History of Nellie Baird (Pugh)
History of Nellie Baird (Pugh)
By Delsa Pugh (Stevens)
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Nellie Baird was bon one cold December day three days after Christmas on the 28th of December, 1878. She was the second daughter and fourth child of Brigham Young Baird and Margaret Elizabeth Allen (Baird). She was a lovely blue-eyed blond, and soon won the hearts of her two older brothers and one sister. Her younger brothers and sisters learned to love and respect her as they came along too.
Her father died of Pneumonia when she was just 11 years of age, so she learned to keep house, cook and sew very early as this was her part in helping her family. She also helped with the work in the garden and orchard. She often told her children what wonderful apricots, peaches and other fruits and vegetables they grew. She also learned to milk cows, weave carpet and rugs as well as other country chores.
She attended grade school and graduated from the 8th grade. She was popular with the neighborhood children and did as the other girls in the town and often competed with her brothers and sisters and friends in athletic competition. �Foot racing� was especially popular. Her brother Brigham Young Baird Jr. tells that she was the �fastest thing on two legs� that included the boys as well as the girls in the whole county. He told a story about the time when a school teacher (a lady) came to Kanab from the valley (Orderville) and announced that she could beat any young lady in 10 counties. Nellie�s brothers had to coax Nellie to the starting line, as she really didn�t want to run. The lined her up then shouted �GO!� The visiting lady teacher started to run, but Nellie did not. Then her brother quickly pushed her from behind. She was forced to take a few steps to keep from falling. �Then!� he reported, �She picked up her skirts and began to run. She passed up the school teacher as if she were standing still.�
Effie, her youngest sister said, �Nellie was considered to be one of the most beautiful young women in town and was an excellent and popular dance partner. She could also sing and play organ. Early in their teens Charles Robert Pugh and Nellie seemed to choose each other as companions, but as she was a very lovely young lady, other young men also wanted to court her. For several years they had a rather stormy courtship. When they had a little misunderstanding, Charles would �pout� and she would date the least popular and homeliest young man in town. Charles couldn�t stand this for long, and would soon be back for another date.
He then went away to school at the B.Y. Academy at Provo, Utah for a year or two. She waited for him to return, but had a hard time keeping the other young men away. I (Effie) would about 7 or 8 years old and she would take me to choir practice ect. so she would have an excuse to not have an escort take her home.
When Charles came home, the young folks met at Nellie�s for a party, and as usual the evening ended with the crowd gathered around the organ to sing. Nellie was coaxed to sing a solo, but was very reluctant. Finally she sang an old favorite �Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder.� After that there were no more spats and Charles and Nellie sealed their love in the beautiful �Temple of Our Lord� in St. George, Washington, Utah on the 21st of December, 1898. To celebrate their marriage they held a lovely wedding dance in the town hall during the Christmas holidays.
They lived their first few months of marriage with his parents in their basement apartment. Then Charles received a mission call to serve in the British Isles. He left Salt Lake City on a train bound for the East on the 10th of July, 1899. Nellie�s older brother Brigham Young Baird Jr. was also in the Depot ready to leave on his mission to the Southern States so Charles and Nellie were able to visit together briefly at this time.
Nellie, a bride of six months, went to the home of her mother to await his return. Their first child, a girl, was born the 12th of October, a few months after he left. When he was notified by letter, he wrote that she should be named after her mother and his mother as well as for a lady mentioned in the Bible and he gave the chapter and verse. When the looked I up, it was Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Then they understood because the name of both this new little girl�s grandmothers were Elizabeth Kelly (Pugh) and Margaret Elizabeth Allen (Baird).Thus this is how �Nellie Elizabeth Pugh� (Roundy) received her name. We call this first child by the nickname of �Beth.�
When Charles returned home from his mission the couple again lived in his mother�s apartment for a time. Charles�s father Edward had passed away on the 14 of September, 1900 at the age of 76 years, while he was away on his mission. Their 2nd child and 1st son was born while they were living here. He was born the 26th of December, 1901 and they named him �Charles Cecil Pugh�. Charles soon moved his little family into the �Old Rock House� which his father had built soon after her came to Kanab in 1870-71. The two rock-rooms had �port holes� in the thick walls reminding them of the need for protection from the Indians. It was the 1st home built outside the fort on a regular Kanab City Lot. More rooms of lumber were added as Charles�s father�s family grew so it was large enough to be quite comfortable for Charles and Nellie. Charles received it as part of his property from his father�s estate. �Delsa Pugh (Stevens)� their 3rd child was born in this old house on April 29, 1904. She was the only grandchild of Edward�s and Elizabeth�s to be born in this house.
