca Claridge's home. It was here that Lorraine, their sixth child was born on august 23, 1908. Shortly after this Jim was called to fill a mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. With a family of five, it wasn't easy for him to accept but Rebecca encouraged him to go. Before leaving in September 1909 Jim rented out his farm in Bryce to help keep his family at home and him on a mission. Rebecca rented out rooms in the home to also help cover the expenses. Rebecca and her baby Lorraine accompanied Jim to Salt Lake City in order that she and Jim could go through the Temple and get their endowments. On January 30, 1898 James Porter and Rebecca Claridge Porter had been married for time and all eternity in a room set aside for this purpose in the Christopher Layton home in Thatcher, by Apostle John Henry Smith. This was an approved arrangement because of the difficulty of travel, and couples would later go to the Salt Lake City Temple to receive their endowments. Rebecca and Jim left their other children with the Claridge grandparents. Rebecca's brother Edward Claridge was called on a mission about the same time so he moved his wife Lillian and two children into two rooms of Rebecca's home, which made for a pleasant and enjoyable relationship for each of them. When Jim returned from his mission he moved the family back to Bryce. They farmed their place for one year, sold it and moved back to the home in Thatcher. It was here on November 8, 1913 that their seventh child Sybil was born, and on august 25, 1916 their eighth and last child Beth Lenore was born. In 1918 Jim bought the Ed Carpenter farm. They built a beautiful red brick home there. However, before it was completed in 1920, they had sold their other home. The family moved into the red brick school house just behind the present high school building on the north side. They lived here until they could move into their beautiful new home. The remainder of their lives were spent in this home and on this farm. Rebecca loved her beautiful new home. It was the center of the entire families activities. She maintained it as such even though she worked long in primary and Relief Society. At one time or another Jim was President of the Mutual Improvement Association, Superintendent of the Sunday School and Bishop of the East Ward at Thatcher. Rebecca passed away May 31, 1952. Jim followed her in death May 1, 1958. They are both buried in the Thatcher Cemetery.