ANGELINE
VILATE STEWART BUTTARS
1874-1931
ANGELINE
VILATE STEWART BUTTARS
Angeline Vilate Stewart was born in Clarkston,
Cache, Utah on June 30, 1874; fifth in a family of twelve children. There
were seven boys and five girls. Her parents were Samuel Thompson Stewart
and Mary Ann Clark Stewart. They lived in Clarkston, west across the road
from the Clarkston meetinghouse that now stands.
When Angeline was in her teenage years,
most of her family moved to Teton and St. Anthony, Idaho, leaving her the
only one of the family in Utah.
She got her schooling in Clarkston in
the log schoolhouse across the road south from the southeast comer of the
town square. She completed the five Readers, and Arithmetic, and took the
penmanship class given by Alfred White.
She was baptized a member of the LDS
Church in the Clarkston creek at age 8.
As a teenager, her sister Julie was
dating Charles William Buttars. When Julie didn't
think she liked Charley well enough to marry him, Angie said, "Let me have
him." Her father told her, "One thing about it, he will always be a good
provider." At the age of 18 years old, Angeline married Charles in the
Logan Temple on May 18, 1892. They were sealed for time and all eternity.
They started their newly married life
in a two-room log house about 2 ½ miles north of Clarkston, on a
ranch of about 240 acres. It was a homestead ranch. The interior of the
log house was lined with "factory cloth" which was kept whitewashed to
be spotlessly clean and sweet smelling.
Angeline did the work of a pioneer woman,
carrying water from the creek to do her washing on a washboard. She cared
for her family efficiently. She cooked and cared for many hired men. She
picked currants and gooseberries from the thorny bushes to put up her fruit.
She also grew her own rhubarb and sageplant. She was a busy woman, a good
manager, and a happy wife.
Angeline dearly loved and greatly admired
her husband Charles. He was good and kind to her and gave her anything
she wanted, as near as possible. She was left alone a lot, as Charley would
get home after midnight many times from the range. She would wait for him.
She could tell he was coming by the smooth gallop and tune he whistled
sometime before he arrived.
They raised a family of nine children,
five girls and four boys. The eldest child, a boy named Archie, died in
infancy. They lived on the ranch until the fourth child was old enough
to start school.
Their home in town was a two-room log
house with an attic upstairs. A lean-to was built onto the west and south
later. It was about three blocks north of town, out by City Creek. During
her childbearing years Angie contract asthma, which was a detriment to
her health. She would sit up most of the night sometimes, because she couldn't
breathe when she lay down. Charles had a lot of horses and he took a great
deal of pride in them. He would hitch up the team and take Angeline to
the mountains in the night because she could breathe better up there. This
went on quite a long time. Then she decided to go to the temple and be
given a prayer for her health. After that she improved gradually until
she was relieved and cured. This was a faith-promoting incident to all
of her children. They were so happy to have their mother well.
When her husband, Charles, was 37 years
old, very suddenly one morning he became sick and was in a lot of pain
with an appendicitis attack. Getting a doctor to come from Logan took many
hours in those days. Charles suffered terribly all day. The family did
all they could to help him, but he did not improve. By 6 p.m. that night
when the doctor arrived, he was nearly dead. The doctor couldn't do anything
except to give him a pill to relieve the pain. Charles died that night
of October 5, 1908, of a ruptured appendix. Angie was in poor health at
that time and was unable to attend the funeral because of her asthma. The
family was sadly stricken.
He left a family of nine children under
the age of 14. The oldest boy, Ben, was only
10 years old and the baby boy, Earl, was 4 months old. That was when Angeline's
qualities as a good woman were brought forth and put into action. The load
was heavy with a large family, a 320-acre farm with a $6,000 debt against
it, eighty head of horses still on the range, and fall crops (October)
not yet planted. Charley's brothers got together and decided what could
be done. They advised Angie to sell the farm; but it would be difficult
to do with the debt. The oldest boy, Ben, was only ten years old. Angie
decided to keep the farm and sell the horses to pay the debt.
Somehow they got by. Ben helped round
up the horses and found all but eighteen. All were sold except a gentle
team of trotters for the buggy, and a mare to raise colts. By the time
Ben was sixteen, he ran the farm and provided for the family by himself.
Angie was lenient with her children
in things she gave them, but in matters of principles, she was very strict.
Being mother and father both, she kept a stick in the corner and used it
when they were disobedient. She, like her husband, was very meticulous.
She whitewashed her walls every spring, even in her log house that only
had a dirt floor. Where she couldn't whitewash, she hung sheets to look
clean and bright. The Depression brought further financial problems, as
well as the loss of her oldest daughter with five little children.
Angie developed sugar diabetes (as did
her son, Ben). She had been given a blessing early in her life that she
would live until the time her family was grown. When her youngest child,
Earl, was 23 years old, she died on May 30, 1931, at the age of 57 years.
All her children were married in the temple.