Soon after Charles started to build a new home on the North-East corner of the lot. They used the rock in the �Old Home� for the foundation for the new one. Once again Charles moved his family into his mother�s basement apartment. While there their 4th child �Melba Pugh (Palmer)� was born on the 11th of March 1906.
The new home was a spacious, pleasant, red-brick home with 8 rooms and a bathroom (no tub, ect. as yet) and two large halls. The rest of their twelve children were born while they lived in their new home. 5th �Alton Robert� on (23-24?) July, 1908. 6th �LaVerde Pugh (McCalister)� on 14 September, 1910. 7th �Samuel Edward� on the 9th of October, 1912. (He was killed while serving as an instructor of �Pilot Bombers� in the United States Navy on the 20th of January 1944.) 8th �Lincoln David� on 12 February, 1915. 9th �Effa� who only lived 2 days on 8 April, 1917. 10th a �Stillborn Female� on the 2 September, 1918. 11th a �Stillborn Male� on the 8 January 1920. 12th �Rollace Allen� on the 19th of July 1923. Nine of these children grew to adulthood. Nellie was kept busy sewing, canning, cooking, cleaning and taking care of her large family.
In about 1912 Charles bought a farm forty miles �North of Kanab� called �Sinkvalley.� The family began moving each spring to the �Ranch� and back again in the fall. This added greatly to Nellie�s work, but the children loved to go to the ranch. It seemed there was always something exciting going on.
The Ranch was midway between Panquitch, Sevier County, and Kanab, Kane County. Everyone traveled by �horse and team� in those days and there were few hotels, many travelers camped near our ranch house, especially �the freighters� who brought needed supplies from the railroad to the stores in Kanab. They bought hay and grain for their horses from Charles and Nellie. She soon gained the reputation of being an excellent cook, cheese and butter maker.
The soil around the ranch was black heavy clay and it was almost impossible from travelers to keep moving in it when it rained. Nellie always prepared extra food in stormy weather for it was almost certain that someone would be caught �unawares.� Even in good weather it was no small task to prepare all the bread, cakes, pies and other food it took to feed her own family. Not counting visiting cousins, farm hands, herders and other visitors. The County Agent and other often made it a habit to arrive at the farm just in time to be invited to dinner. Charles and Nellie never let anyone go away hungry. Even tramps were taken in and fed at times.
Probably the most famous visitors who stopped at the ranch were Mr. Delenbaugh, his son and his son�s bride. Mr. Delenbaugh was a young man in Major Powell�s surveying party of the 1870�s and he had returned to visit the country he had traveled, when he was just a lad. The day they came by the ranch it had rained all day and their horses and rigs mired deep into the slippery clay mud and they were unable to travel very fast. Darkness found them hopelessly mired in the mud just a mile below the farm house. They left their buggy and rode the distance. It was very late and everyone had eaten their supper, but Charles and Nellie made them welcome. Nellie took out her best table cloth and silver from the trunk behind the front door. (Kept there for special occasions) and cooked an oyster supper for them. The children were duly impressed and whispered at the �differentness� of the clothing the beautiful lady was wearing. They were most surprised when after discussing sleep accommodations that the couple asked to sleep in the �Sheep-Wagon� which stood next to the house where some of the children slept. They could not imagine anyone preferring it to a nice soft bed. But the young couple explained that this might be their only opportunity to sleep in a �Sheep-Wagon.�
Nellie worked as a Sunday School, Primary Teacher and in the Relief Society until living in two places made it impossible. She did very little church work during these years as taking care of two homes and her large family kept her very busy. When Charles became one of the councilors in the Kanab Stake Presidency, she entertained many Church Officials from Salt Lake City in their home in Kanab as well as Conference visitors from the neighboring towns. Later, when she didn�t go to the ranch anymore, she served as Secretary of the Relief Society.
Nellie always stood beside and helped her husband in all his endeavors and he was a very successful farmer, stockman, and church worker. She kept the �Home-Fires� burning while he was away on his mission to England and again when he was called to serve a short-term mission to the Southern States on the 1st of December 1925 to 28 May 1926. He held many Civic and Church Positions of importance in the community including Councilor in the Stake Presidency and a Commissioinary of Agriculture representing the farmers of Utah. During World War I the Church offered a prize of $1,000.00 to the farmer in Utah who could raise the most potatoes on 1 acre of ground. Charles �we children helped plant the crop� broke the world record and received the $1,000.00 and much notoriety. Letters came from all parts of the United States and Canada and even some from France asking how he accomplished such a feat.
Nellie always gave sage advice and bits of wisdom to her children and perhaps they could be called her greatest �ACHIEVEMENT.� All eight of them who grew to maturity and married, were married �In the Temple of Our Lord�. Each one of them took their places as useful, responsible people in their communities. One son was killed in the service of his country. Her four other sons have at one time or another served as Bishops or in Bishoprics. The husbands of her four daughters have served as either Bishops or in Bishoprics. Three of her daughters have been Presidents of Primary Stake Boards and one of them (Delsa) became a member of the �General Board of the Primary.� The other was active in MIA Stake Work. All of them in one way or another have taught the Indians.
Three daughters taught in the Moccasin Day School and the fourth in the Moccasin Indian Church Activities. (See individual Histories) Three of her sons have served as High Councilmen as well as many civic positions. All eight children are still active in the Church in some capacity at present (1972) and revere the memory of their father and mother. (IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO THINK OF ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER, THEY WERE TRULY AS ONE.)
Nellie suffered from Diabetes from many long years and died on the 18th of April 1937 in the Kanab City Hospital and was buried beside her husband who had preceded her in death by almost exactly two years.
Nellie Baird Pugh's children's recollections of her.
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1976- MY RECOLLECTIONS OF MY MOTHER NELLIE BAIRD
By R. Pugh
I think my earliest and most remembered recollection of Mother is that she was always there with the correct answer to my problems.
She was the most warm hearted woman with a soft touch for a hand-out. Any Hobo that passed through town knew that for chopping a little wood, or weeding in the Garden they could always get a good meal. Three Old Indians always showed up each Spring and Fall, and left carrying all they could hold. There was an old Hermit that had a cave in the bank of Kanab Creek that each Spring he showed up, straight to our house he would come. He never took a bath all winter, and covered his body with grease to keep himself warm. Mother would spread a blanket across the back porch, and set out a tub full of water, he would take her Lye Soap, (that she used to make every spring) and he would have his yearly bath. (I�m sure her Lye Soap would take the hide off a Bull Elk.) The she would get the Sheep Shears out and off would go his hair up to his shoulders, (he was 40 or so years ahead of the kids now-a-days.)
Mother used to spend many hours making chees in the Kitchen, and I�m still a cheese curd hound.
I remember Uncle Lew Baird and how he would come in for his yearly visit from the Sheep Herd. I�d get my red wagon ready to go to Johnson�s Pool Hall and haul him home. I guess I was the only kid in town that could go to the drug store and get a pint of 4 Roses so Uncle Lew could quit shaking and eat something. Then both he and Mother would lecture me for hours on the evils of drinking. She often said that Lew was her favorite brother, if only he could leave drinking alone.
Mother had a waddle or wart on her neck, and as she held me I used to play with it until I would fall asleep.
As her sugar diabetes got worse she used to spend hours weighing her food on a gram scale. She used to tell me she got as much satisfaction out of weighing it as she did eating it.
I can remember how she used to watch for letters from Alton when he was on his mission to England. Her kids were her all. I can remember how she would brag about how Sam and Link could play Basketball. She was even worse on bragging about her Grandchildren. If she knew they were coming for a visit, she would become so elated. I don�t think there ever was a woman born that could keep up with her getting ready for them to come.
I think her greatest joy was going to Sink Valley and going for a wagon ride up the canyon and then making Apple Cider in the Orchard, also going into Alton for the 4th of July celebration.
RECOLECTIONS OF MOTHER
By L. Pugh
I have been trying to decide which episode or experience I should write about Mother. Whether to write of a Candy Pull back when they had a molasses factory in Kanab, or of when she was the �Belle� of the town, or tell of her making thousands of pounds of cheese. Maybe about all the Jelly and Jam she used to make for us, or of the 12 times she went through those nine months of pregnancy�s and of her nursing us all. (Over ten years of her life.) This besides all of the other things she did. WOW!
But my mind keeps going back to the time she was miraculously preserved so she could give life to all of us. She was about 8 or 9 years of age when this incident took place. They, her Mother and Father and family, used to move to what was then called upper Kanab in the early summer, then to a place at the Three Lakes in the middle of the summer and on to Kanab when school started. This took place as they were on their way to Three Lakes. As they were driving the wagon and bringing their furniture with Grandmother driving the wagon and Grandfather on a horse driving the cattle and horses. Grandfather had told Grandmother to go what they called the long way around which was down through Kanab Canyon which is approximately where the highway is now, ten to drive back up to Three Lakes, because there was one place in the short-cut road that Grandpa didn�t want Grandma to have to drive over as it was too slick and steep and therefore, dangerous. But plucky Grandma thought she could do it, especially since she didn�t have time to go around on the longer road. The children other than Mother were awake and sitting on top of the furniture, but Mother was sleeping onteh feather tick mattress that had been put on top of the load, with the stove, cupboard ect. all underneath down in the wagon bed. Well, Grandma being slightly nervous about the place was driving up on the upper side to be as far from the lake as possible, when one of the wagon wheels hit a rock that was buried in the sand. This was just enough to start the wagon tipping. All the children and Grandmother jumped free but Mother, who was asleep when over with the wagon. She said that the jolt of hitting the ground woke her up, but she found she couldn�t move. She was pinned in under the stove, cupboard, ect. She had fallen in the only place that it was possible for her to fall into and not be crushed under the heavy things, the feather mattress had softened the blow of the things on top. She said that air was coming into her from a small hole above her head and as she reached up her hand a few inches she could feel the water of the lake. She said she could hear every word Grandmother and the other children were saying as they called to her. She called back as loud as she could but the feather mattress smothered the sound so they couldn�t hear her at all. You can imagine how frantic Grandmother was. She said she heard them unharness one of the horses and put one of the other boys on and send him galloping back to get Grandpa. While the rest were trying to push the wagon off. With Grandma (a snip of 5 feet) doing most of the lifting I�m sure. They did manage to get it pushed over on to its side up on the hillside then they had to cut limbs to prop it there. By this time Grandpa had arrived and he hooked the horses onto the wagon and pulled it out of the way. They then began taking the things out of the wagon, first the 200lb. cupboard, she said it was a real relief to get that off her feet, then a 100 to 150lb box of dishes ect was lifted from off her legs and she could move a bit. Next the 300lb. stove was removed and she felt like a ton of lead had been removed. Finally they were down to the feather mattress and they carefully removed that expecting to find a crushed little girl underneath, so of course you can imagine they joy and thankfulness that filled them as they lifted the mattress and Mother could push herself up and out of the crevice, turn over, sit up and say �Hi!� Not a bone broken and no worse for the mishap.
Poem � Written by C. C. Pugh about Nellie Baird Pugh
Nellie was born in Kanab, Utah the 28th of December 1879.
The fourth child in the family line.
Her parents were Brigham Young Baird and Margaret Elizabeth Allen Baird.
The family loved Nellie and showed her they cared.
Nellie learned to keep house, cook, and sew,
To do the chores and to help the garden grow,
She attended school and graduated from the 8th grade.
In foot racing a real record she made.
As a dancing partner Nellie was often first choice.
She also played the organ and sang with a lovely voice,
Friends and admirers loved this pretty blond with blue eyes,
Charles Robert Pugh was her choice of guys,
In the St. George Temple December 21, 1898 she became Nellie Pugh
And always after Charles and Nellie shared a love that was true.
There would be hardships and soon a parting of their way,
With Charles called on a mission and good bye so hard to say.
Their first child was born while he was in England in 1899.
When Charles returned they were happy and everything was fine,
They lived in the first house built outside of Fort Kanab,
And it was a strong and sturdy home that they had.
There were port-holes in the thick walls of rock,
What Indian stories they could tell if walls could talk.
Charles built a new house as the young family grew.
He also bought Sink Valley and they lived there too.
The family moved each Spring to the ranch and back to Kanab each fall.
Fond memories of childhood are cherished by all.
Many hours were spent in work and the results of those
Were fine animals, crops, and prize potatoes.
Nellie�s life was filled with service and blessings and love
The things that she did had approval from above.
In April of 1935 Charles passed away,
And for Nellie it was such a sad day.
Nellie soon joined her love in April of 1937
�As one� on earth, they are together in Heaven.
Nellie�s loving example, teaching wisdom and truth
Guided her children through their youth.
Children who grew to Maturity and married were eight,
They all married in the temple where blessings are great.
Worthy daughters and sons are a mother�s greatest joys,
And this continues on to grand girls and boys,
And farther on to generations to come.
So let�s show Mother, Grandmother, our love by the things we have done.
